In fact, the only reason our American ancestors accepted the Constitution was because they were assured that its powers would be few, limited, and extremely restricted.

Thus, the Constitution did not call into existence a government with inherent powers, like the traditional "police powers" that characterized governments throughout history. If it had done that, our American ancestors would never have approved it. Instead, it was clearly understood that the only powers that the federal government could legally exercise were those enumerated in the Constitution. If a power wasn't enumerated, it could not legally be exercised.

This is what was meant by the term "limited-government republic." For the first time in history, a people had limited the powers of their own government by the document that called the government into existence.

If Americans didn't like that system, they could change it by amending the Constitution, which provided for the means to do that.

Our American ancestors were still not satisfied. They were still extremely concerned about the possibility that the federal government could end up wielding omnipotent, tyrannical powers over them, similar to those that had been wielded and exercised by King George.

They were particularly concerned that the president, even though democratically elected, might decide to use his power, especially in combination with the military, to arbitrarily kill people.

The advocates of the Constitution did their best to put their minds at ease. They pointed out that the Constitution did not give the federal government the power to arbitrarily kill people. Therefore, since such a power wasn't enumerated, it could not legally be exercised.

Moreover, given the fierce opposition to "standing armies," it was also understood that the president would never have a large military force to impose that type of tyranny on the American people, a tyranny that would involve the arbitrary killing of people.