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Few and Defined

“Few and Defined”
To fix Washington’s overreach, we need to make this definition law again.
Ken Whaley
Oct 13, 2025

If your car’s brakes are failing, you don’t argue about what playlist to put on, you fix the brakes. America’s brakes are the limits on federal power, and they’re grinding loud enough to make your teeth hurt. So in this piece of our three-part series on the Convention of States (COS), we’re going to zero in on the pillar of “Limited Government”, what COS means by it, what it should mean for the country, and how we actually get it done instead of just tweeting about it.

First, let’s be precise about COS’s own terms. The COS effort asks the states to call an Article V Convention for proposing amendments on three specific topics: Imposing Fiscal Restraints, placing Term Limits on Federal Officials, and—our subject today—“Limiting the Power and Jurisdiction of the Federal Government.” That’s not my paraphrase; that’s COS language, and it sets the scope for the whole project.

Now, “limited government” isn’t a bumper sticker for small-government vibes; it has a specific constitutional pedigree. The Founders designed a federal government of “Enumerated Powers”. James Madison summarized the design with brutal clarity: “The powers delegated…are few and defined.” Everything else? Reserved to the states or the people. That is the architecture—federalism, separation of powers, and written limits—that made liberty possible in a big, boisterous republic. If Washington regularly behaves as if its powers are numerous and indefinite, we don’t have a political disagreement; we have a constitutional malfunction which is near meltdown.

What does “limited government,” COS-style, mean in practice? It means drawing bright, enforceable lines around where Washington may act and where it must not. COS itself seems to admit that this pillar can sound vague compared to “balanced budget” or “term limits,” precisely because the creep of federal power has happened through a thousand legal cuts, overbroad readings of the Commerce Clause, elastic interpretations of the General Welfare Clause, and delegation to an alphabet soup of agencies that legislate by regulation. In other words, the problem is systemic, so the fix has to be constitutional.

So, what would that fix look like for the country we actually live in today? In my mind it looks like restoring genuine federalism, reviving the states as the primary units of domestic governance and pushing Washington back to external, national concerns. You know, national defense, treaties, foreign commerce, yea, those darn Enumerated Powers again… It looks like an everyday life where your school board, your town council, and your statehouse make most of the decisions that affect you, and where federal agencies can’t reorder entire sectors of the economy without elected representatives taking a recorded vote. It looks like the laboratories of democracy back in business, with 50 places to try solutions instead of one national one-size-fits-nobody.

How do we accomplish that goal in the real world, not the ideal one? Start with the tool the Constitution itself gave us when Congress won’t police its own growth: Article V of our Constitution. Two-thirds of the states (34) can call a convention to propose amendments, and three-quarters (38) must ratify anything that comes out of it. That’s a high bar by design—no runaway shortcuts here—yet it’s the pressure valve the Framers installed for moments exactly like this.

If the states confine the convention to the COS agenda, they can propose targeted amendments that turn vague guardrails into hard law. Think of examples in four buckets:

1. Clarify federal jurisdiction. Define “interstate commerce” to mean trade that actually crosses state lines, not anything an agency can imagine “affects” commerce. Restore the General Welfare Clause to its original meaning, no more using spending as an all-purpose pretext for regulating what Congress has no enumerated power to touch. These are not abstractions; they are principled course corrections that close the loopholes through which federal bloat has poured for a very long time.

2. Rein in the administrative state. Require a congressional up-or-down vote for any “major rule” with significant impact, and sunset federal regulations unless reauthorized. If Congress wants a rule, let Congress own it, on the record. That restores accountability and ends governance by permanent proxy.

3. Stop federal coercion by grant. Prohibit Washington from attaching policy strings to state grants unrelated to the Constitution’s enumerated powers. States shouldn’t have to rent back their own sovereignty with federal dollars.

4. Guardrails against legislative gamesmanship. A single-subject rule for federal bills and constraints would force clarity and narrow scope, habits that are friends to limited power and enemies to sprawling schemes.

None of these ideas requires you to love or hate any particular policy outcome; they are structural repairs aimed at making self-government possible again. They are also squarely within COS’s mandate to “limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government.”

But let’s not pretend a convention will be a magic wand. Culture eats constitutions for breakfast when citizens go soft. Limited government lives or dies on our habits, on whether “We the People” default to solving problems close to home or demand a federal fix for every frustration. That means some parallel homework while the states work: recruit state legislators who will actually file and vote for the COS application; build local civic muscle so we’re less dependent on Washington in the first place; and get fluent in the Founders’ operating manual so you can politely—but firmly—call BS when you hear it.

If you need a one-line compass, borrow one from James Madison: Federal Powers “Few and Defined”, State Powers “Numerous and Indefinite.” Keep that on your fridge.

And because this is Restore First Principles, we’re going to measure success, not just cheer for it. Over time, we should expect to see fewer federal programs outside enumerated powers; more state-level solutions reclaiming areas like education, policing, and land use; major rules actually voted on by Congress; and a meaningful drop in federal “strings-attached” grants as a share of state budgets. If those needles don’t move, we’ll know we’re still talking about palm trees while the brakes fail.

Where does this leave us in the long game? This post plants the stake: limited government is more than a preference, it’s the constitutional default, and COS provides a lawful, targeted way to restore it. We have previously talked about the second pillar, fiscal restraints, because power without fiscal limits is like giving a teenager a sports car and a credit card with no limit. In addition, we have also tackled term limits, because if you want real accountability, you also have to change the incentives of the people who write and enforce the rules. Together, those three pillars reinforce each other: jurisdictional limits define the “what,” fiscal restraints cap the “how much,” and term limits shape the “who.”

For today, the assignment is simple. Know the truth and speak it, out loud, to your neighbors, and to your state representatives. Ask them to file and vote for the COS application confined to those three pillars. Remind them that Article V isn’t a threat to the Constitution; it’s the Constitution providing a remedy. Then keep your eye on the road and your foot off the palm-tree pedal. The brakes can be fixed, but only if we decide we’re done pretending the squeal isn’t real.

Go to Convention of States, sign the petition and most specifically volunteer and get into the fight!

Link to the original Substack article:

https://restorefirstprinciples.substack.com/p/few-and-defined

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Created:	2025-10-14 21:31 GMT
Updated:	2025-10-19 13:10 GMT
Published:	2025-10-14 21:37 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:07 GMT
Change Author:	Ken Whaley
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