Limited government is a political system in which the power of the government is restricted through delegated and enumerated powers. It is a key concept in the history of liberalism and is closely associated with constitutions and constitutionalism. The United States Constitution of 1789 and the French Constitution of 1793 were both enacted in an effort to reaffirm limited government, although in different ways.

There are two main interpretations of limited government:

• Protection of people and their property: In its basic form, a limited government is one whose main function is the protection of people and their property, and it levies just enough taxes to finance services related to these purposes. According to this interpretation, a limited government might tax the population to pay for police or national defense, but it would not concern itself with the beliefs or moral behavior of its citizens.

• Exercise of specifically named powers: Another interpretation defines a limited government as one that exercises only the specifically named powers that its constitution assigns to it. It can also be characterized by a separation of powers and a system of checks and balances. For example, the U.S. government is restricted to exercising the specifically named powers that the constitution assigns to it.

Limited government is important because it protects individual liberty from government intrusion. It means that certain individual liberties and rights of people are beyond the scope of government control and intervention. The role of limited government is to protect citizens from a too-powerful government and to exist to protect the individual rights of citizens.