It's interesting to look at this discussion from outside the US. For example, the manifest difference between the federal government and state government. They're both governments. And states vary hugely in size and population and any number of factors. The narrative seems to talk about the federal government as this monster that has to be controlled, while state governments are mostly left out of that narrative, and I've yet to see an explanation for why they are cast so differently. I can't see what the argument is for state level government being the right 'size' and federal not. It's just taken because it is. I mean why not have 1000 states? Or 6? Would those people against federal government turn their sites to state government if they ever achieved their current goals?
Anyway, I was making a contextual observation. When talking about the US constitution (and for that matter I think the same is true of the magna carta) it's cast into a narrative involving two core entities: the people and the government. And then a discussion about the ratio of fed to state authority. I think, given the context in which these documents were written, it's more accurate to recognise at least 3 entities: Tenants, Landlords and the Government. In the UK and other European countries it's perhaps more like 5: Serfs, Tenants, Landlords, Nobles and the Government. Then the conversation is really about how the government reflects the wishes of the other entities. When documents like the Constitution or the Magna Carta talk about 'freemen' they refer to land owners. The magna carta was written explicitly to protect land owners from the common law. If you look at the opinions of those involved in writing the US constitution it seems clear that at the time it was understood that only land owners have a vested interest in government.
So, jumping to now, there is a section of US society that sees the limitation of federal authority as a manifest goal that is held axiomatically, but you have to ask: Who is the axiomatic limitation of federal authority designed to protect, and from whom?