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wish, generate far more social good than an intrusive, regulatory, redistributive welfare state.

Reagan also sought to limit the government that Roosevelt wanted to expand. He recognized that America is "a nation that has a government, not the other way around". American government, Reagan realized, does not have unlimited powers subject to changing circumstances. Rather, "[o]ur government has no power except that granted it by the people"; Reagan wished to "check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed." Reagan repudiated Roosevelt's idea that government must expand due to modern society's increasing complexity: "[W]e have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule... But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?" His words directly echoed Thomas Jefferson: "Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?" (Jefferson's First Inaugural Address). Reagan shared with Jefferson a vision of permanently limited government, which "shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned" (Jefferson's First Inaugural Address).

Reagan's vision of individual freedom, limited government, and respect for entrepreneurial activity reflects the American heritage as conceived by Locke, Jefferson, Jackson, and Carnegie. Reagan wanted government restricted to its proper functions while respecting everyone's property rights and leaving all people free to pursue prosperity and happiness. In contrast, Roosevelt violated the very basics of the American heritage, denying the primacy of individual self-sovereignty, rejecting the eternity and immutability of individual natural rights, and giving government full license to expand in conformity with social changes.

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