Slavery , the Southern states trying to separate from the United States, the Wealthy of the 1800s & Great Depression basically hurt the US government being truly limited
limited government means the federal government only handles military & upholding rights of individuals & leaving the rest for the state governments to handle
but the South used this to keep slavery & then tried to separate from the country as a whole! States could not be trusted after this and Abraham Lincoln had to fight the Civil War to end slavery & keep the country together
Government needed many things to be built like trains, technology, guns to win the war & Help the country recover & progress after that. Some wealthy people, called the Robber Barons, like Vanderbilt & Carnegie, made a lot of money from the government trying to fight the Civil War & later. Thru crony capitalism Robber Barons got rich off of the government but helped with politicians keep a government that did not allow the rest of the public to get the same financial help from the same government, especially with financial panics, recessions & depressions.
The worst one was the Great Depression when companies & wealthy stopped investing & stopped hiring & let go of many people. The economy crashed. The US government in fear of growing public outrage started pouring millions into the economy thru the WPA hiring Americans to build bridges highways even to do art for years to get people buying products from the same companies that the wealthy controlled to get the economy up again