This is a misunderstanding. The Federal government has a small set of powers because almost all legal and political power is vested in the individual States, which have most of the remit and authority of sovereign countries. Americans have always lived under the expansive social policy regimes of their respective States, which vary widely. It is only in the 20th century that the Federal government started dabbling in social policy at all.

Every State I have ever lived in had their own unique minimum wage laws. The Federal government is more like the EU, much of its policy function is to harmonize the laws of the States. Americans have almost no interaction with the Federal government; the laws they live under, the taxes they pay, and the social programs available to them are almost always specific to the State.

Didn't you just make the same argument for why a federal minimum wage would be unprincipled?

I wasn't trying to make a point per se, just clarifying a common misconception about social policy in the US. The policies that exist or not at the Federal level tell you very little about the policies Americans live under; at best, it bounds variability of policy.

That's fair, although those boundaries are pretty foundational to day-to-day life in America.

The American Constitution was created to expand the powers of the federal governmet (replacing the prior Articles of Confederation that existed prior). Since the creation of the constitution, the federal government has seen an increase in scope; driven in large part by new deal policies and an (absurdly) broad definition of "interstate commerce".

Under both the articles of confederation and the current constitution (with and without amendments), the idea of limited federal government was not personal freedom, but state's freedom (eg. powers not given to the federal government are given to the states).

Arguably, the strenthening of the federal government led to more constitutionally protected individual rights, as it led to the bill of rights being interpreted as restricting states as well.

The constitution (including amendments) does place strong limits on what states can do to curtail individual liberty, a topic that's covered extensively in The Federalist Papers. So I don't entirely agree with you on this.

If that is true, which, as an american, i don't really care if that was the goal of the american project, it has demonstrably failed and we should act in the interest of human rights.

put otherwise - some people are working 2-3 jobs in order to feed, house, and clothe their children and it still is not enough. i have no ears for any principled argument in favor of the current state of things.

How has it demonstrably failed? America is the wealthiest, most successful, most powerful country in human history.

We're definitely the wealthiest. Our power is slipping thanks to awful foreign policy, and success is limited. We've been successful in generating massive amounts of wealth, but our standard of living isn't great compared with many other countries, and despite our wealth, our middle class is shrinking, and we have more homeless than ever, many of whom are veterans. And that's not even going into how a huge amount of our wealth can be directly traced to extremely exploitative attitudes and actions concerning other countries.

There's a lot to be proud of but there's also a lot to be ashamed of.

relying on churches to provide charity puts an emphasis on crowds rather than individuals

if you don't at least pretend to be Christian, or if you're say, gay, or like abortions, you lose access to many charitable funds, reducing your individual liberty when the rubber hits the road

Its unfortunate the non-Christian crowds don't emphasize charity. I agree that lack sorely tests individual liberty.