Abstract：The theory of the limited government is an important aspect of the modern western political thoughts.As the guiding principles of the political operation and the constitutional practice, its origin coincides with the classical liberalism.With the historical change of the classical liberalism to neo-liberalism and the new classical liberalism, the aspects of the government's function, responsibility and the scale were gradually absorbed into the theory of moderate government which was an important component of the theory of the limited government.An effective system of the checks and the balances, which is the traditional connotation of the theory of the limited government, has become its reality demand in the constitutional visual field

Keyword：limited government;moderate government;liberalism;check and balance;