I believe the phrase/saying you’re looking for is: “the government that governs best, governs least.”
The founders had it right, because they had a biblical basis for reality and the nature of man.
Humans are inherently flawed and sinful.
They cannot be allowed positions of power over others.
The humanists on the left reject this view of mankind,
accepting the alternate reality of “you will be as gods, knowing good and evil”.