America -Where did it all go wrong?

What was the flaw in the american constitution that enabled it to go from the country the founding fathers articulated, a severely delimited Republican state to an over bloated quasi socialist, welfare state, mixed economy statist democracy?

From Washington, Franklin etc to in a few generations Wilson, Roosvelt, Johnson, Obama ,Trump eek? Could it have been the introduction of the notion of taxation as a legitimate tool of the state as adumbrated in the Federalist papers? Clearly, once the principle that taxation was an acceptable tool in the arsenal of state - even for laudable purposes - was established it would only be a matter of time for the state to expand its remit across the board as the pass had been sold re the principle of taxation. Thus the growth of welfare from the beginning of the 1900s.

War is always used as an excuse to expand government which after the war continues to be funded at war levels as the people have been accustomed to big state action and are thus persuaded that such state action can be extended to domestic affairs also so the successive wars the US engaged in from the end of the 18th century surely contributed to the expansion of government as it did in Europe after the 1st and 2nd world wars.

There was nothing in the constitution apparently which prevented this massive expansion of the state into the personal affairs of the citizenry so that today the US resembles more and more the European states in its invasive interventionist statist policies and its concomittant growth of national debt.

Not being in any way shape or form a constitutionalist expert I could not possibly say what were the ommissions that led and allowed the statists to drive a coach and horses thru the constitution but this they have undoubtedly done and it remains to be seen if the US can survive the grave statist incursions of its enemies within.