[gone35]

You clearly misunderstood.

Since the State (in the academic sense of the word, with capital S) can comprise institutions at multiple administrative levels (eg state and federal), it is entirely possible to have a federal government with limited powers against a backdrop of strong state governments.

Indeed, some legal historians like William Novak have argued that many of today's widespread notions around the historicity of "limited government" and the early republic are largely revisionist myths [1].

[1] http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/labor/documents/TheMyth...