I always thought the government must be kept in check by the people, as it is prone to go corrupt. One bad thing that can happen is overgrowing, and the people can in theory stop this.
A natural tool to achieve this is to make laws that prohibit govt overgrowth in various ways, and it indeed then "limits itself", but the people can point to the same laws when trying|
to stop overgrowth. They can then say things like "our forefathers who made these laws were wise to limit govt growth", and others will more easily agree.
TL;DR: I see no contradiction here, the govt will indeed sometimes limit itself, which is better than nothing, and they are not the only force that can do the limiting.
