The First Congress passed the Sedition Act, which was an extremely broad set of laws that would have essentially nullified the First Amendment. The first several Congresses passed extremely broad laws regulating commerce that were ultimately narrowed by the courts. This all despite having numerous members of the Constitutional Convention among their ranks.
It's pretty clear from the laws the First and Second Congress passed that they had an even broader definition of "broad powers" than we do today. (And by the way, the Federal Papers have no legal authority in US law. They're interesting from a historical perspective because they documents an attempt by one politician to sway the opinion of the general public, but they don't form any part of the corpus of American jurisprudence.)
Alien and Sedition Acts were widely panned when they were passed, specifically because many people saw them as unconstitutional. What they proved is that people aren't particularly respectful of the same constitution they wrote, but little else.
I'm well aware that the Federalist Papers aren't law. The reason why I mentioned them is that they come from the party that was anti-Articles, pro-Constitution and pro-strong federal government. So reading them gives you an idea of what they meant by "strong federal government", and what they considered to be out of bounds.
It's pretty clear from the laws the First and Second Congress passed that they had an even broader definition of "broad powers" than we do today. (And by the way, the Federal Papers have no legal authority in US law. They're interesting from a historical perspective because they documents an attempt by one politician to sway the opinion of the general public, but they don't form any part of the corpus of American jurisprudence.)