American Exceptionalism Part 1: Why is America Exceptional and what difference it makes

This is the first of a series of posts on how and why America is different from the rest of the world, particularly from those countries that can be called “advanced” or “first world.” In other words, what makes America “exceptional?” According to Wikipedia “American Exceptionalism” can be associated with one of three ideas:

• The first is that the history of the United States is inherently different from that of other nations. In this view, American exceptionalism stems from its emergence from the American Revolution, thereby becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called “the first new nation” and developing a uniquely American ideology, “Americanism”, based on liberty, equality before the law, individual responsibility, republicanism, representative democracy and laissez-faire economics. This ideology itself is often referred to as “American exceptionalism.”
• Second is the idea that the US has a unique mission to transform the world. As Abraham Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg address, Americans have a duty to ensure, “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
• Third is the sense that the United States’ history and mission give it a superiority over other nations.

The term is currently freighted with political connotations. For example, in a 2015 book entitled Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney sets out and argues the case for American Exceptionalism, and concludes: “we are, as Lincoln said, ‘the last, best hope of earth.’ We are not just one more nation, one more same entity on the world stage. We have been essential to the preservation and progress of freedom, and those who lead us in the years ahead must remind us, as Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Reagan did, of the unique role we play. Neither they nor we should ever forget that we are, in fact, exceptional.” Democrats tend to be less enthralled by the term. In April 2009, U.S. president Barack Obama responded to a journalist’s question in Strasbourg, Germany with the statement, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

Let’s examine the third reason the United States is seen to be exceptional –its history and mission give it a superiority over other nations. How unique is America’s history? What is it about that history that separates the United States from all other nations in the world? There are at least 10 specific experiences that set the United States apart from other nations (some of these will be seen as positive, others negative, still others neutral).

Its establishment on Enlightenment principles.  America was founded by a group of men who were steeped in the values of the Enlightenment. The core of America’s political philosophy can be found in the first few sentences of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

Slavery.  The United States is the only advanced country to have a history of slave-owning within its borders after the eighteenth century. The U.S. constitution contains three explicit mentions of slavery, although it is reticent to use the word itself. Article 1, Section 2 contains the following text: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons.”  So slaves, for the purposes of representation, were to be counted as 3/5 of a person.

The second reference to slavery can be found in Article 1 Section 9, which bans the slave trade after 1808 (although oddly it actually permits the slave trade until 1808): “The Migration and Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.”

Finally, Article IV, Section 2, contains the fugitive slave clause: “No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom Service or Labour may be due.” 

Slavery was written into the fundamental charter of the United States. It has made a great difference to our history and character.

The Frontier. Frederick Jackson Turner in one of the most influential books on American History, The Frontier in American History, wrote:    “The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom—these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier.” Turner went on to wonder how America would evolve with the closing of the frontier.

The Constitution.  I have always found it remarkable that when the President or any other federal official takes the oath of office he swears “to support and defend the constitution” not the flag, or the country or the people. The centrality of the constitution makes the United States uniquely a nation of laws.

Federalism.  Other countries have federal systems, but none give such unlimited power to the states; The Tenth Amendment states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  As we shall see this has resulted in wide diversity of policies and institutions across the country.

Republicanism, not Democracy.  By this I mean, that the Founders were very suspicious of pure democracy, and so they developed a very complicated system of checks and balances, including the electoral college, a bicameral legislature, the election of senators by state legislatures (later amended by the 17^th amendment in 1913), and a number of procedures that made passing legislation in the senate particularly difficult.

A Nation of Immigrants.  By its history as a special land where immigrants from everywhere were welcome (well, not always), there is no such thing as an American race. We are a polyglot people, made up of hundreds of nationalities and national histories. Whether we are a “melting pot,” a “stew” or a “salad,” there is no doubt that we are a multi-cultural nation reaching toward assimilation.

The American Dream.  The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States, the set of ideals (democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity and equality) in which freedom includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, as well as an upward social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.”  It is this “dream” that brought millions of people from every country on the earth to the shores of America.

American capitalism. America’s economy is built on private investment and initiative. This is largely responsible for the unprecedented prosperity America experienced for most of its history. The American economy is dominated by private business, large and small, with limited government intervention. For most of its history this has been a great blessing; however, there are a number of cracks in the system that threaten an erosion of the shared prosperity (and consequently, the American Dream) that Americans have come to expect.

American Faith.  Despite recent declines in church-going, The U.S. remains a robustly religious country and the most devout of all the Western democracies. A continued perception that America is a “Christian” country is a fundamental reason for American exceptionalism.

As I shall try to explain in later posts, this set of experiences and institutions fundamentally define what America is and why American exceptionalism is hardly a sure guide to American superiority.