As always, this 4th of July will be marked by parades, fireworks, and backyard barbecues across the country. But this one is special as it marks the 250th anniversary of this great country. As such, I thought it would be a good time to reflect upon the concept of American Exceptionalism—a term that suggests the United States and its people differ, substantially, from other nations.
The concept of Exceptionalism is deeply rooted in the American experience. Even though the United States is a nation of immigrants, it was founded upon a common bond formed around a set of truths held to be self-evident and expressed in our Declaration of Independence:
- That all men are created equal.
- That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.
- And that among these Rights are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
These beliefs were idealistic in their conception, have been wildly controversial in their interpretation, and are yet to be perfected. But America has made steady progress toward those ideals, and has led the world in these same areas. America has indeed been different from the very start. That is exceptional.
Hector St. John DeCrèvecoeur, a naturalized French-American, was the first writer to describe the life on the American frontier to Europeans and to explore the concept of the American Dream. He characterized America and Americans by the principles of equal opportunity and self-determination. He poses a rhetorical question in his Letters from an American Farmer in 1782 — What then is the American, this new man?...and then responds:
“He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced…. Here individuals of all races are melted into a new race of man, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims.”
American Exceptionalism also stems from the geographic setting of the United States. In the words of James Madison, America benefited from “a weak neighbor to the north, weak neighbor to the south, fish to the east, fish to the west.” This relative isolation allowed the new nation to expand into the Great Frontier of the western territories, and the American Dream to prosper.
Frederic Jackson Turner offered this perspective: “But the larger part of what has been distinctive and valuable in America’s contribution to the history of the human spirit has been due to this nation’s peculiar experience in extending its type of frontier into new regions….This frontier experience has been fundamental in the economic, political and social characteristics of the American people and in their conceptions of their destiny.”
All of this allowed the American Dream to play out, and for American Exceptionalism to take form and fulfill the obligation set out by John Winthrop in his sermon to Puritan colonists arriving in Massachusetts Bay aboard the vessel Arbella, in 1630.
“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
And the eyes of the world have
witnessed America:
Create a government that depended upon the consent of the governed and codify the right of the governed to change that government if it becomes hostile to the rights of citizens.
Create a federalist system, through which the interests of local communities could be balanced with those of the general population.
Make the first ever peaceful transfer of power between two political parties when Washington stepped down from the presidency and Adams assumed the responsibility (1787).
Create a public education system, thereby tossing aside the traditional European approach of limiting education to the elite classes through privately funded institutions.
Initiate the concept of post-war redevelopment of vanquished countries through the Marshall Plan and the Occupation and Reconstruction in Japan.
Create an economic powerhouse the likes of which the world had never seen and, from that base, produce technologies that have changed civilization in unimaginable ways.
Proceed through a sometimes painful process to guarantee the Civil Rights of all citizens that, although imperfect, stands as an example for the world.
These are tremendous accomplishments. The American Dream has been, and continues to be, fulfilled through a slow, but continuous journey of free people. Americans share a nation and a destiny, to build a more perfect union, to live up to the dreams, hopes, and ideals of its founders, so that, in the words of Lincoln, “…these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this Earth.”
America is indeed exceptional, in its geography, in its form of government, in the strength of its economy, in the power of its ideas, and in its contributions to the world. And that is what we celebrate.