Part 2 of a Series

“There is a great ugliness on the land and also a great beauty.”

- David Treuer

Critics dismiss the idea of American Exceptionalism as arrogant and dangerous nonsense about a nation whose history is rife with terrible contradictions: the extermination of native peoples in the land of opportunity; the enslavement of a fifth of its population in the cradle of liberty; the denial of the vote to half its people in the citadel of democracy. To them the concept of American Exceptionalism seems self-congratulatory at best, hypocritical, dishonest, and downright dangerous at worst; a slap in the face of so much of American history and the experiences of so many of its people; a cover for atrocities committed at home and abroad; a marketing slogan for the American brand; a fig leaf of enlightenment concealing a core of cruelty. Why, then, write about it?

It’s a good question.

One answer is that, while empty words would have perished long ago, these four documents still summon Americans to what Lincoln elsewhere called “the better angels of our nature.” For a nation that is said to scorn introspection, it’s remarkable that nowhere else have people taken so seriously the need to explain – to themselves and to others – who they are, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. It began when John Winthrop described a “model” community of which “men shall say of succeeding plantations, ‘the Lord make it like that of New England.’” Each of the subsequent documents seeks to expand the definition of what it means to be an American; together they trace the story of America across time. For all its considerable baggage, it is the only story with the resonance to unify so disparate, diverse, and divided a nation.

Belief in American Exceptionalism endures. America has long been as much an idea as a place, a vessel into which newcomers can pour dreams of a boundless future. And this notion of specialness doesn’t only belong to those who insist their country can do no wrong. In some of the nation’s most difficult times, leaders have emerged, like old-testament prophets, to rebuke the people of America for their sins and to demand that they live up to the principles they proclaim.

In a nation whose survival seems once again in peril, we turn to these defining documents to learn what, if anything, they can tell us about where we are as a nation, how we got here, and how we can chart a course into a future that is unknown to us – but which, despite all our differences and disagreements, we must build together.