Marilyn B. Young argues that after the end of the Cold War in 1991, neoconservative intellectuals and policymakers embraced the idea of an "American empire," a national mission to establish freedom and democracy in other nations, particularly poor ones. She argues that after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the George W. Bush administration reoriented foreign policy to an insistence on maintaining the supreme military and economic power of America, an attitude that harmonized with the new vision of American empire. Young says the
Iraq War (2003–2011) exemplified American exceptionalism. In 2012, the conservative historians
Larry Schweikart and Dave Dougherty argued that American exceptionalism be based on four pillars: (1)
common law; (2) virtue and morality located in Protestant Christianity; (3) free-market capitalism; and (4) the sanctity of private property. In a 2015 book,
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."
Republican ethos and ideas about nationhood Proponents of American exceptionalism argue that the United States is exceptional in that it was founded on a set of
republican ideals rather than on a common heritage, ethnicity, or ruling elite. In the formulation of President
Abraham Lincoln in his
Gettysburg Address, America is a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." In Lincoln's interpretation, America is inextricably connected with freedom and equality, and the American mission is to ensure "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The historian
T. Harry Williams argues that Lincoln believed: American policies have been characterized since their inception by a system of federalism (between the states and the federal government) and
checks and balances (among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches), which were designed to prevent any faction, region, or government organ from becoming too powerful. Some proponents of the theory of American exceptionalism argue that the system and the accompanying distrust of concentrated power prevent the United States from suffering a "
tyranny of the majority," preserve a free republican democracy, and allow citizens to live in a locality whose laws reflect those voters' values. A consequence of the political system is that laws can vary widely across the country. Critics of American exceptionalism maintain that the system merely replaces the power of the federal majority over states with power by the states over local entities. On the balance, the American political system arguably allows for more local dominance but prevents more domestic dominance than a more
unitary system would. The historian
Eric Foner has explored the question of
birthright citizenship, the provision of the
Fourteenth Amendment (1868) that makes anyone born in the United States a full citizen. He argues that:
Global leadership and activism Yale Law School Dean
Harold Hongju Koh has identified what he says is "the most important respect in which the United States has been genuinely exceptional, about international affairs, international law, and promotion of human rights: namely, in its outstanding global leadership and activism." He argues: To this day, the United States remains the only superpower capable, and at times willing, to commit real resources and make real sacrifices to build, sustain, and drive an international system committed to international law, democracy, and the promotion of human rights. Experience teaches that when the United States leads on human rights, from Nuremberg to Kosovo, other countries follow.
Peggy Noonan, an American political pundit, wrote in
The Wall Street Journal that "America is not exceptional because it has long attempted to be a force for good in the world, it tries to be a force for good because it is exceptional." Former
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney explores the concept of United States global leadership in a 2015 book on
American foreign policy,
Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America, co-authored with his daughter,
Liz Cheney, a former official of the
U.S. Department of State.
Frontier spirit Proponents of American exceptionalism often claim that many features of the "American spirit" were shaped by the frontier experience. In line with historian
Frederick Jackson Turner's influential
Frontier Thesis, they argue that the
American frontier allowed
individualism to flourish as pioneers adopted democracy and
social equality, and shed centuries-old European institutions such as royalty,
standing armies, established churches, and a
landed aristocracy that owned most of the land. However, the frontier experience was not entirely unique to the United States. Other nations also had frontiers, but were not shaped by them nearly as much as America was by its frontier, usually because they were under the control of a strong national government. South Africa, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and Australia all had long frontiers, but they did not have "free land" and local control. The political and cultural environments were much different since these other frontiers neither involved widespread ownership of free land nor allowed the settlers to control the local and provincial governments, as was the case in America. Consequently, their frontiers did not shape their national psyches. Each of these nations had entirely different frontier experiences. For example, the
Dutch Boers in South Africa were defeated in war by Britain. In Australia, "mateship" and working together were valued more than individualism was in the United States.
Mobility and welfare For most of its history, especially from the mid-19th to the early-20th centuries, the United States has been known as the "land of opportunity" and in that sense prided and promoted itself on providing individuals with the opportunity to escape from the contexts of their class and family background. Examples of that
social mobility include: • Occupational: children could easily choose careers that were not based upon their parents' choices. • Physical: geographical location was not seen as static, and citizens often relocated freely over long distances without a barrier. • Status: as in most countries, family standing and riches were often a means to remain in a higher social circle. America was notably unusual because of an accepted wisdom that anyone, from poor immigrants upwards, who worked hard could aspire to similar standing, regardless of circumstances of birth. That aspiration is commonly called living the
American dream. Birth details were not taken as a social barrier to the upper echelons or high political status in
American culture. That stood in contrast to other countries in which many larger offices were socially determined and usually difficult to enter unless one was born into the suitable social group. However, social mobility in the U.S. is lower than in some
European Union countries if it is defined by income movements. American men born into the lowest income quintile are much more likely to stay there than similar people in the
Nordic countries or the United Kingdom. Many economists, such as Harvard economist
N. Gregory Mankiw, however, state that the discrepancy has little to do with class rigidity; rather, it is a reflection of income disparity: "Moving up and down a short ladder is a lot easier than moving up and down a tall one." Recent evidence using more complete non-anonymous datasets shows the U.S. to be among the highest of developed nations in intragenerational income mobility, the change in social position that occurs within someone's life. Similar findings have been made regarding occupational mobility in which over time in the U.S. there has been an increase in within lifetime occupational mobility for both men and women across the majority of occupations. Regarding public welfare,
Richard Rose asked in 1989 whether the evidence shows whether the U.S. "is becoming more like other mixed-economy welfare states, or increasingly exceptional." He concluded, "By comparison with other advanced industrial nations America is today exceptional in total public expenditure, in major program priorities, and in the value of public benefits."
African American Exceptionalism A corollary of American exceptionalism holds that African Americans are exceptional within the
African diaspora and the entire world. The intrinsic injustice, moral wrong, and oppression of U.S. slavery would seem to exclude African Americans from the concept of American Exceptionalism. Comparisons to other slave systems in the Caribbean, South America, Arabia, and the entire Islamic world document on a statistical basis that the U.S. slave population increased in size, and is the only slave population in history shown to have increased in numbers. Only 3.63% of Africans brought across the Atlantic Ocean as slaves were brought to what is now the United States. After abolition of the U.S. Atlantic slave trade on Jan 1, 1808, the first date allowed by the U.S. Constitution's 20-year allowance, some argue that the treatment of U.S. slaves improved. Most other slave systems, including those based primarily on sugar, were in the unhealthier tropics, which encouraged continual importation of slaves from Africa and unbalanced sex ratios. The U.S. slave population lived in a temperate climate, on lands with the best soil. By 1860, about half of the slave population in the New World lived in the USA. African Americans overcame numerous obstacles to their advancement and continue to struggle against past bondage and discrimination. Those difficult obstacles were so powerful, long-standing, and pervasive that most Americans did not and do not perceive African Americans as exceptional. The first statement of African American exceptionalism was made by Booker T. Washington in 1901:"The ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe."As of 2024. African Americans are among the wealthiest, best educated, most accomplished, and most famous African-descended people in the world, just as Washington observed in 1901, which led some scholars of the African Diaspora to affirm that African Americans are at the pinnacle of the worldwide African Diaspora. They are "embedded in the very cultural and economic hegemony of the United States." African Americans benefitted from the rule of law in the USA. This benefit before 1865 was indirect and extractive, but thereafter, starting with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, the USA rose to prominence as the world's preeminent superpower through the inclusive rule of law. The concept of African American Exceptionalism differs from what some call "Black Exceptionalism," the emphasis on exceptional Black people, such as during Black History Month. == Criticism ==