Posted on 10/29/2011 8:12:11 AM PDT by neverdem
America Abroad: Exceptional
Since 1776
A response to Stephen Walt's "The Myth of American Exceptionalism"
President Obama’s misunderstanding of American exceptionalism has found defenders among international-relations scholars and taken on an aura of legitimacy. Realist theorist Stephen Walt, in a recent article in Foreign Policy, exposes the “myths” of American exceptionalism. Walt echoes Obama’s view — namely that, since many nations have sincerely believed they were exceptional, no nation is truly exceptional. Yet America’s indispensable role in the world does not result from the sincerity of its leaders, but from the verity of its exceptional principles.
Despite dismissals of American exceptionalism and defeatist claims of America’s decline among some academics and left-wing pundits, the foundations of American statecraft are strong because they were well laid by the country’s founding fathers. Their commitment to the principles of liberty — as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and secured in the Constitution — had implications for foreign policy as well. Understanding the exceptional nature of America’s role in the world offers the best guide to confronting the international problems we face today. Dismissing them is not realism; it is surrealism.
While Walt correctly notes that Americans are sometimes “blind to their weak spots, and in ways that have real-world consequences,” he underestimates the historical role that the U.S. has played in advancing the cause of justice and liberty abroad. According to Walt, instead of “chest-thumping,” we need “a more realistic and critical assessment of America’s true character and contributions.” Upon such analysis, Walt finds nothing exceptional about America’s role in the world. Instead, he exposes five “myths” and concludes that the U.S. does not behave better than other nations. America’s success is largely from luck. America is not a force for good in the world. And finally, God is not on America’s side.
If America’s founding principles and its international influence since 1776 are not exceptional, then truly no nation is. American exceptionalism is meant to define the nature of America’s political order. This uniqueness is based on the fundamentals of America, since our principles are based on a dedication to universal principles rather than a restrictive understanding of nationhood based on language, ethnicity, territory, or religion. Ours is a nation open to all that adheres to its core principles, founded on reason and grounded in tradition. America was the first country on earth to commit to the ideas of liberty and equality at precisely the same moment it conceived of itself as an independent nation. America soon enshrined these principles in the oldest surviving written constitution in history.
If one is looking for exceptionalism in American foreign policy, how about the international leadership Americans showed in defeating the Barbary corsairs off North Africa in 1805? In the Tripolitan War, Americans led a coalition of England, Sweden, and Sicily to “punish” the Barbary states for raiding American ships, enslaving American citizens, and violating the law of nations. The Barbary Wars ended the centuries-old practice of pirating and white slavery in the Mediterranean, which the great powers of Europe had tolerated and even encouraged. American leadership in the Mediterranean was commended at the time by British admiral Lord Nelson and Pope Pius VII.
How about the American commitment to end European imperialism in North America, leading to the Monroe Doctrine? Secretary of State John Quincy Adams worked so that neither Spain nor France reclaimed their revolting colonies in Latin America. At the same time, America rebuffed British attempts to secure an imperial foothold in North America through an Anglo-American military alliance. Despite America’s military weakness, Adams — the principal author of the Monroe Doctrine — believed it would be “more candid, as well as more dignified, to avow our principles explicitly” and reject an alliance, rather than appear to “come in as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war.” By championing the cause of the newly independent Latin American republics in Europe, and being the first established nation to recognize the new nations, a young U.S. advanced its principles abroad, promoting a new system of “justice” for one-third of the globe.
In the 1821 Greek Revolution against the Ottomans and in the Hungarian Revolution against the Austrian and Russian empires in 1848, America continued to stand conspicuously and sometimes precariously for freedom abroad. Even after the Hungarian revolutionaries were crushed, Secretary of State Daniel Webster defended the U.S. Navy’s rescue of Lajos Kossuth and other Hungarian refugees — which almost led to a break in diplomatic relations with Austria, a significant trading partner. Kossuth soon arrived to America and traveled along the east coast, declaring to rapturous crowds and a joint session of Congress: “Your generous part in my liberation is taken by the world for the revelation of the fact, that the United States are resolved not to allow the despots of the world to trample on oppressed humanity.”
Several 20th-century perversions of these diplomatic traditions do not invalidate or render unremarkable the foundations of American statecraft. Even in the 20th century, despite ups and downs, American foreign policy stood against imperial Germany, Nazi Germany, imperial Japan, and Soviet Russia — powers who went undefeated until American involvement decisively tipped the scale in favor of America’s dearly held ideas. Indeed, still today, America’s enemies attempt to speak the rhetoric, at least, of freedom, equality, and democracy — ideas that America’s lone voice has consistently spoken through the conduct of its foreign policy for 235 years.
But in Walt’s estimation, “U.S. leaders have done what they thought they had to do when confronted by external dangers, and they paid scant attention to moral principles along the way.” By focusing too much on the last 50 years of U.S. foreign policy instead of America’s rich diplomatic traditions — some of which were abandoned during most of the last century — Walt rejects the exceptional nature of American statecraft. In short, Walt denies America the surest way to put its foreign policy on a more prudent path.
Rejecting the source of our goodness — our true principles — will dash any hopes for future greatness. As Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan both noted, “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” In the 21st century, Americans need to learn from the examples of our earlier statesmen who prudently applied our exceptional principles to the constantly changing circumstances of international affairs. Today, American grand strategy is indeed in the midst of an intellectual crisis. Unfortunately, Mr. Walt has not identified the problem; his — and President Obama’s — rejection of American exceptionalism is the problem.
— Marion Smith writes on U.S. diplomatic history as graduate fellow in the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at the Heritage Foundation.
editor’s note: This article has been amended since its initial publication.
Well said! This statement is reminiscent of the concluding paragraphs of Justice Story's Commentaries on the Constitution, as restated at the beginning and end of the following essay:
"The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid; its components are beautiful, as well as useful; its arrangements are full of wisdom and order...."
-Justice Joseph Story
Justice Story's words pay tribute to the United States Constitution and its Framers. Shortly before the 100th year of the Constitution, in his "History of the United States of America," written in 1886, historian George Bancroft said:
"The Constitution is to the American people a possession for the ages."
He went on to say:
"In America, a new people had risen up without king, or princes, or nobles....By calm meditation and friendly councils they had prepared a constitution which, in the union of freedom with strength and order, excelled every one known before; and which secured itself against violence and revolution by providing a peaceful method for every needed reform. In the happy morning of their existence as one of the powers of the world, they had chosen Justice as their guide."
And two hundred years after the adoption of this singularly-important document, praised by Justice Story in one century and Historian Bancroft in the next and said by Sir William Gladstone to be "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given moment by the brain and purpose of man," the Constitution of 1787 - with its Bill of Rights - remains, yet another century later, a bulwark for liberty, an ageless formula for the government of a free people.
In what sense can any document prepared by human hands be said to be ageless? What are the qualities or attributes which give it permanence?
America's Constitution had its roots in the nature, experience, and habits of humankind, in the experience of the American people themselves - their beliefs, customs, and traditions, and in the practical aspects of politics and government. It was based on the experience of the ages. Its provisions were designed in recognition of principles which do not change with time and circumstance, because they are inherent in human nature.
"The foundation of every government," said John Adams, "is some principle or passion in the minds of the people." The founding generation, aware of its unique place in the ongoing human struggle for liberty, were willing to risk everything for its attainment. Roger Sherman stated that as government is "instituted for those who live under it ... it ought, therefore, to be so constituted as not to be dangerous to liberty." And the American government was structured with that primary purpose in mind - the protection of the peoples liberty.
Of their historic role, in framing a government to secure liberty, the Framers believed that the degree of wisdom and foresight brought to the task at hand might well determine whether future generations would live in liberty or tyranny. As President Washington so aptly put it, "the sacred fire of liberty" might depend "on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people" That experiment, they hoped, would serve as a beacon of liberty throughout the world.
The Framers of America's Constitution were guided by the wisdom of previous generations and the lessons of history for guidance in structuring a government to secure for untold millions in the future the unalienable rights of individuals. As Jefferson wisely observed:
"History, by apprising the people of the past, will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."(Underlining added for emphasis)
The Constitution, it has been said, was "not formed upon abstraction," but upon practicality. Its philosophy and principles, among others, incorporated these practical aspects:
Recognition that love of liberty is inherent in the human spirit.
Recognition of Creator-endowed, unalienable, individual rights.
Recognition that meaningful liberty is possible only in the company of order and justice. In the words of Burke: "Liberty must be limited to be possessed."
Recognition that in order for a people to be free, they must be governed by fixed laws that apply alike to the governed and the government.
Recognition that the Creator has not preferred one person or group of persons as rulers over the others and that any government, in order to be just, must be from among the great body of the people and by their consent - that the people have a right to self-government.
Recognition of human weakness and the human tendency to abuse power; therefore, of the need to divide and to separate the power granted to government; to provide a system of checks and balances; and to make government accountable to people at frequent intervals.
Recognition that laws, to be valid, must have their basis and limit in natural law - that law which, as Cicero wrote, "is the highest reason, implanted in Nature, which commands what ought to be done and forbids the opposite."
Recognition of the need for structuring a government of laws, not of men, based on enduring principles and suitable not only to the age in which it is formed, but amendable to different circumstances and times, without sacrificing any of the three great concepts of Order, justice, or Liberty.
Recognition that the right to ownership of property is a right so compelling as to provide a primary reason for individuals to form a government for securing that right.
Recognition of the need for protecting the individual rights of each citizen, rich or poor, majority or minority, and of not allowing the coercive power of government to be used to do collectively that which the individual could not do without committing a crime.
Recognition of necessity for incentive and reward as impetus for achievement and growth.
Recognition of the need for a "Supreme Law of the land" a written constitution which, consistent with its idea of the sovereignty of the people, would provide its own prescribed amendment process, thereby circumventing any potential unconstitutional changes by any of the branches of government without the people's consent.
The Constitution of the United States of America structured a government for what the Founders called a "virtuous people - that is, a people who would be able, as Burke put it, to "put chains on their own appetites" and, without the coercive hand of government, to live peaceably without violating the rights of others. Such a society would need no standing armies to insure internal order, for the moral beliefs, customs, and love for liberty motivating the actions of the people and their representatives in government - the "unwritten" constitution - would be in keeping with their written constitution.
George Washington, in a Speech to the State Governors, shared his own sense of the deep roots and foundations of the new nation:
"The foundation of our empire was not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and superstition; but at an epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period.... the treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labors of philosophers, sages, and legislators, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collective wisdom may be happily applied in the establishment of our forms of government."
And Abraham Lincoln, in the mid-1800's, in celebrating the blessings of liberty, challenged Americans to transmit the "political edifice of liberty and equal rights" of their constitutional government to future generations:
"In the great journal of things happening under the sun, we, the American people, find our account running ... We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth....We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them - They are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic...race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights, 'tis ours only, to transmit these...to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know...."
Because it rests on sound philosophical foundations and is rooted in enduring principles, the United States Constitution can, indeed, properly be described as "ageless," for it provides the formula for securing the blessings of liberty, establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquillity, promoting the general welfare, and providing for the common defense of a free people who understand its philosophy and principles and who will, with dedication, see that its integrity and vigor are preserved.
Justice Joseph Story was quoted in the caption of this essay as attesting to the skill and fidelity of the architects of the Constitution, its solid foundations, the practical aspects of its features, and its wisdom and order. The closing words of his statement, however, were reserved for use here; for in his 1789 remarks, he recognized the "ageless" quality of the magnificent document, and at the same time, issued a grave warning for Americans of all centuries. He concluded his statement with these words:
"...and its defenses are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of man may justly aspire to such a title. It may, nevertheless, perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, THE PEOPLE. Republics are created by virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens."
Our ageless constitution can be shared with the world and passed on to generations far distant if its formula is not altered in violation of principle through the neglect of its keepers - THE PEOPLE.
Reprinted with permission. "Our Ageless Constitution," W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part VII: ISBN 0-937047-01-5
When despots seek to dominate a nation or region they find that the citizens of those nations or regions look to the United States and its freedoms and rights and say too the despots, with varying success, “no thanks, we do not desire your enslavement”. For this reason, the elite that seek world wide domination, know that they must first destroy this nation and it’s constitution if they are to ascend to a position of absolute power and vast wealth on the backs of the citizens. These elite call themselves progressives.
If we want to survive, as a nation, as a republic, we must flush the progressives from both parties, from all government offices, from the media, from positions of instruction, both public schools and universities. The progressive political philosophy must be rendered ineffectual, laughable, an object of ridicule. The progressive must be excoriated and driven out of any position of authority. Any adherent of such an absurd idea should never be paid more than minimum wage.
If we as a nation fail, we fail not just ourselves but the entire world.
An addendum;
Stephen Walt seems to have clearly identified himself as one who wants this nation and it’s constitution destroyed. Could it be he thinks he is one of those elite who will inherit power and great wealth?
I seldom finish the month with more than a dollar or two left. If I can contribute ten dollars a month then anyone can. This forum is one of few almost sane harbors in an insane world. Please help pay for our megaphone, put your money where your mouth is.
There are a number of leftist historians who, pointing to America’s abundant natural resources, have stated that it was easy for us to get wealthy. That ignores the fact that not only are there a number of countries with large or greater natural resources (Russia for instance), there are countries with little natural resources (The Netherlands for instance) whose citizens are far better off materially-wise than many natural resource-rich countries. People, and their desire to better themselves, come first in the equation on how to create wealth.
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