From Exceptionalism to American Universalism

We are going to look at a number of structural issues and problems relating to American foreign policy in the long term. We have to look at the long term; we will see how this foreign policy is structured, according to what guidelines, how the relationship with the world of the United States was built up gradually from the middle of the 19th century to the present day, and what has existed since the beginning of American history.

We, the People…

Exceptionalism is the idea that there is an American exception that the United States is a particular country with a particular destiny. This is not very original, but it is particularly strong in the United States and important considering the importance of the United States in world geopolitics and world order during the 20th century.

Universalism is the idea that a country has a particular destiny but that this country understands, is aware of the certainty and willingness to be a model for the rest of the world.

This balancing is something that is a structural balancing act in U. S. relations to the world and in the context of U. S. foreign policy. It is a country that, like any other country, has built a foreign policy whose objective is to assert its power and defend its particular interests, and at the same time a foreign policy that goes further than that, of power, great power and superpower. It is a foreign policy that defends national interests but goes further than that, presenting a model, in American foreign policy and the way it is implemented, this model should apply to the whole of humanity in a future embodying the future of humanity.

We will first focus on the notion of exceptionalism, and then on the crystallization of universalism, where this notion of universalism becomes preponderant in American foreign policy, especially as the weight of the United States will increase in international relations. Universalism will no longer only be a discourse disconnected from reality, but a reality with the growing weight of the United States in international relations and finally the dilemma of American foreign policy.

Components of exceptionalism

The American Democracy

Press drawing (attributed to Benjamin Franklin) which was first published during the French-Indian war during the Seven Years' War, then reused to encourage the American colonies to unite against the British Crown.

American exceptionalism, the certainty of having a particular destiny, manifests itself with a first fundamental element that can be found in the origins of the creation of the United States. It is an element of long duration, a whole series of notions are put in place at this time, especially regarding the conception of freedom and the relation to power. One of the fundamental elements experienced by immigrants in what will become the United States is that they will find a "New World" where the despotism of monarchic regimes and in particular the religious persecutions that were then the rule in 17th century Europe do not exist. Fundamental attachment to freedom is a structural element of the real and lived understanding of the difference between the United States and Europe.

One of the characteristics of the Thirteen colonies is extreme autonomy, each colony had an autonomous history with its own specific organisation, which was a mixture of centralism in order to make the whole thing work and decentralisation, because one of the fundamental elements of migrants was their attachment to freedom and more particularly to individual freedom. The dialectic between centralization and decentralization is still strong in the eastern colonies of the United States.

The third important aspect is that when the Thirteen colonies declare their independence from Britain, the American War of Independence is both a war against England and a war against the monarchy. Finally, in the struggle for democracy on the one hand and the construction of foreign policy on the other, are two realities closely linked from the origins of the American Republic. There is the idea that every foreign policy starts with a struggle for democracy.

The U. S. government as it conceived itself from the outset has always had a dual objective: that power is both supposed to defend the country against the colonizer and the idea that it should not be too strong either, otherwise it becomes tyranny to the detriment of individual freedom. This centralized/decentralized couple is a cursor in the American political system that oscillates continuously over time.

If we look at the Checks and Balances system, it is a political system in which each power corresponds a counter-power with its balances. A power must assert power and centralization, and a power must protect the individual from encroachment by the other power. Every time a power is created, a counter-power has been created. The federal states come together to represent their own power and the federal state is unifying. There is always the struggle between the federal state and the autonomy of the federated states. They're a structural couple. The same thing is between the central government and the Congress, which represents the individual against the state. Inside Congress there is the difference between the Senate and the House of Representatives: the Senate represents states, and the House of Representatives represents individuals.

The coincidence between empire and democracy is not a contradiction between empire and democracy. The idea of the founding fathers of the American Republic like Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Jay is that they are convinced they have achieved a perfect synthesis. The American Republic is a counterpoint to a Europe under the monarchical rule at this time in history. It is a perfect synthesis between affirmation of power on the one hand and respect for individual freedom on the other.

This design will very quickly be designed as exportable. The idea that the United States can, and must, export democracy is present in American politics from the very beginning because precisely the designers of the American Republic believe that they have achieved the perfect synthesis that must become a model for the rest of humanity.

U. S. foreign policy is absolutely not disconnected from what is going on inside. It is necessary to leave the distinction made by the theorists of realistic science that separates domestic politics from foreign policy. In the context of the United States, there is an intimate connection between foreign and domestic policy.

A modern laboratory

When one analyzes American exceptionalism there is also an intimate relationship to modernity which is important to understand which is structural from the outset becoming very important in foreign policy in the twentieth century and present from the seventeenth century. What will become the United States is being conceived and perceived by Europeans as a laboratory of modernity.

Religious freedom is absolutely fundamental. Those who emigrate to the United States are multi-religious people and dissidents. In the United States there are people with very different religious beliefs. The only way that the future "Americans" have in order to continue living together is not to impose a state religion. The first to do so was Pennsylvania in 1684, which was the first state to introduce religious tolerance as a principle. Many philosophers of the Enlightenment will see the United States as a laboratory of freedom because the idea of religious freedom and tolerance is an innovative initiative that will structure the thought of the Enlightenment in Europe.

Postcard photo of the Rexall Train.

The use of technology is early, immoderate and permanent in order to enhance the territory. The Americans, from the creation of the United States, will soon conquer a huge territory with a relatively small population. To develop the territory as it lacks arms, the machines will be developed. Very quickly, the development of the territory, natural and agricultural resources will be based on the construction of highly developed machine tools. There is a strong technological dimension, there is the idea that Americans are able to tame nature. The American relationship to modernity is a fundamental element of American exceptionalism.

The theme of modernity will be repeated throughout the course, especially after the Second World War. There is a dimension to bring modernity to countries that do not have it. Modernisation theories developed in the 1950s. The idea of modernity is absolutely central to the construction of American exceptionalism.

A chosen people: the "Manifest destiny"

This work, painted around 1872 by John Gast entitled American Progress, is an allegorical representation of "Manifest Destiny". In this scene, an angelic woman (sometimes identified as Columbia, the personification of the United States in the 19th century, carries the light of "civilization" to the west with the American settlers, wiring the telegraph in her furrow. Native Americans and wildlife flee to the darkness of the wild west.

The "Manifest Destiny" is the idea that the American population, immigrants are dissidents emigrating with the certainty of being an elected people carrying the future. The expression "New World" is not only a geographical reality but the idea of building a new society in general.

The inhabitants of what will become the United States will think of themselves as an elected people embodying the future of the world. This thesis will crystallize as a founding element of American political culture and thus become a guideline for American foreign policy. In the mid-19th century in the years 1840 - 1846, the United States expanded westward, there is a huge territorial expansion, there is a good one in the American power that is being done at that time. This is the time when there is beginning to be the conquest of foreign markets and in particular the Chinese market. There is a real commercial exception, in order to develop the territory which is becoming more and more enormous, special technical devices are needed, particularly in the field of communications with the construction of railroads linking east to west.

This is interpreted by the American people and the intellectual milieu as the exceptional and a divine appeal calling for the destiny of the United States. The United States is the only modern democracy where the president still swears on the Bible. All these signs appear as a divine sign with an exceptional destiny awaiting the United States.

John O' Sullivan's idea of Manigest Destiny, formulated by John O' Sullivan in 1845, was taken up by Walt Whitman and Ralph W. Emerson. They develop the idea that the United States is an exceptional country with an exceptional destiny to conquer American territory and possibly more, while spreading the principles of American democracy to the rest of the world, which at that time was also based on racial distinctions.

The crystallization of the exceptional destiny was made in the years 1840 - 1850 with the speech of the Manifest Destiny which remains theoretical since in 1845 the United States is not yet a great power. In fact, it will be characterized by the conquest of a huge territory and the sharing of the benefits of democracy.

Permanent conquest of the border

Theodore Roosevelt with Richard Harding Davis in Cuba, 1898.

Territorial conquest on the one hand and the creation of a national identity and nation-building are two things that happen at the same time. The concept of national identity cannot be dissociated from the conquest of territory, both processes come at the same time.

The process of forming the American national identity is concomitant with conquest and substantial to the construction of identity. It is a discourse and a practice that migrants will adopt by constantly pushing back the border. Migrants have an extremely strong relationship with the idea of Manifest Destiny. When migrants arrive in California or the central west, they find large areas of fertile land that they will transform and exploit.

They're pushing the border back to the Pacific. By the 1890s, when the United States was declared unified, the next step became the rest of the world. Specifically, American foreign policy is only a continuation of the process of American conquest. At the end of the war against Spain, Theodore Roosevelt had these words: "the Americanization of the world is our destiny".

The permanent conquest of the border is a fundamental element of American expansionist policy. The rest of the world is a territory potentially open to American conquest. Somehow, if we continue with reasoning, there is no break between U.S. domestic policy and foreign policy. The world is only a potential garden of American politics, the border between the United States and the rest of the world is a permeable conception.