>You are on to something but it seems that american exceptionalism was there from the very beginning and before it was a global superpower
Maybe 'global superpower' wasn't a metric early America used to inform its (yet unnamed) notion of exceptionalism. Your quote from Jefferson speaks of an "empire of liberty."
This could make sense if you think about it. Young America had just accomplished the almost unthinkable feat of winning independence from the Globe's biggest superpower of the time. In winning this liberty, the young nation began its life by defining itself through this hard won liberty.
In a sense, America's view of what made it special might have been a response to and departure from the concept of a superpower (which it had just cast off).
The characteristics he lists:
>monument of human rights...freedom and self-government...it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence.
His dialogue doesn't involve power or might, but rather rights and example. Even the hopeful spread of America's influence is framed as something to be willingly adopted and benign.
I'm not a student of American history, so I don't know how consistent this interpretation is with the other writings and beliefs of the day, but it's really sad to me how far we've fallen from this ideal. The modern American practitioners of American Exceptionalism seem to have perverted it beyond recognition. Especially when you look at how many of these same administrations prop up dictators when it serves our perceived interests.
Maybe 'global superpower' wasn't a metric early America used to inform its (yet unnamed) notion of exceptionalism. Your quote from Jefferson speaks of an "empire of liberty."
This could make sense if you think about it. Young America had just accomplished the almost unthinkable feat of winning independence from the Globe's biggest superpower of the time. In winning this liberty, the young nation began its life by defining itself through this hard won liberty.
In a sense, America's view of what made it special might have been a response to and departure from the concept of a superpower (which it had just cast off).
The characteristics he lists:
>monument of human rights...freedom and self-government...it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth if other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its benign influence.
His dialogue doesn't involve power or might, but rather rights and example. Even the hopeful spread of America's influence is framed as something to be willingly adopted and benign.
I'm not a student of American history, so I don't know how consistent this interpretation is with the other writings and beliefs of the day, but it's really sad to me how far we've fallen from this ideal. The modern American practitioners of American Exceptionalism seem to have perverted it beyond recognition. Especially when you look at how many of these same administrations prop up dictators when it serves our perceived interests.