America’s difference from Europe stands out for two reasons. First, Americans lack a common ethnic or linguistic heritage and therefore tend to construct a national identity based on their common philosophy and shared values. Second, America was deliber­ately founded as a nation unlike any other. Unlike great powers that adopted exceptionalist visions to justify their acquisition and maintenance of empires, the United States celebrated its unique virtues long before achieving world prominence. Early colonial settlers and the Founding Fathers who declared independence from Great Britain saw America occupying a separate moral category from the rest of the world. American institutions were held to be unique, and America’s relations with the world were to reject the old principles and practices of international politics.
History amply justifies the view that much of the American experience has been unique and that America has done a great deal of good throughout the world. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary for America to step up and do what it has done before, whether willingly or reluctantly: accept responsibility for being the world power, one whose role is to defend the idea, as the founding documents say, that all men are born equal, with certain unalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. As every American schoolchild is taught, those rights are to be regarded as universal and not simply the birthright of one nation. What would America be like if did not expect to be called upon to support and defend democracy and republican ideals? Would it still have become a haven – within its own borders – for the persecuted and the dispossessed? Would it still have become a land of economic opportunity for migrants?