American Exceptionalism - History of The Concept

History of The Concept

The French writer Alexis de Tocqueville first wrote about it in his 1831 work, Democracy in America:

The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.

American exceptionalism was tied to the idea of Manifest Destiny, a term used by Jacksonian Democrats in the 1840s to promote the acquisition of much of what is now the Western United States (the Oregon Territory, the Texas Annexation, and the Mexican Cession of California and New Mexico and adjacent areas).

After de Tocqueville's usage the theme became common, especially in textbooks. From the 1840s to the late 19th century, the McGuffey Readers sold 120 million copies and were studied by most American students. Skrabec (2009) argues that the Readers "hailed American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and America as God's country....Furthermore, McGuffey saw America as having a future mission to bring liberty and democracy to the world."