This essay examines the historical roots of American moral superiority, tracing the sentiment from the Revolutionary era through the nineteenth century. Drawing on primary texts by Thomas Paine, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, John L. O'Sullivan, Henry David Thoreau, Sojourner Truth, and Herman Melville, the paper argues that a belief in divine destiny and national exceptionalism ran alongside — and often contradicted — practices such as the displacement of Native Americans, slavery, and the subjugation of women. The essay connects these early ideological formations to broader international perceptions of American arrogance and self-righteousness that persist into the modern era.
"A survey was conducted in the world. Respondents were asked to 'please write down your opinion about food shortages in other countries.' The survey failed because Africa didn't know the meaning of 'food,' Western Europe didn't know the meaning of 'shortage,' Eastern Europe didn't know the meaning of 'opinion,' and the United States didn't know the meaning of 'other countries.'"
— joke circulating in Hungarian cyberspace
Americans, already reeling in shock from the tragedy of September 11, were appalled at television images of Muslim children laughing and celebrating at the injury done to the United States. It was a visceral reminder of the hatred that many nations feel for the US — hatred certainly engendered in part through envy for the comparative wealth and freedoms that Americans enjoy, but also in part by the virtually worldwide perception of Americans as blissfully certain of their moral superiority to all other nationalities, and abundantly willing to steamroller other cultures with their opinions and beliefs. Did this attitude emerge with the Founding Fathers?
In Common Sense (1776), Thomas Paine declared: "Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America… The Almighty hath implanted in us these inextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of His image in our hearts. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals." Clearly, Paine believed that the Revolution was pre-ordained and that the moral high ground was held by the Colonies. In his Epistle to the Quakers, he rebutted their Loyalist and pacifist sentiments by saying, "We view our enemies in the character of highwaymen and housebreakers."
Paine's view, then, was that God had ordained the colonial rebellion, that the colonists were entirely justified in it, and — more significantly — that any enemy of the colonies was by definition a criminal. Here we see the beginning of the mindset that would culminate, more than two centuries later, in President Bush's "war against evil."
Crèvecoeur, in describing Nantucket, commented on the indigenous peoples: "In the year 1763, above half the Indians of this island perished by a strange fever… they appear to be a race doomed to recede and disappear before the superior genius of the Europeans." From this we see that the opinion existed not only that Native Americans were destined to lose their lands to the white man, but that this outcome was rightful and natural.
John L. O'Sullivan, writing "Manifest Destiny" in 1839, declared: "Nor have the American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to depopulate the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being might be placed upon a seat of supremacy." Yet the belief in Manifest Destiny led Americans to settle the West, effectively deposing its aboriginal inhabitants, and certainly spreading desolation far and wide as the slaughter of the buffalo removed the staff of life from the Native American.
The rapacity of the settlers in taking land from the Indians — all the while justifying themselves, in O'Sullivan's words, as being "the nation of human progress, and who can, what can, set limits to our onward march?" — has widely been regarded as a permanent blot on the moral history of the United States.
The other great disgrace is, of course, slavery. O'Sullivan continued: "Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of the beasts of the field." So, while hypocritically ignoring the misery of slaves at home, the United States — cast as the sole beneficiary of divine truth — was imagined to be destined to bring the correct form of government to the benighted remainder of the world.
"American anti-slavery rhetoric clashes with domestic slave practice"
"Women's subjugation linked to slavery and moral double standards"
"Melville's Moby Dick mirrors American exceptionalism's dark duality"
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