is one thing. It is quite another to restrict the power of the central government as radically as the new American Constitution does. 

Your imaginary self at the inauguration of George Washington had many real counterparts in the early decades of our history. A long line of Europeans — most famously Alexis de Tocqueville, but also widely read observers such as Harriet Martineau, Frances Trollope, and Charles Dickens, plus thousands of other lesser-known visitors — wrote books, letters, and journals describing the Americans to their fellow countrymen. They often had the tone of a zoologist writing about a hitherto unknown species. For whatever else these observers might say about the United States, they all agreed on one thing: the United States was quite unlike their own or any other nation. It was exceptional. 

The concept of American exceptionalism has been used in many ways. Some have interpreted “exceptional” to mean “wonderful,” and American exceptionalism has been used as a framework for describing whatever the proponent thinks is wonderful about America. It has been interpreted to mean that America has a special mission in the world and used in support of whatever measures that mission is taken to imply. Those who don’t like the idea of American exceptionalism have attempted to refute it by pointing to the ways in which the history of the United States parallels that of other great imperial powers, arguing that the United States has the same awful defects as other empires.

So the concept of American exceptionalism has become associated with meanings that are filled with emotion and value judgments—intertwined with patriotism, for those who approve of it, or connoting jingoism or chauvinism, for those who disapprove. 

I write about American exceptionalism from another tradition that has four characteristics:
 
American exceptionalism is a concept that was shared by observers throughout the Western world, not just Americans. The Founders certainly believed that they were creating something of extraordinary significance. That’s why the motto on the Great Seal of the United States is novus ordo seclorum—”a new order of the ages.” But it was foreigners who took the lead in describing the United States and Americans as being unlike all other countries and peoples.

American exceptionalism does not imply American excellence or superiority. Americans tend to think that most of the traits of American exceptionalism are positive, but others, especially European elites, have always disagreed. Even those of us who think they are positive must acknowledge aspects of American exceptionalism that are problematic.

American exceptionalism is a fact of America’s past, not something that you can choose whether to “believe in” any more than you can choose whether to “believe in” the battle of Gettysburg. Understanding its meaning is indispensable for anyone who wants to understand what it has meant to be an American.

American exceptionalism refers to qualities that were first observed in the opening century of our

history. There’s no reason why they necessarily still apply today. The extent to which they still apply is an empirical question.

The current state of American exceptionalism cannot be captured solely through the measures I have presented. There are many ways in which the typical American personality is still recognizable around the world. America still attracts more immigrants than any other country. America still has the world’s largest economy, its armed forces enjoy unchallengeable military supremacy, and American democracy still gives its citizens more direct power to affect government policy than do most other democracies. America continues to transfer power peacefully across administrations and continues to abide by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution.

But the exceptionalism has eroded. That erosion would not have surprised the Founders. As Benjamin Franklin left Independence Hall on the final day of the Constitutional Convention, a woman asked him, “Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” 

Franklin’s answer epitomized the views of all the Founders. In the course of designing the Constitution, they had systematically studied the experience of every republic that had ever existed, so that their creation could resist the forces that had destroyed them. But they were under no illusions that their solutions were foolproof. They all knew that the political system they had created was fragile.
 
Half a century later, young Abraham Lincoln, just twenty-eight years old, stood before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, and gave the address that first brought him to public attention. His topic was “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.” In it, he reflected on the prospects of maintaining the American experiment. America was in no danger of being conquered from abroad, he observed, but at the time he spoke, 1838, the nation was facing a new environment. Until then, “the noblest cause — that of establishing and maintaining civil and religious liberty” — had been sustained by the living presence of the generation that fought the Revolution. But by 1838, all but a handful of them were dead. “They were a fortress of strength,” Lincoln told his audience, “but what the invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls.”
 
The silent artillery of time has been at work for many generations since Lincoln spoke. America still has exceptional aspects, but we are no longer the unique outlier that amused, amazed, and bemused the rest of the world from its founding through the first half of the twentieth century. Which of the changes that have diminished American exceptionalism are gains to be applauded? Which are losses to be mourned? Thinking through your answers to those questions is one of your most important duties as an American citizen. Only after you have reached those answers can you know what you want for America’s future.