American Exceptionalism & A Nation of Transgressions

Understanding the True History of Our Nation

The history of mankind is one of war, bloodshed, and oppression. From the moment mankind took its first steps, atrocities followed closely behind. America’s history is no different. Its founding is undeniably linked to slavery. For over a century following slavery, America continually failed to live up to its founding ideals by only affording white men with our unalienable rights while simultaneously engaging in racism, sexism, and bigotry. These are the undisputable historical facts of our nation. 

The Founding of Our Republic. In our Declaration, Jefferson wrote “All men are created equal” while owning more than 600 slaves. Many believe Jefferson bypasses the inconvenient truth of slavery. Did he believe his words or was he a racist who determined that all men didn’t include the enslaved? Just like people of today, Jefferson and our founders were complex people full of contradictions, hypocrisies and were victims of their time.  In Jefferson’s unedited draft, submitted to the 2nd Continental Congress, he wrote:

“he[1] [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce…”

This does not sound like a man who believed in slavery. So how can we explain this?

Jefferson and many founders owned slaves; therefore, how could they believe that all men are created equal. When Jefferson’s father in-law died, he inherited a near crippling amount of debt along with his father in-law’s slaves, which made him one of the largest slave owners in Virginia[2]. Jefferson was never able to pay off this debt, and eventually would go completely broke. Throughout his life and reaffirmed in his personal letters, Jefferson made it known he was against slavery and took many actions to end it[3]. As the third President (1807) he banned the importation of slaves into America, believing that it could lead to the eventual end of slavery.

An intelligent study of our founders will show that most agreed that slavery was a moral depravity and contrary to the principles of our Revolution. However, most of the American populous was pro-slavery. Our founders were forced to decide between (1) focusing on the short term by fighting to end slavery and risk destabilizing the loose bonds between states which was needed to overthrow a tyrannical king and form the only democracy in the world or (2) taking a long-term approach by focusing on overthrowing the shackles of oppression with the deep hope that the future generations would end slavery and expand mankind’s unalienable rights to all its citizens. Within the shelter of American walls most can only theoretically understand the cruelty of the past and most lack a fundamental understanding of current acts of barbarity that occur in the world. Should the founders have took such a hard stance that they would lose all political influence and risk the only republic in the world?

It is easy to sit in 2022 and proclaim, “the founders owned slaves therefore they believed in slavery,” or “they should have risk it all to end slavery”. In a century from now, what will people claim about you?

“Americans in 2022 claimed to be for freedom and equality, but: their phones were essentially produced by a form of slavery, they supported dictators in Saudi Arabia and China, did nothing to stop Russia from murdering innocent Ukrainians, and they turned a blind eye to sex slavery within the US. It is undeniable that the people were only pretending to believe in liberty so history would look favorably upon them instead of the savages they truly were. – New York Times 7/4/2122

The history of every single country that has ever existed, before America, is one of dictatorships, murder, and oppression. To judge any human or nation it must be done on a relative basis and in their given time-period; since there is not a perfect person nor has there ever been a utopian nation. The fact is, in 1776 our founders set in motion the great liberation of mankind. At the time they provided more people with more freedom than at any other time in human history. Our Declaration and Constitution provided the foundation for freedom to grow in the US; without them civil rights, woman’s suffrage and marriage equality would NOT have been possible. Our founding documents not only ensured that liberty would expand to all Americans but showed the world what was possible. This led to the fall of European monarchs, helped democracy spread in Africa, Asia, and the Americas[4]. Our spirit and people stopped the bloodshed in two world wars saving millions of lives and returning democracy to Europe, which was completely eliminated during WWII. Clearly this cannot be the story of an evil nation.

Ideologies Prevent a True Assessment of the Past, Present and Stifle Progress.  There are two predominant methods in which people have decided to evaluate America’s past: (I) the deplorable method; and (II) the ignorance method. In the deplorable method, people are resolved to boiling down our founding and history to its most evil parts while deliberately ignoring the founders’ own words, unsuccessful actions, and our great achievements. They never stop to think, “what if America never happened.” They are repulsed by any conversation about America that starts with praise. They ignore the undeniable basic fact that “Great” Britain and the “utopian” land of Europe are responsible for slavery. European nations are responsible for all oppression of African Americans that has occurred in our nation. Slavery existed for over 150 years in America before we got our independence. Our founders inherited this crime against humanity from “Great” Britain. The deplorable method suspends rational thought and ignore facts to jump to the conclusion that America was founded on racism and is irredeemably racist. They fail to try and expand their “logic” to other nations in other periods. Should Italy feel guilt over Emperor Claudius’s invasion of England in 43 A.D.?

The ignorance method is no better. They cannot tolerate hearing any negatives of America. They act as if America has done no wrong or any wrong doings have no implications in today’s society. They ignore the fact that segregation and governmental policies have generational impacts, and that the removal of such policies doesn’t end the impact at the same time. This is most certainly wrong. I argue that both groups do not utilize their preferred methods in their everyday life while assessing those around them, demonstrating great hypocrisies.

How To Move Past Our Past. To believe that the core foundation of our Republic is rooted in slavery and evil; is to ignore the fact that before America the world was run by dictators and tyrants alike. They are ignoring the simple fact that America has been a great positive impact on the world, doing more good than harm. They implicitly believe that the sins of the father should be passed down to the son. To believe that people today have any responsibility for past transgressions is to believe in inherent sin. Only a willfully gross ignorant person can believe that the core foundation of our republic is rooted in slavery, racism, and oppression.  It is the same level of disgusting ignorance that pretends the actions of the past have no impact today.

However, if we are to try and move forward as a nation then we must equally recognize the truth in American Exceptionalism while simultaneously acknowledging that our four fathers made mistakes and we can do better. Acknowledging both does not diminish the terrible acts of the past nor the fact that our American experiment has helped to bring freedom and liberty to more people than in any other time in human history, both can be simultaneously true. The phrase “America is the greatest country in the world, and we can be better,” is by far the most effective way to get people to recognize our modern issues and get them to work to solve them. We can and must know our past transgressions and the lingering impact of prior faults, but we cannot dwell on the past. Racism, sexism, and hatred are not THE STORY of America, but sadly it is part of it. 

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[1] Jefferson blamed Georgia and South Carolina for removing this passage. & National Archives

[2] Jefferson inherited 40 slaves from his father and 175 slaves from his father in-law (77%)

[3] (1) 1778, Jefferson drafted a Virginia Bill that prohibited importation of slaves;  (2) drafted and proposed the 1784 ordinance that would ban the expansion of slavery in new territories of the North and South after 1800 (lost by 1 vote in congress, but led to the passage of the Northwest ordinance ), (3) outlined a plan to end slavery; and (4) as the third President (1807) he banned the importation[3] of slaves into America believing that it could lead to the eventual end of slavery.

[4] In 2021, there were ~195 country, 83 (43%) considered free, 56 (29%) considered partially free and 56 (29%) not free