One thread runs through all of the above mentioned principle ideas and is on the mind of the common American and his leaders nowadays just as it has been ever since the War of Independence. It is namely the quasi-dogmatic conviction that the American people excel among all other people on the face of the earth.

   Again it was Thomas Paine, the Scottish immigrant, who spread the idea of their distinc tive position among the population of the 13 colonies: America’s geographic situation visualized „the concept of two spheres: that England belonged to the Eu- ropean system and that America belonged to its own.“[31]  This peculiar situation was further intensified by its effects upon the nation's fate. „Free security was based on nature’s gift of three bodies of water interposed between this country and any other power that might constitute a serious menace to its safety.“[32]  The United States lacked the burden of military defense and the anxiety about expansionist neighbors and could devote all its energies to the accumulation of capital or the settlement of new territories. A federal system of governing could be created and democracy more deeply anchored in the hearts of the population. This provided
for another perspective of the exclusivity of the USA; it enjoyed a freer and more broadly based system of government than any other nation. „In the United States civilization had reached a stage where one could see a concrete manifestation of human progress.“[33]

   While Europe waged wars and destroyed whole countries over and over again, put down revolutions and subjugated other people, America’s remote situation rendered the necessity to take hard decisions non-existent. The United States „lived for one century not only in the illusion but in the reality of innocency in [its] foreign relations“[34] ,concludes historian Reinhold Niebuhr, and over time came to per- ceive itself as the only „country standing for peaceful relations among nations and for civilized manners of dealing with other peoples.“[35]

    The sense of being exceptional concerning secular qualities was once more joined by the invocation of supernatural force. The firm belief of a godly benevolence was not solely or necessarily coupled with the missionary call. In the national debates about American expansion it was maintained that „the same laws of history need not govern Americans, a special people with a unique destiny“.[36]   It would thus be not endangering domestic liberty to pursue greatness abroad as it had been in the empires of old.

   Americans and their country were one of a kind, like nothing the face of the earth had ever seen before. And with this conviction firmly written into its mind, every new generation of Americans would view the outside world and judge it accor- dingly.
 
 

All of the principles and ideals enumerated above had at least 70 years time to become publicly accepted before The American Century. The generation of leaders and decision-makers that began the work of shaping a century of their own had been educated without exception in these basics of American foreign relations. Throughout The American Century the common man (if interested in foreign affairs !) as well as the Chief Executive, Democrats as well as Republicans, Isolatio- nists as well as Interventionists bore these in mind when assessing the relations the U.S. was to enjoy with the outside world.

   Only the distinct emphasis they put on the single principles made for the different conclusions to which they came.