National Principles
A government is, fundamentally, no different than any other organization in regard to the existence of a reason for its formation- at the time of its founding, it is given a defined purpose. Every government with a constitution, and indeed many without constitutions, even leading back to the earliest tribal councils and chieftains, has had a purpose, either a commonly understood one or an explicitly stated one. For instance, the government of Turkey, from its founding by Mustafa Kemal, has been a government intended to protect, preserve, and aid the Turkish people, their children, and their culture in perpetuity. As such, its priority has always been intended to be the Turkish people of Anatolia.
If, continuing this example, the government of Turkey were to openly reject all Turkish culture and the Turkish people, and elevate non-Turks above Turks, it would be in open contradiction with the purpose for which it was founded. In such a case, it would be truthfully said that that government is no longer the rightful government of Turkey.
The Turkish government, as with all governments, is defined by an explicit purpose. If the government of a country does not embody the purpose for which it was originally founded, it is not the legitimate government of that country. It cannot be the rightful government of that nation unless it shares the purpose for which that nation created it.
The order of the world has virtually always been that governments are created by a group of people with a shared descent and culture for the purpose of protecting and preserving that shared descent and culture. Virtually every country on Earth is architected on this same framework for the purpose of their government- the government of Japan is created for the Yamato Japanese people, China the Han Chinese, Serbia the Serbians, Greece the Greeks, and so on. These governments, as well as all others, are explicitly, often in their names, founding documents, the rhetoric used by their statesmen, and the language and customs found in government, intended to primarily serve the group that gave rise to it.
This governmental architecture, wherein a government is established to serve primarily a defined tribe, nation, or people with a shared cultural heritage and their posterity, is ubiquitous to all races, continents, and eras, from the native tribes of the Americas to the modern era. Even in the great multi-ethnic empires, such as China, Austria, and the Russian Tsardom, it has always been clear which group is the primary concern of the government- China has always been dominated by the Han Chinese, and Austria and Russia the Austro-Germans and Russians, respectively. Preserving their people, their culture, and their posterity has throughout history always been the primary concern of legitimate governments.
Furthermore, it has always been true that there is a certain rigidity to these groups. Not everyone can simply think, believe or act Han enough to be Han. These groups, which we call ethnicities, are somewhat rigidly defined and are not open for expansion. Someone who is Croatian cannot ever “become” Han Chinese. For this reason the principle of national self-determination, which stated that every ethnicity deserves to have its own inviolable nation-state, was established, and this is why rule by foreigners is despised- a government established for a different ethnic group will, understandably so, place the needs of that group above any foreigners it may rule, because that is the purpose for which it was made. All peoples want a government that will put their needs first, which is why, for instance, the Balkan nations have been famously unhappy when ruled by foreigners.
However, there is an exception to this model of governance, where governments are established solely for a rigid block of people and their descendants. It is the United States of America.
The American Exception
It may be accurately said of the United States of America that, with respect to the purpose, definition, and constituents of its government, its governmental architecture is completely unique in the world. This may be seen in perhaps the six most important words in American history:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
-The Declaration of Independence
While at first glance, this may seem to be a general statement of fact, it is much more than that. This part of the preamble to the founding document of the United States establishes a fundamentally different governing philosophy than any government before or after.
The Declaration of Independence is not simply an empty declaration of platitudes. It is an announcement of the creation of a new nation. Since, up to this point, virtually every nation had been defined in the aforementioned way of ethnicity, the writers of the Declaration had to communicate America’s difference from that system. “[T]hat all men are created equal,” in the context of establishing what an American is, means not that all men are the same, but that all men can be equally American. This then begs the question of what, if not ethnicity, defines an American. The Declaration then lays out ideological principles that it hopes will define America- the “self-evident” truths that it proclaims are not only universal statements, they are laying out the values of an American. In this way, the American is defined by Enlightenment philosophy, his belief in “unalienable rights,” his commitment to “consent of the governed,” and his belief that these rights are inherent to him, given by a power greater than any on Earth.
This is why “all men are created equal” is a revolutionary statement, as all Americans have doubtless had drilled into our heads. Thomas Jefferson was far from the first person that century, or in human history, to say so. It is the unique meaning of that phrase in the context of creating America that makes it revolutionary. In the same way that the Japanese government was created for the Japanese people, defined by their shared descent and culture, and likewise all other governments of the Old World, America was created for the Americans- except that the Americans are defined not by a shared ethnicity or race or creed, but by the shared belief in the principles the Declaration outlines. That is the exceptional and revolutionary part of those words- they create a fundamentally different nation than anything that has been built before or since.
This is the American Experiment- not just democracy, not just e pluribus unum, but the ideal of an enlightened nation, the pure Republic, of citizens from all races, creeds, and origins, united by their common expression “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and that their government’s purpose is to “secure these rights… deriving [its] just powers from the consent of the governed.”
This is the definition of America, the fabric of our society. America cannot be anything but this. The average American would likely hesitate, if not outright refuse, to call “America” a nation that openly rejects all principles of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, does not have the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as we know it, and stands against everything he knows America stands for, no matter whether it exists in the same geographic place. That is because that nation would not be America, even if it did exist in the same geographic space, just the same as a government of and for the Greeks could not be the Turkish government, even if it had the borders of Turkey- it contradicts the definition of that state.
America is exceptional, for exactly this reason. It is the greatest experiment in the history of the world- whether so many people of all races and creeds can live in one nation, united by their belief in the principles our Declaration of Independence outlines. It has often been said that we must “make America great again,” that we have strayed too far from the ideals of our founding fathers. Any attempt to return to our founding principles must necessarily involve a reawakening of our national identity, of American values and American civilization, of our American identity and nationalism. In order to succeed in this endeavor, we must remember what it means to be an American, what makes our country great- for after all, if we do not know what we are preserving, how can we possibly preserve it?