 Ah, we're back, we're live. This is Think Tech talking about history lens today with John David Ann, history professor at HPU. We get together a couple of weeks and we learn so much about history. It's very important that we do this, because, you know, as George Sontiana said. Well, something about repeating the past. Repeating the past. I'm not sure it's true. I would argue that Sontiana was actually wrong. But anyway, we don't have to debate that. No, no, no. Let's talk about our selected topic here, which is Abraham Lincoln and American Exceptionalism. Can you tell us what American Exceptionalism is? So exceptionalism and American exceptionalism is this idea that somehow the United States is special, it's unique, its mission in the world is kind of driven, maybe even by God. It's a nation that has this unique, special, very good kind of message for the world. That's American exceptionalism. Where did it come from? Well, when did it come? Right, right. So before we start talking about the history of American exceptionalism, let's talk about American exceptionalism today, because there are some very live debates going on today about American exceptionalism. The political right, the right wing, has for several decades said the left wing doesn't believe in American exceptionalism, this idea that America is a special place, has special mission. And so this has been kind of a, it's been a hammer that the American right has used against the American, the political left. The political hammer. That's what it is. And in debates, so I think really ever since the 1960s and the Vietnam War, then the left has been accused of a lack of patriotism and also of denying American exceptionalism. And the truth is that in, since Vietnam, then academics have kind of attacked American exceptionalism pretty seriously since that time period. But to really think about American exceptionalism, we can go to the most recent debate, which was when President Obama was in office. And then right wing Republicans accused him of not believing in American exceptionalism. So if we can bring up the slide in which Obama states his, so this is what Obama said in response to that accusation, he said, I believe in American exceptionalism just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. So Obama is making a very interesting, very sophisticated argument about American exceptionalism that it's a mythology, national mythology that various nations participate in, that each nation has its own kind of belief in its exceptionalism. And it's not an unalloyed endorsement of American exceptionalism. So is it true though? Does every nation have its own kind of exceptionalism? I think so. Part of nationalism, part of national identity. But even more so, it's a specific kind of nationalism in that it endorses the nation as a kind of special unique place that's got a special something, a special mission that it can bring to the rest of the world. So it could be different nations? It could be different. Yeah, it could be the same, it could be the same, but still there's this animating spirit that somehow, and also it could be connected to God. The language associated with American exceptionalism is sometimes quite religious, so you could have a situation where American exceptionalists talk about a God-given mission in the world, and this is certainly true historically, that you see this actually quite often. But today, really, it's focused on the American role in the world. I think another example is the neocons, the neoconservatives around the time of the invasion of Iraq. Before that, we're saying, hey, the United States has a role, it has a mission in the world to save the Middle East for democracy and freedom, and the neocons made this as part of the justification for going into Iraq and invading Iraq, so you see that kind of rhetoric, and so I suspect they weren't particularly pleased with Obama's very self-reflexive response to their question about whether or not he believed in American exceptionalism. When you go to Vietnam, and you have all the liberals who oppose Vietnam, huge numbers of people, including a lot of students who oppose Vietnam, you can say it's anti-exceptional, but really what it was is we think you're doing the wrong thing. We think the country hasn't got their act together, it's act together. So this is where the right kind of stole a march on the left and used their opposition to the war in Vietnam to accuse them of not being patriotic, and accuse them of not believing in American exceptionalism, because part of what Vietnam was about, if you believe in American exceptionalism, was saving the Vietnamese from the evil of communism and creating a small United States of America right there in Vietnam, so that's where it became politicized. It was politicized actually long before that, but still it became kind of hyper politicized. And for a less sophisticated audience, so to speak, it's really a statement that you're not patriotic. I don't believe in the country. Yes, at one level that's part of it, but honestly American exceptionalism goes deeper than that and connects to the history and the mythologies that make the nation supposedly special. So it's not just love for the nation, but it's actually more of an identity and a narrative that's created in a language that's created about the nation. So one of the things, of course, that happens then is the left is critical of American exceptionalism. If we can bring up the book by Andrew Basavich called The Limits of Power, yes. So this is a book published in 2009, and notice the title Andrew Basavich is The Limits of Power, the End of American Exceptionalism. He's arguing that the United States in the post World War II era has abandoned its exceptional mission and has become a superpower and imperialist like the British, like the Germans and the French and other European powers, and has really abandoned its ideals of freedom in favor of hegemony. So one part of American exceptionalism is the academics in the post Vietnam era have really attacked American exceptionalism. So it's created an atmosphere between the political left and the political right where, well, the Republicans will say, hey, are you exceptional enough? And Democrats might even say to the opposition, hey, are you exceptional? You believe in American exceptionalism. And apparently President Trump doesn't think American exceptionalism goes far enough. It's too limiting. And he didn't really explain what that means, but that's kind of par for the course. Well, he didn't make it an American exceptionalism. He diminished it, in a sense, by comparing it with exceptionalism in other countries. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we really don't know what Donald Trump thinks about American exceptionalism, except that he thinks that we haven't gone far enough. Well, that's a mixed bag. He's an isolationist. He doesn't want to be the world's helper or keeper. Right. He wants to be a global leader of humanity, whatnot. At the same time, he wants to be Mr. Big. Right. So it's hard to, you know, it becomes a definitional problem. I like the way you said it. Exactly what he wants. Mr. Big. Yes. Yes, no, exactly. So yeah, there's real confusion, real confusion with Donald Trump on this issue. But when we think about American exceptionalism, I think it's, you know, important to go back and study the history of it, because really American exceptionalism encapsulates historical identity and historical narrative. So if we can go back to really the kind of the founding moment of American exceptionalism, it really begins with the sailing of the Puritans across the Atlantic to land in Massachusetts and start the Massachusetts Bay County and onboard the Arabella, which was the ship that they sailed on then. Their leader, John Winthrop, who later became governor of Massachusetts, he gave a sermon. The sermon is called A Model of Christian Charity. And in that sermon, he talked about a city on a hill. So if we can bring up the slide of John Winthrop and the Puritans. This is a fascinating, it's a fascinating slide, there it is. So John Winthrop said, in that sermon he said, for we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world. Now, interesting about that sermon is it's quite negative if they fail, right? Winthrop says, we can be a city on a hill, in other words we can be a shining example for the rest of the world, but if we fail, we will be a cursed people in the rest of the world will look at us and say, oh, these idiots, they didn't make it. Yeah, that's so interesting, so that makes it an imperative. It does make it an imperative, right? So the pressure is on after that point, the Americans, if they believe in Winthrop's language, have to be a shining example. They have to be not only unique and exceptional, but an example for the rest of the world. It's a beautiful idea, except for the reference to religion. If you take the reference to religion out of it, you can't take it out of it. I guess you can't. I guess you can't. Too bad. Winthrop was a pastor, he's a deeply religious man, but I guess the question is, if God is in there, and Winthrop's statement, what happens when you get to the Constitution and you have separation of church and state? Right, right, right. So the thing is, there's separation of church and state, but there's never an abandonment of the belief that the United States is blessed by God with an exceptional mission in the world, and is really chosen by God as an exceptional country. That kind of religious language stays in ideas of American exceptionalism, right through the revolutionary period, and into the early national period, right through into really the late 19th, early 20th century. It's only really in the post... It's not there anymore. It's only in the post-World War II period that religious illusions within American exceptionalism are taken out. They slowly disappear from the language. What about the resurrection of religion, though, in the last, what, 10 years, 15 years? We have so much more religion going on in the country now. Is that a resurrection of this earlier idea? Well, I think for one thing I don't think... I would disagree with you, actually. I think there's not as much... You can look at polls showing that Americans see themselves as becoming more secular as a people, and young people in particular, about 65% of all young people have never actually been to a church. So actually, what I would argue is that actually fits with the erosion of religious language in American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism has become shorn of its religious associations. But in the time of Winthrop, and in the time of the revolutionary leaders, and in the time of Abraham Lincoln, the religious language was very much a part of American exceptionalism. The beliefs that God had somehow chosen us to be this... On the inside, a nation that's special, committed to certain values, liberty, freedom. And then on the outside, a nation that's an example for the rest of the world, Winthrop's idea of a city on a hill. The chosen nation. Yeah, chosen nation, yes. So it's an interesting way to think about the country. And in Winthrop's language stays very powerful in the first part of the history of the nation. So it's a very powerful thing. It's permeated. I mean, even... Of course, I have to agree with you that there's not so much religion around anymore. But the essential self-perception, the identity of the nation does include this notion that it is the chosen nation. My mother used to say to me when I was a kid, she said, Thank God you were born in the United States. It is the greatest country on Earth. So illusions to American greatness, that connects to this older idea of American exceptionalism. There's no doubt about that, that somehow the United States has become a great nation because of this special mission. And it really is... What happens at a certain point is the language of American exceptionalism becomes kind of detached from the historical narrative, the historical realities. It becomes basically whatever you want it to become. So in the case of the Trump campaigns, you know, make America great again, then is this American exceptionalism? Is it American hegemony? I mean, what is this exactly? It becomes sully that becomes... Anything you want it to be. Yeah. Essentially the... Different for different people. That's right. So the language has become very muddled, the language of American exceptionalism. One thing is very clear in politics is that if you're... If you want to be on a national political stage and somebody asks you, do you believe in American exceptionalism, then you better have an answer ready. Whether it's Obama's answer that's kind of self-reflexive, while all nations believe in American exceptionalism, or whether it's yes, freedom and liberty for all, this kind of an answer. Because it is still, even though there's been a tremendous erosion of exceptionalist ideas in the United States, it's still something that has political currency. Oh, can you imagine if a politician gets up and says, no, I don't believe the United States is exceptional. I don't think it's a great country at all. Right, right. So this is the issue really. When we look at the history of American exceptionalism, we can see it eroding from the post-World War II period, as I think you can argue for American nationalism more generally, as the United States became more and more involved in the world, then its identity as a special place, as an exceptional nation, became eroded. As the world changed, as other places in the world emerged after the war, as we collectively, globally, became conscious of them, then in a relative sense, the United States was not necessarily at the top of the heap anymore. Right, right. But maybe still an exceptional nation. But American troops and the American military staying at its bases after World War II, staying in the world, all of those military bases, all of the interests that the United States now had as a superpower, made it much more difficult to define itself against others and define itself in a way that made the United States special. Post-World War II period, the United States came to look like more of just kind of your garden-variety hegemon. And so garden-variety hegemon. OK, OK, yeah, it's worth another quote. But the history of it is fascinating. And to do that, maybe we should go back and look at some important kind of stages. So after John went through it, and after the Revolutionary period, when American exceptionalism becomes defined in less religious terms through freedom and liberty, through the Declaration of Independence, shall we say. After that, then American exceptionalism becomes embedded in the identity of the nation. But the nation is on the horns of a terrible contradiction because, of course, you have the exceptional nation of freedom and liberty. And then you also have a nation of slaveholders. So this makes for a real problem. And what it means is that the Civil War period is going to be crucial in defining kind of the next stage of American exceptionalism, because the war is about American identity. And in fact, it's got to be a factor that leads to the Civil War. Because some people are saying, we're exceptional. We can't have slavery. Exactly. So this makes the argument more caustic somehow. Yeah, it makes it more of a challenging argument to make. And some Americans become quite concerned. Lincoln is one of those who becomes quite concerned about the state of American exceptionalism. And Lincoln refers to American exceptionalism or the American nation as an experiment. It's an experiment in republicanism, because the nations of Europe, of course, are monarchies. So it's this experiment going forward. So Lincoln has great concerns that this nation won't survive, that it will die. The experiment will die. And with it, American exceptionalism will die. And he believes, like John Winthrop, that when American exceptionalism dies, then actually the monarchs in Europe are probably cheering. And they don't particularly like countries that have had revolution. That's right. Republican countries, revolutionary countries. So the monarchies are cheering. And there's a sense among other nations that, well, this experiment failed. We don't have to go back to that. So Lincoln was quite concerned. He understood the Winthrop thing. He understood. He watched it happen. He was a very smart guy. He was a political genius. Absolutely. So he probably, I'm guessing, you can confirm to me, he probably used this whole notion. He was selling it. He was selling American exceptionalism in becoming popular, in having his will done in Congress and in the nation. Yes, he was a true believer. There's no doubt about it. He was a true believer in the founding principles, and therefore definitely endorsed American exceptionalism. But Lincoln's a candy politician as well, so it wasn't just American exceptionalism. It was the idea that if this experiment fails, if the Civil War goes the other way, the nation's become broken up. And this experiment in Republicanism and democracy fails, then Lincoln would have felt like, oh, I failed not just the United States of America, but I failed the world. So there's definitely a strong linkage between Lincoln and John Winthrop. He will buy into that. And yes, eventually, yes, I think so. So the first couple of years of the war, the war is being fought on the basis of restoring the union. Soldiers join up on the basis of restoring the union. And so the union itself takes on this kind of inviolable, sacred entity, right? And I think these soldiers who are shedding their blood, they actually believe in this. They have to. If they don't believe in it, why would they be shedding their blood? They're not fighting for slavery in the first couple of years. They're fighting for their nation. And so I think they do. I think they believe in it. And I think that's why the war is so vicious. It's about these competing versions of this nation. Historians have argued that the Confederates are also fighting for an identity. They're fighting for a nation. And they're fighting not necessarily for a Confederate nation, but maybe for their chance to come back into the union and have their version of the union succeed. Like different terms. Yeah, that's right. A different kind of exceptionalism than the American exceptionalism of freedom and liberty. Although they would say no, it's still based upon the Declaration of Independence and liberty. And the real slave holders are the northern capitalists, the northern industrialists. The word union carries so much with it. Not only the fact that the country was called the United States, but I think there's almost a biblical resonance there in the word union. We are together. And you can sell that to a lot of people based on their fundamental appreciation of the world. Yeah, certainly the nation is quite religious in this time period. You have the second great awakening in which about 25% of the population is converted to evangelical Christianity. So religious or what we would call eschatological language is actually fairly commonplace in secular speeches, in the speeches of politicians. So this is not really unusual at all. And it comes into a lot of different places. So when did it come out with Lincoln? I mean, for example, we talked before the show about the Gettysburg Address. Is exceptionalism in the Gettysburg Address? Oh, I think so. I think it's definitely in the Gettysburg Address. But the problem for us historically is we have to get to the Gettysburg Address. And in order to do that, we have to look at 1863. And so 1863 is a turning point in the war. OK, why do I need to talk about war when we're talking about American exceptionalism? Because if the North loses the Battle of Gettysburg, if the North loses the Battle of Vicksburg, then Lincoln has no chance to transform the nation with a speech at Gettysburg. That's why. So the battles are actually quite important. So the Battle of Gettysburg, let's take that first. And so we can look at, if we bring up the map of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Battle of Gettysburg takes place right around the time of the Fourth of July, the celebration of American independence. And so it's between July 1st and July 3rd is the battle. And the Battle of Gettysburg is so important because this is the second time that Robert Lee has brought his army into the North, into Northern territory, this time into Pennsylvania. Which was a free state. That's correct. And so the Union, once again, has to fight against this Southern army in Northern territory. If Lee succeeds, I think it's quite possible that the foreign powers would have recognized the Confederacy. The turn of the tide. That's right. So it's a very important battle. And so the Union actually is able to fall back into positions that resemble a fish hook. If we can bring that up once more, we can see. Then you see the shape of the blue part. That's like a fish hook. This is an exceptionally strong battle formation for fighting a battle because you can move troops between it very easily. Troops between the different parts of the fish hook. And so over a couple of days, then the Union fought off offensive after offensive. And really, in the process, decimated Lee's army. Lee lost about half of his army in this battle. Yeah, it was a very serious loss for Lee. And so this battle, which ended on July 3, along with the Battle of Vicksburg. Now can we bring up the Battle of Vicksburg slide as well? The Battle of Vicksburg slide, this battle ends on July 4. So you have these two major battles. This is a battle on the Mississippi River. And it's a very, my apologies for the complexity of the slide. But if you follow the blue line, that's Ulysses S. Grant's army. You follow that blue line from Louisiana on the left-hand side and then follow it as Grant crosses from Louisiana into Mississippi and then marches his troops to Jackson, Mississippi, and then back towards Vicksburg. Then this is one of the most successful battle campaigns of the war. And it ends with the capture of Vicksburg and then the capture of all of the Mississippi River by the Union. This means that the Confederacy is now divided into two. And it means that the Union looks like it's winning the war. So Battle of Gettysburg, Battle of Vicksburg. And together, those two give Lincoln and his administration a real boost. I mean, this is. He's waiting for this. It's absolutely. And as you say, this sets the stage to make a fairly lofty proclamation. I think so. Lincoln has been thinking about the proclamation of the slavery proclamation that he did in January 1st, 1863. And so that was limited, right? But now Lincoln is thinking further about the issue of slavery in the war. And Lincoln has decided that, look, fighting for the Union is not going to win the war. We need to transform the purpose of the war. And I think Lincoln starts to believe that the war is really about ending slavery. It's really about what Lincoln calls a new birth of freedom. And so let's talk about the Gettysburg address. If we can bring that up. This is really kind of Lincoln's moment. And yeah, I mean, this is the moment when Lincoln says, look, this war has been fought on the basis of a union. Now we're going to fight this war on the basis of slavery and freedom. And Lincoln. Exceptionalism. That's right. Yes, this is a classic statement of American exceptionalism. My apologies, it's a little bit blurry. So Lincoln talks about a new birth of freedom. And when he discusses this, what he's talking about is the end of slavery. A new freedom in which there will be no slavery in the land. It's a redefinition of the country. It is. It's a redefinition of the country. It's a transformation of the purpose of the war. And it's really something that allows Lincoln to push forward on the ending of slavery towards the end of his life. In 1865, when Congress takes up the question of ending slavery with a constitutional amendment, then this is at Lincoln's behest. Lincoln is saying, we need to go forward with this. And it's really amazing. We study this in school. And I don't realize until now with you, John, how critically important Lincoln was to American history and therefore the world. And how he did change and how brilliant he was in his vision and his ability to change the whole direction of the country. It's really seminal in our nation and our world. And I think this is why we consider the Gettysburg Address today one of the most important or maybe the most important speech in the history of the country. Because Lincoln took a situation that was a contradiction within the founding principles of the nation. And then he drew out the sacrifice of the soldiers. He talks about the sacrifice of the soldiers in the Gettysburg Address. And then he says, we're going to have a new birth of freedom. And that means that the rest of the war is about ending slavery. And next time, we're going to talk about the rest of the war. Right at times, John. Exactly. Good. Thank you so much. Really appreciate this. No problem. It changes my view of everything. And I hope you guys out there appreciate it to the same way. All right. Aloha. Excellent.