Fools on the Hill

John Winthrop, a wealthy Puritan lawyer and would-be theologian, might be styled a founder of “American exceptionalism” before the U.S.A. was born. His sermon, A Model of Christian Charity, contained the line made famous in modern times by President Ronald Reagan, “we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

Winthrop’s role in the exceptionalism meme for the nation that would make a corrupt bargain with slavery is appropriate, since he’s said to have kept three Pequots as slaves after he engineered the military defeat of their tribe. Most of the male Pequots were traded away for Negro slaves, illustrating the ongoing problem keeping Indian slaves: if they escaped, they had somewhere to go.

Winthrop’s theological view of land titles converged nicely with colonial desires. Any land not being put to immediate use was free for the taking, and take the colonists did. God conveniently favored farmers over hunter-gatherers.

All of that admitted, I’m still not certain the United States is lacking in the good kind of exceptionalism.

Like all revolutions, the American one did violence in the name of “the people.” Some people counted more than others, and they were sorted by skin color, by religion, by gender — all as they are today. “The people” meant white, male property owners. The hypocrisy was almost as thick as that in the English Magna Carta, in which rights were guaranteed to feudal lords at a time when most of “the people” were property of those lords, the…