A Shining City on a Hill: American Exceptionalism and the Supreme Court's Practice of Relying on Foreign Law

INTRODUCTION 1336 I. THE SUPREME COURT AND FOREIGN SOURCES OF LAW: TWO CENTURIES OF PRACTICE 1341 II. THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY OF EXCEPTIONALISM: FOUR CENTURIES OF EXCEPTIONALIST RHETORIC AND SELF-DEFINITION . 1344 A. The Origins of American Exceptionalism in Europe and the American Colonies 1345 B. American Exceptionalism in the Founding Era 1352 C. American Exceptionalism in the Nineteenth Century 1359 D. American Exceptionalism in the Twentieth Century 1366 III. THE REALITY OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM: A SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH THE UNITED STATES HAS BECOME AN EXCEPTIONAL NATION 1373 A. Observations of Foreign Travelers 1374 B. The Ideology of Being an American 1375 1. Crime and Divorce Rates 1375 2. Patriotism and Optimism 1376 C. Social Egalitarianism and Libertarian Economics 1377 D. Religion 1379 E. A Moralistic Country 1382 1. Prohibition of Alcohol, Drugs, and Smoking 1384 2. American Moralism and the Paranoid Style 1385 F. Private Philanthropy 1386 G. Small Public Sector 1387 H. No Socialists, Anti-Union Sentiment, and a Large Conservative Movement 1389 I. Military and Foreign Affairs Power 1392