Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 1994
ISSN
0742-7115
Publisher
University of Minnesota
Language
en-US
Abstract
I. INTRODUCTION: "AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM" There is an academic movement afoot-one with a long historical pedigree-to attribute the vitality of the American constitutional order to "American exceptionalism." The most prominent representative of this school of thought is Bruce Ackerman, whose We the People opens with a jeremiad against the "Europeanization" of American constitutional theory and urges us as Americans to "look inward" to rediscover our distinctive patterns, practices, and ideals.2 He maps the terrain of theory as being divided into monists ("Anglophiles"), rights foundationalists ("Germanophiles"), and dualists (red-blooded Americans).3 Only dualists have the "strength" to declare our American independence from British and German models and philosophers.4 Thus, as Sanford Levinson observes, Ackerman is reopening the question about "American exceptionalism" from Europe.
Recommended Citation
James E. Fleming,
We the Exceptional American People
,
in
Constitutional Commentary
355
(1994).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/2689
