Contained within this unique document defined the conditions for free people with free rights, not from the government but from their creator.15 This was a unique structure, whereby the people uphold freedom from their creator, and they in turn pass and grant rights to the government. In George Washington's farewell address he said that the Constitution "has a just claim to [our] confidence and respect," because it is "the offspring of our choice, uninfluenced and unawed, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy, and containing, within itself, a provision for its own amendment."16 Moreover William Gladstone described it as "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."17.
Interestingly however, in Mila Versteeg and Emily Zakin's essay they dispute whether the constitution really is exceptional after all. They state that narrow focus on the constitution "has distorted our understanding of American constitutionalism and inflated our sense of America's difference."18 However what is important for this essay is the proof that both this inflated sense of uniqueness (which leads to exceptionalism) exists and also that it extends from the constitution. In order to understand exceptionalism in the Cold War, it is important to understand that it is rooted in the values that were established from the foundation of America. So when the USSR's spread of communism threatened these values, it is easy to see that the ideology that encompassed them would play an important role for the Americans in the ideological front line of the Cold War. .
How Exceptionalism Played a Part in the Cold War.
By 1947 the parameters of what would become the Cold War were clear for all to see. The world set as the chessboard between two international superpowers as players. However American involvement was not once as desired as one might think.