What makes the United States an exceptional nation - Essay Example

No indication of its success is complete without acknowledging that millions, if not billions, of people yearn to see its shores and become Americans themselves. It is a free country. But how did America become so exceptionally free? The answer must be found in its constitution. Compared to any other countries' constitutions, the American one strikes notes of freedom with every word. In its totalizing sense of humanity's place in a polity and it ingenious design, the American Constitution allowed an amazing country to be born out of the ashes of the Revolutionary War.

The Constitution is one of the great documents conceived of by men. It is important to understand how a constitution functions in a state. It is a document that describes how a government will function, and, perhaps more importantly, what individual rights cannot be limited by that government. It limits power and therefore prevents tyranny. Countries such as North Korea and Libya may have constitutions, but they are not followed. There the tyrant rules all and no one has any rights whatsoever.

In many ways America is an extraordinary concept—a state where the people are in charge. It is important to remember the reason why the Americans revolted against British rule and built their own country. They felt King George III was a tyrant. He refused to listen to the colonists and refused to grant them any autonomy. The men who wrote the Constitution found this to be unacceptable (Mason, 21). They wanted to try a new form of government: one for the people and by the people. Nothing like this had ever been done before.

Some of the constitution's great strengths are revealed when compared to another country's constitution. Canada, for example, has a different history than America, and a different constitution. Canadians did not revolt against the British: they were loyalists. Indeed, Queen Elizabeth II is still their head of state. Their Constitution—the most important part of which is called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms—is a nice document but it is much quieter than the American amendments to the Constitution (Tuohy, 39).

It is interesting to compare the preamble of both documents. Americans focus on Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Canadians on Peace, Order, and Good Government. Those two phrases just about say it all. Both documents have many of the same rights—such as the right to free speech—but the Charter has limits. Section 1 of the Charter permits any violation to be excused if it can be justified in a free and democratic society. Section 33 of the Charter permits the government to simply ignore the Charter when it wants to (Greene, 97).

Surely, these two excuses are vestiges of Canadians' willingness to listen to authority and accept the word of the King on such matters. The American Constitution has no such limits. One of the greatest things about the American Constitution is the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. This controversial provision is criticized by some, but ensures that no tyrant can ever impose his power on America (Garvey, 50). Americans have a right to weapons. Weapons are seen as a guarantor of freedom from capricious rule.

The Canadian document has no such right. In fact, guns in Canada are severely restricted. Canadians are used to having outsiders, such as the British, dictate what they should do. They meekly accept their orders because that's what their constitution tells them to do. Another interesting difference between the American Constitution and the Charter is section 15 of the latter. This enshrines affirmative action as a protected right. Some people also, appropriately, call affirmative action positive discrimination.

In America, people make their way in the world based