Goerge washington........................
Europeans used Social Darwinism to justify empire building by their belief that they had the right and also the duty to bring the results of their progress to different countries. I believe that this would be the answer you're looking for :)
It is the basic American right of "due process" that has its origins in article 39 of the magna carta, since the Magna Carta claimed that no person should be stripped of rights of property without a lawful judgement.
It was the "Printing Press" that was developed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1454 and enabled ideas to spread quickly, since before this, almost all books had to be transcribed by hand, which made them relatively rare and expensive.