American exceptionalism is a view of the United States of America that the country sees its history as inherently different from that of other nations, stemming from its emergence from the American Revolution, becoming what the political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called "the first new nation" and developing a uniquely American ideology, "Americanism", based on liberty, equality before the law, individual responsibility, republicanism, representative democracy, and laissez-faire economics. This ideology itself is often referred to as "American exceptionalism." Second is the idea that America has a unique mission to transform the world. President Abraham Lincoln stated in the Gettysburg address during the American Civil War, in reference to the preservation of the United States itself, Americans have a duty to ensure, "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Third is the sense that America's history and its mission give it a superiority over other nations.
