Even cannibals can be exceptional!

Glenn Reynolds writes in the New York Post about American exceptionalism.

What is exceptional about America — at least, what’s been exceptional up to now — is the extent to which individuals were allowed to keep the fruits of their own labor instead of having them seized by people in power for their own purposes. The insight behind American exceptionalism is that people work harder and better for themselves, as free people, than they do as servants for some alleged communal good.

Reynolds notes the contribution of Thomas Dale, a newly appointed colonial governor in the Jamestown colony.

Dale quickly instituted reforms, allowing settlers three-acre plots of land that they could work for themselves.

According to Virginia historian Matthew Page Andrews, “As soon as the settlers were thrown upon their own resources, and each freeman had acquired the right of owning property, the colonists quickly developed what became the distinguishing characteristic of Americans — an aptitude for all kinds of craftsmanship coupled with an innate genius for experimentation and invention.”

Read the whole thing here.