I long ago learned that there were different reasons people (primarily from Europe as I understand it) came to the Americas.

There were those who came to explore.  Some explored and then explored some more.  Some explored and then stayed while others explored and then went home, perhaps to explore some more in some other place.

There were also those who came to exploit.  They were after gold, silver, land, and any other riches that this “new land” would offer to those with the aplomb to pursue with passion.  I suppose they felt some things were free for the taking while others had to be taken from those already in residence.

There were still others who came to escape- escape religious persecution, personal poverty, prison, and other unsavory alternatives.  I imagine that even with the dangers present it was still probably a nice place to escape to. 

Later still there were those who came to excel in places and ways that were improbable or even impossible in the places that they lived; some in Europe but then later in places all around the globe.  Excel if you had the gumption, wherewithal and tenacity (three words for you younger folks to look up) to do so.

There were those men of the cloth who came to explain and enlighten the natives who had no knowledge of our Christian God.  If their motivations or methods were misplaced it is likely unfair to judge from so many years in the future but proceed if you must.

Some would say that some or more than some came to enslave but if that were true then there would have been a much larger issue with Indian slavery than there was wouldn’t there?  No, that problem came later and it was with the willing and wilful  aid of others outside of the new land.

They came to educate (at least as their intention) and later to receive education; they came to more freely express themselves; they came to earn a better life and better living; they came to edify themselves and also others; they came to experience and engage and embrace and enjoy this new world;  they came to escape that which they could no longer endure; they came for equality and the opportunity to enfranchise themselves in this grand and great new and extraordinary experiment in free and unfettered enterpise;  they embarked on their expedition, their exemplary exodus, as emigrants, soon to be expatriates, to help establish, enhance, and enlarge a new type of freedom not before known in this world or any other; they came and they came; they came to what had been the edge of the world with high expectations and with hopes and dreams to enrich all that they had not before; they came to emancipate themselves from oppressive rule and worse; they came to employ extreme effort and worked to elicit and ensure the best possible outcomes for themselves and their families and peoples; they came to evolve, to emerge as something well beyond what was ever thought possible; they came to exclaim and exhort all they believed to all who would listen; they came and they came and they came.

One and all, rich and small, old and poor, young and destitute, man and child, mother and waif, hopeful and tired, oppressed and injured, nearly free, nearly freed.  They came and they came and they came.

They came to be exceptional.  And, in time, they did just that.  As no other time in the history of this world peoples came to a place to become exceptional and that is what they would be.  They would be exceptional.

Can we be that no more?  Should we be that no less?

Seems there are those who would respond no and then no again. 

Ask why, my fellow Americans, why one who has found the dream should then be allowed to take it away from any who would follow.  Why would one who has tell all others that they can have not? 

That, in itself, is truly exceptional is it not?