Another amendment requires the government to "rule the country by law, " the first-ever such reference in the Constitution.

CNN: AN IDEOLOGICAL MILESTONE

It is bolstered by the view that we are a country comfortable with the rule of law (with a few war on terror exceptions), an absence of rigid class distinctions and discriminations (at least lately), and an underlying tendency to do the right thing when the right thing needs doing (although, as Churchill remarked, often only after exhausting all other alternatives).

FORBES: FATCA: the End of American Exceptionalism or Merely the Next Chapter?