"In a speech given at the 1987 “We the People” Celebration,
which commemorated the 200th anniversary of the drafting of the
American Constitution, Reagan argued:
One scholar described our Constitution as a kind of covenant. It
is a covenant we’ve made not only with ourselves but with all of
mankind. . . . It is an oath of allegiance to that in man that is truly
universal, that core of being that exists before and beyond distinctions
of class, race, or national origin. It is a dedication of faith to the
humanity we all share, that part of each man and woman that most
closely touches on the divine.53
In his imagination, the ideas contained in the Declaration and
the Constitution were universally applicable. So too were the corresponding
institutions and political arrangements, such as those
that he mentioned in his speech to the British Parliament and
elsewhere. The United States had a mandate, a moral obligation, to
make real the possibilities for global political and social order. No
one needed to fear American power, because it would only be used
to serve the true interests of all and to realize their dreams for the
world. This is what Reagan had in mind when referring to America
52 Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the Annual Washington Conference of the
American Legion, February 22, 1983,” in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United
States: Ronald Reagan: 1983 (In Two Books), Book I—January 1 to July 1, 1983 (Washington,
D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1984), 265-66, 270.
53 Ronald Reagan, “Remarks at the ‘We the People’ Bicentennial Celebration in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 17, 1987,” in Public Papers of the Presidents of
the United States: Ronald Reagan: 1987 (In Two Books), Book II—July 4 to December 31,
1987 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1989), 1042"
http://www.nhinet.org/garrison21-1.pdf
The "scholar" that Reagan was referring to was Thomas Paine.
