The concept of moral diplomacy is based on the idea of American exceptionalism, a term first coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831.
The actual phrase "American exceptionalism" was originally coined by the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1929 as a critique of a revisionist faction of American communists that argued that the American political climate was unique and made it an 'exception' to certain elements of Marxist theory. 
