Building American citizenship: a matter of rights or of races?

As proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, US citizenship is based on natural law. However, the very language of the Declaration also points to the presence of another ideological dimension, alongside natural law and the social contract. The Declaration gives its allegiance to “nature” and to “nature's God”, which are not simply the rational basis of moral laws to be enshrined in positive law, but also express an order reflective of divine will, which establishes distinctions and hierarchies even within such “nature”, including human nature. The alliance, or even the fusion, of the two inherent dimensions of the idea of nature – the ultimate reference underwriting the validity of certain protective principles, as well as the legitimising basis of visible inequalities – is undoubtedly the main distinctive feature of American political philosophy. This article proposes to analyse the intertwining of the two apparently contradictory principles of universalism and “racialism” and the role of this intricate relationship in the birth of the American nation by following their trace from the foundational language of Thomas Jefferson to the subversive critique of W.E.B. Du Bois.