These days, the idea of citizenship immediately calls to mind the idea of rights: we have rights because we are citizens of a rights-protecting nation. Behind this idea is the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain “unalienable” rights.
Yet the Constitution begins differently, by announcing a decision: we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, do ordain and establish this particular constitution. One document announces a “proposition,” as Lincoln called it – that all have equal rights. The other document establishes a fact: “We the people” will be governed in this particular way, and in no other. All citizens, therefore, share in this responsibility, which makes of citizenship not simply a guarantee of rights, but an office, with a set of duties to perform.
Citizenship as an office, or as a duty, is a discordant note in an age of “rights talk.” Yet we can exercise our rights only because we live under a government that rests on the consent of the governed. We give our consent in many different ways. We pay taxes, of course, and we obey the laws. But the same might be said of the citizens of Canada, or France, or many other free nations. What makes American citizenship different?
