In the United States, human rights consists of a series of rights which are legally protected by the Constitution of the United States (particularly by the Bill of Rights), but other amendments also, particularly XIV and XIII,Brennan, William, J., ed. Schwartz, Bernard, The Burger Court: counter-revolution or confirmation?, Oxford University Press US, 1998, , page 10 state constitutions, treaty and customary international law, legislation enacted by Congress and state legislatures, and state referendums and citizen's initiatives. The Federal Government has, through a ratified constitution, guaranteed unalienable rights to its citizens and (to some degree) non-citizens. These rights have evolved over time through constitutional amendments, legislation, and judicial precedent. Along with the rights themselves, the portion of the population which has been granted these rights has been expanded over time. Within the United States, federal courts have jurisdiction over international human rights laws.
The Freedom in the World index published by U.S. based NGO Freedom House lists the United States 59th out of 210 countries and territories for civil and political rights, with 83 out of 100 points as of 2023; the Press Freedom Index, published by Reporters Without Borders, put the U.S. 64th out of 180 countries in 2026, the Democracy Index, published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, classifies the United States as a "flawed democracy". Numerous human rights issues exist in the country, including discrimination and violence against LGBTQ people, anti-LGBTQ legislation, and limitations on abortion access. Issues surrounding Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, asylum seekers, poverty, working class rights, foreign policy, and arbitrary arrest and detention are ongoing.
History
The first human rights organization in the Thirteen Colonies of British America, dedicated to the abolition of slavery, was formed by Anthony Benezet in 1775. A year later, the Declaration of Independence announced that the Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. The Declaration stated "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", echoing John Locke's phrase "life, liberty, and property".Declaration of Independence This view of human liberties, which originated from the European Age of Enlightenment, postulates that fundamental rights are not granted by a divine or supernatural being to monarchs who then grant them to subjects, but are granted by a divine or supernatural being to each man (but not woman) and are inalienable and inherent.
After the Revolutionary War, the former thirteen colonies went through a pre-government phase of more than a decade, with much debate about the form of government they would have. The United States Constitution, adopted in 1787 through ratification at a national convention and conventions in the colonies, created a republic that guaranteed several rights and civil liberties. However, it did not extend voting rights in the United States beyond white male property owners (about 6% of the population). The Constitution referred to "Persons", not "Men" as was used in the Declaration of Independence. It also omitted any reference to terms such as a "Creator" or "God" and any authority derived or divined therefrom, and allowed "affirmation" in lieu of an "oath" if preferred.See, e.g., The Constitution guaranteed rights and provided that they belonged to all Persons (presumably meaning men and women, and perhaps children, although the developmental distinction between children and adults poses issues and has been the subject of subsequent amendments, as discussed below). Some of this conceptualization may have arisen from the significant Quaker segment of the population in the colonies, especially in the Delaware Valley, and their religious views that all human beings, regardless of sex, age, race, or other characteristics, had the same Inner light. Quaker and Quaker-derived views would have informed the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, including the direct influence of some of the Framers of the Constitution, such as John Dickinson and Thomas Mifflin, who were either Quakers themselves or came from regions which were either founded or heavily populated by Quakers.See, e.g.,
Dickinson, Mifflin, and other Framers who objected to slavery were outvoted on that question, however, and the original Constitution sanctioned slavery (although it was not based on either the race or any other characteristic of the slave) and, through the Three-Fifths Compromise, it counted slaves (who were not defined by race) as three-fifths of a Person for purposes of distribution of taxes and representation in the House of Representatives (although the slaves themselves were discriminated against in voting for such representatives).The Constitution: How Did it Happen? Retrieved 19 July 2026The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom Retrieved 19 July 2026
As the new Constitution took effect in practice, concerns about individual liberties and the concentration of power at the federal level, gave rise to the amendment of the Constitution through the adoption of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. However, this had little impact on judgements by the courts for the first 130 years after its ratification.
Courts and legislatures also began to vary in the interpretation of "Person", with some jurisdictions narrowing the meaning of "Person" to cover only people with property, only men, or only white men. For example, although women had been voting in some states, such as New Jersey, since the founding of the United States, and prior to that in the colonial era, other states denied them the vote. In 1756, Lydia Chapin Taft voted, casting a vote in the local town hall meeting in place of her deceased husband. In 1777, women lost the right to exercise their vote in New York; in 1780, women lost the right to exercise their vote in Massachusetts; and in 1784, women lost the right to exercise their vote in New Hampshire. From 1775 until 1807, the state constitution in New Jersey permitted all persons worth over fifty pounds (about $7,800 adjusted for inflation, with the election laws referring to the voters as "he or she") to vote; provided they had this property, free black men and single women regardless of race therefore had the vote until 1807, but not married women, who could have no independent claim to ownership of fifty pounds (anything they owned or earned belonged to their husbands by the Common law of Coverture). In 1790, the law was revised to specifically include women, but in 1807, the law was again revised to exclude them, an unconstitutional act since the state constitution specifically made any such change dependent on the general suffrage. See Women's suffrage in the United States. Through the doctrine of coverture, many states also denied married women the right to own property in their own name, although most allowed single women (widowed, divorced or never married) the "Person" status of men, sometimes pursuant to the common law concept of a femme sole.Did You Know: Women and African Americans Could Vote in NJ before the 15th and 19th Amendments? Retrieved 19 July 2026 Over the years, a variety of claimants sought to assert that discrimination against women in voting, in property ownership, in occupational license, and other matters was unconstitutional given the Constitution's use of the term "Person", but the all-male courts did not give this fair hearing. See, e.g., Bradwell v. Illinois.
In the 1860s, after decades of conflict over southern states' continued practice of slavery, and northern states' outlawing it, the Civil War was fought, and in its aftermath the Constitution was amended to prohibit slavery and to prohibit states' denying rights granted in the Constitution. Among these amendments was the Fourteenth Amendment, which included an Equal Protection Clause which seemed to clarify that courts and states were prohibited in narrowing the meaning of "Persons". After the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted, Susan B. Anthony, buttressed by the equal protection language, voted. She was prosecuted for this, however, and ran into an all-male court ruling that women were not "Persons"; the court levied a fine but it was never collected.Susan B. Anthony and the Struggle for Suffrage Retrieved 19 July 2026
Fifty years later, in 1920, the Constitution was amended again, with the Nineteenth Amendment to definitively prohibit discrimination against women's suffrage.
In the 1970s, the Burger Court made a series of rulings clarifying that discrimination against women in the status of being Persons violated the Constitution and acknowledged that previous court rulings to the contrary had been sui generis and an abuse of power. The most often cited of these is Reed v. Reed, which held that any discrimination against either sex in the rights associated with Person status must meet a strict scrutiny standard.
The 1970s also saw the adoption of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of age, for Persons 18 years old and over, in voting. Other attempts to address the developmental distinction between children and adults in Person status and rights have been addressed mostly by the Supreme Court, with the Court recognizing in 2012, in Miller v. Alabama a political and biological principle that children are different from adults.
In 1945, the members of the United Nations organization completed the drafting of its founding text – the United Nations charter: The USA played a significant role in this process.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Drafting Committee was chaired by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who was known for her human rights advocacy. Similarly, for the United States government and its citizens, much remained uncertain about the future impact, force, and reach of international human rights. Eventually the United States had not yet developed a policy approach regarding whether or not it would recognize international human rights within a domestic context. Certainly there were already some domestic political attempts, as for example President Truman's Committee on Civil rights, which authored a report in 1947 initializing the possibility to apply the UN charter in order to combat racial discrimination in the US. Now that the United States had successfully adopted the UDHR, obviously it seemed like human rights would play a leading part in domestic law within the US. Still there was harsh controversy over the question whether to apply international law on a national basis. William H. Fitzpatrick won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1951 for his editorials that repeatedly warned against international human rights overthrowing the supreme law of the land. Indeed, Fitzpatrick's concerns and motivations – as well as those of his readers – stood for the longstanding, bitter social and political struggles that divided much of the United States at the time, keeping in mind that in the 1940s and 1950s racial divisions, political exclusion, and gender inequalities were basic facts of American social life.
However, today there is little worry in the United States about the effect that human rights might have on its domestic law. Over the past few decades, the United States government has often held itself up as a strong supporter of human rights in the international arena. Nonetheless, in the view of the government human rights are still an international rather than a domestic phenomenon – representing more of choice than obligation.