The Relationship Between Citizens' Rights and Obligations

Americans are generally more familiar with the rights of citizenship than its duties, but rights and duties are inseparable from one another. The American government is a form of social contract, in which government derives its legitimacy, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, "from the consent of the governed." Rights and duties are connected in the sense that only citizens' participation in their government can ultimately guarantee that government will uphold their rights. Only if citizens vote will voting be an effective means of expressing the majority's will and controlling the government. Only if citizens agree to obey duly-passed laws and serve on juries will the legal system protect their rights. In short, rights are only effective when citizens exercise them by remaining informed about the events of their time and engaged with the processes of democratic government.

So long as government upholds citizens' freedoms, citizens should feel obliged to keep up their end of the contract by supporting that government--not in the sense that they must always agree with the government's laws or actions, but in the sense that they should, to the greatest extent possible, confine their disagreements to the established channels of dissent. Citizens have the right to disagree with their government by exercising their First Amendment right of free speech, by supporting political candidates who share their views, and by challenging unjust laws through the courts. The Framers even believed that citizens had a right and a duty to rebel against government if it became destructive to their liberties, but they strove to create a Constitution that would avert the need for such a rebellion in the U.S. by creating a government that would be responsive to citizens' wishes and protective of their rights.