Neil Gorsuch, The Creed, And American Identity
The Declaration of Independence is important to who we are. But it doesn’t exist in a vacuum
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch invited the wrath of the Online Right with his definition of American identity last week. Gorsuch has a children’s book out on the Declaration of Independence. Unsurprisingly, he told interviewers he believes that document’s famous preamble establishes we’re a “creedal nation.”
“What unites us is not a religion, it’s not a race, it’s a belief in those three ideals,” Gorsuch told National Review. He outlined those three ideals as: “that all of us are equal, that we all have unalienable rights that come from God, not from government, that we have the right to rule ourselves.” In an interview with Reason, he stated: “Our nation is not founded on a religion. It’s not based on a common culture even, or heritage. It’s based on those ideas. We’re a creedal nation.”
This stuff is corny, but common for a public figure to say. American politicians and judges have said some variant of this for nearly all of our history, even when “creedal” was a term hardly anyone used. The Declaration of Independence marks our nation’s birth and has always been valued as our national testament.
But comments like Gorsuch’s are often a preface to demands we have infinite immigration and cancel anyone who doesn’t agree with a modern understanding of “all men are created equal.” Thus, much of the Right now criticizes creedalism and demands an alternate conception of American identity. The problem is that the Right can’t quite figure out a publicly acceptable alternative and the creedal view still holds sway among the vast majority of Americans.
The solution to this conundrum of a subversive creedalism and an incoherent alternative is Samuel Huntington’s compromise. The late political scientist argued American identity depended on both the creed and the common culture of the founding people who produced it. Without that culture and people, America would no longer be American. This framework appeals to popular sentiments while providing a basis for immigration restriction and authentic Americanism.
Right-wing critics of Gorsuch imagined his views were antithetical to popular opinion and ahistorical. Both notions aren’t borne out by the evidence. As I wrote last year on Heritage Americanism, creedalism is the majority opinion:
A 2024 Pell Center poll found that 63 percent of Americans say our national identity is shaped “not by a shared religion or ancestry or history, but by our shared commitment to a set of American founding ideals: that we all have inherent and equal rights to live, to not be tyrannized, and to pursue happiness as we each understand it.”
A 2021 PRRI poll found that over 90 percent of Americans say believing in various democratic rights–such as in individual freedoms and voting–make one “truly American.” Meanwhile, just 43 percent say being a Christian and a mere 17 percent say Western European heritage are important to being American. A 2025 YouGov poll found similar results. Seventy percent of Americans say supporting the Constitution is important to being an American, with another 68 percent say believing in the principles of the Declaration of Independence is important. Only six percent say white is important to being an American. Both polls found the majority of Americans don’t think it’s important to be born here, much less have ancestors dating back to the Revolution, to be truly American.
Ordinary Americans, in contrast to Gorsuch, do think culture matters to American identity:
These polls show speaking English and respecting our laws and institutions are seen as fundamental to being an American. The PRRI poll found nearly 60 percent say loving capitalism is a sign of true Americanness. The YouGov survey reported that nearly half of respondents say “participating in American customs and traditions” is important to our identity.
It’s not new for Americans to turn to the Declaration of Independence when looking for American identity. The most obvious example is Abraham Lincoln, the most popular American historical figure. Lincoln made it clear he thought the Declaration of Independence was the basis of our identity in the Lincoln-Douglas debates and in the Gettysburg Address. These speeches have been learned by schoolchildren for generations.
But not everyone, especially on the Right, is fond of Lincoln. It’s common to criticize his view of Americanism and see it as a heresy from the Founders’ intent. But even the openly identitarian figures of American history turned to the Declaration to define Americanism. They just disputed the meaning of “all men are created equal.” Lincoln’s rival, Stephen Douglas, shared the 16th president’s enthusiasm for the Declaration in defining America. He just believed it only applied to whites. That was a very common view in the 19th century. Theodore Roosevelt, a race realist who extolled the Anglo-Saxon’s conquest of the West, believed the Declaration defined America and its equality included all men. But he insisted it didn’t mean men were “equal in all respects.” It was more that all Americans were equal under the law.
Calvin Coolidge, the man who signed the 1924 Immigration Act into law and argued we need to keep the country “Nordic,” also saw the Declaration as foundational to the national character and, much like Gorsuch, extolled the document for its three revolutionary ideals. But it’s obvious Coolidge’s idea of equality is different from that of a modern liberal.
Even those who felt America should spread the values of the Declaration around the globe didn’t feel it was a mandate for everyone to come here. Woodrow Wilson is primarily known for his liberal internationalism, but he was also a man who openly said Anglo-Saxons made America, backed segregation, and wanted to keep non-white immigrants out of the country. His creedalism accepted ethno-cultural identity.
The primary critics of creedalism in American history were southern secessionists and their predecessors. John Randolph, John C. Calhoun, George Fitzhugh, and Alexander Stephens all criticized the Declaration and its argument that all men are created equal. Eventually, this opinion led to the creation of the Confederacy–which lost to the Union and settled this debate for most Americans (to the dismay of my ancestors). But even Confederates turned to the Declaration to defend their cause. Jefferson Davis appealed to it in his first inaugural address to argue for the righteousness of secession. After the war’s end, Lost Causers portrayed the war as a dispute over the Founding documents and what rights they granted to the states. Even those skeptical of the Declaration can’t resist relying on it.
For America’s first 150 years or so, it was common to believe in the “American creed” and think only whites could be truly American. That might sound contradictory, and it famously inspired criticism from Gunnar Myrdal and other observers. But it’s how Americans thought. However, that hasn’t been the case for the last 80 years. While you will encounter plenty of anons who will argue that the Founders intended for America to be a white man’s land, few will say this under their own name. Americans, including most conservatives, get very skittish around white identity. It’s easy to say this stuff on X, but much harder to win over common people with this rhetoric.
It’s doubtful you will see someone be elected to high office on Stephen Douglas’s racial understanding of the Declaration.
Understandably, many of Gorsuch’s critics didn’t turn to the common historical argument due to its taboo. The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson deplored the justice’s comment without once mentioning the word “white” in his article. He argued American identity was based on culture and religion, pointing to John Jay’s Federalist No. 2 for proof. There’s something to this argument, but it matters what culture and religion that is.
As I noted last week, much of the New Right isn’t that into the Anglo-Protestant identity that created America. The Founding Fathers wouldn’t have related to enthusiasm for traditionalist Catholicism and criticism of classical liberalism. It’s hard to uphold the culture of the Founding Stock as the defining part of America when you don’t uphold it yourself.
Americans have long taken a creedal view of the country, but that didn’t prevent their reason from understanding that not all men are truly created equal and not everyone can be an American. Our Founding documents are important, but one can’t pretend that they emerged out of thin air. They were a product of a particular culture and people. We would not be America if we were founded by any other people besides the Anglo-Saxons.
That’s the argument made by Samuel Huntington in his classic work, Who Are We? It’s a basic argument, but it’s palatable and compelling to ordinary people. The average American knows there’s more to this country than the Declaration’s preamble. They also don’t feel that those words require the country to welcome infinite immigrants. Huntington’s thesis provides the basis for a better national identity that’s capable of preserving the American character. This is more substantive than Gorsuch’s corny pronouncements.
Some may wish to make an explicit racial argument, yet few are going to make this argument due to the taboo around it. It’s why even most Gorsuch critics don’t bring it up. Other right-wingers would like us to discard the Declaration of Independence (and the Constitution too!). That’s a wildly unpopular idea that would’ve also appalled our forefathers. Those values matter to the country, but so do the people and culture that compose it.
One doesn’t need to throw out those ideals to preserve the historic American nation–but those ideals depend on the historic American nation to survive.
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