America is almost 250 years old (HBD, by the way). You’d think by that age a country would have its identity pretty well settled. But lately, I’ve had a hard time figuring out what America is all about.

Supposedly we care a lot about human dignity, and yet we execute criminals and revere our firearms. We champion free speech, but only tepidly if the speech is about something we disagree with. We embrace the huddled masses but leave many of them to fend for themselves at our borders. Sometimes we care a lot about rule of law; other times, not so much.

I find it discouraging that we’re 250 years into this and still have so much to figure out. We fight about everything, from foreign policy to how to use our lake water to what it means to wave an American flag. When we don’t see eye to eye, we accuse each other of being unpatriotic and un-American. And as Judge Thomas Griffith recently observed, “We don’t just disagree with our fellow citizens anymore. We think they are evil and immoral.”

But amidst all this disagreement and contempt, a few things are clear.

First, we still believe that “all men [and women] are created equal.” To my knowledge, America has not yet given up on that “self-evident” truth.

Second, we abhor inherited civic status in all its forms. We have no formal aristocracy, no blood punishments, no titles of nobility. Rather, as former-President Barack Obama once said, “It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you look like, or what challenges life throws your way — no dream is beyond reach in the United States of America.”

If this second “truth” seems less than self-evident, you might recall the many ways our Constitution emphatically and thoroughly rejects hereditary civic status. The Constitution’s very existence formalizes the colonies’ rejection of English government and its hereditary-based political classes. The Constitution also contains multiple provisions that reveal a desire to keep inherited status at bay.

For instance, the Guarantee Clause of Article IV requires the federal government to secure for every state “a Republican Form of Government.” Though the framers did not always agree about what republican government required, they all agreed that republican government was not a system of hereditary civic status. The Constitution’s Titles of Nobility Clauses likewise reveal an anti-civic heredity ethos, rejecting the link between blood and civic status that permeated English common law. Article III Section 3 rejects the English tradition of punishing descendants for an ancestor’s treason by assuring that in America, “no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood . . . .” And then there’s the Fourteenth Amendment, which, among other things, prohibits states from “deny[ing] to any person . . . equal protection of the laws.”

Combined with the Thirteenth Amendment, the Fourteenth began the important work of dismantling slavery’s caste system. It has since been interpreted to restrict the government’s ability to pass laws that distribute or withhold benefits on the basis of hereditary, immutable characteristics.

Taken together, these provisions form an anti-aristocracy constitutional framework. They tell us that an individual’s relationship to the state cannot be inherited from a parent. And they tell us that children must not be punished for their parents’ wrongs.

In short: In America, all people are created equal. And in America, we don’t do inherited civic status.

In the coming days, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity to remind us that these principles — equality and anti-aristocracy — are still what America is all about. Any moment now, the Court will determine the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order denying birthright citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary visitors. If the Court upholds the executive order, it will authorize a system of hereditary punishment: Children of undocumented immigrants will be perpetually punished for their parents’ illegal presence. But if the Court invalidates the executive order, it will re-affirm what we have known all along: In America, we are equals, and we are untainted by our parents’ actions.

I agree with the many scholars who have used precedent, history and originalist methods to show that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship is universal. So, for legal and historical reasons, I hope the Court strikes down the executive order. But I also hope the Court says “No” to remind us that, notwithstanding our sharp and profound disagreements, America remains committed to our core truths. Regardless of our political affiliations, we share common belief that all people are created equal. And no matter our views on immigration (or anything else, for that matter), we are bound together by a Constitution that does not brook inherited civic status.

As we approach our nation’s milestone birthday, may we — and our honorable Supreme Court — remember that this is what our country is all about.

Lucy Williams is a professor at Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, where she teaches and researches constitutional law. Her most recent work — an article co-authored with her colleague Carolina Núñez — explores the Constitution’s rejection of inherited civic status and what that means for the question of birthright citizenship. The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and should not be attributed to the law school or its sponsoring institution.

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