America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way around. Human rights invented America.

The quote reverses a familiar narrative of American exceptionalism. Carter argues that the United States did not originate the idea of human rights; rather, the nation was “invented” by commitment to rights understood as universal and prior to government. The rhetorical inversion underscores a moral obligation: if America is founded on human rights, then violating them—at home or abroad—undermines the country’s identity and purpose. It also implies humility in international affairs: the U.S. should not treat rights as a proprietary invention, but as a shared human inheritance that can be invoked to critique American conduct as readily as anyone else’s.