The second great American idea is grounded in the first: The rights of the people are prior to government. Each of us is "endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Bill of Rights later adopted is thus not a gift of the government, but a statement of facts about human beings that the government is obligated to recognize. The Supreme Court's recent opinion recognizing that every American retains a right to keep and bear arms -- an individual right -- is only the latest in a long line of acknowledgements in which the Bill of Rights is so grounded. The whole case for human rights, and the liberties that stem from them, rests on the idea that government has no power to create rights, or to take them away, only to acknowledge or to abuse them.
The third great American idea is also related to the first two: There is a power greater than government (whether king or congress), and ultimately our rights rest securely in our equality before our creator.
We Americans are free (another gift from our Founders) to disbelieve in his existence, but not to change the facts of history: America exists because the Founders dared to rebel against the most powerful king on Earth, appealed "to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions," and "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence" mutually pledged "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."