Until recently, Kant's political philosophy has had little impact on American political thinking and political philosophy. Reasons for this are not hard to find. First, of course, the basic framework of American political thought was laid down in the 1770s and 1780s, a decade or two before Kant's “Doctrine of Right” was published – the U.S. Constitution, indeed, predates Kant's work by exactly ten years. But there also appears to be a fundamental philosophical difference between Kant's political theory and the basic tenets of American political thought.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the framers of the Constitution in 1787 asserted a wide rather than narrow scope for their new government, including among its proper ends the advancement of its citizens' happiness or welfare as well as the preservation of their lives and liberty. The Declaration of Independence states that “Governments are instituted among men” in order to secure their “inalienable rights” to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Preamble to the Constitution states that its purpose is “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” In neither case is there any explicit acknowledgment of the potential for conflict between the goal of securing life, justice, tranquillity, and the blessings of liberty, on the one hand, and the aim of advancing the happiness and welfare of the citizenry on the other.