The Declaration of Independence explicitly states that men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". Rights are divine in origin. They are

The Declaration of Independence explicitly states that men are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". Rights are divine in origin. They are not contingent on being British or American, or belonging to any particular social compact. Beyond the founding documents of the American Republic, this is self-evident in many other early republican writings. If you've read Thomas Paine ("Rights of Man") you'd know he even picks a fight with Edmund Burke over this very issue when it comes to the French Revolution, with Paine supporting the cause of the French people on the grounds that they held "natural rights" to liberty. It was Burke (who believed in the social compact) who opposed the revolution because of its violence and social unrest. It was Paine's position which dominated among American republicans. Among many others, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin supported the French Revolution and linked the struggle to the struggle for "the liberty of the whole earth". Their conceptualization was here and elsewhere repeatedly and consistently one of rights belonging universally and naturally to man, regardless of his language, or country, or existing social compact.