life liberty and the pursuit of happiness essay

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Text of the Declaration of Independence

Note: The source for this transcription is the first printing of the Declaration of Independence, the broadside produced by John Dunlap on the night of July 4, 1776. Nearly every printed or manuscript edition of the Declaration of Independence has slight differences in punctuation, capitalization, and even wording. To find out more about the diverse textual tradition of the Declaration, check out our Which Version is This, and Why Does it Matter? resource.

        WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.           We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.           He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.           He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.            He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.           He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.           He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his Invasions on the Rights of the People.           He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.            He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.           He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.           He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.           He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.           He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.           He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.           He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:           For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:           For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:           For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:           For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:           For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:           For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:           For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:           For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:           For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.           He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.           He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.           He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the Works of Death, Desolation, and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.           He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.           He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.           In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.           Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.           We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress, JOHN HANCOCK, President.

Attest. CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary.

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Why did jefferson change "property" to the "pursuit of happiness".

“The pursuit of happiness” is the most famous phrase in the Declaration of Independence. Conventional history and popular wisdom attribute the phrase to the genius of Thomas Jefferson when in an imaginative leap, he replaced the third term of John Locke’s trinity, “life, liberty, and property.”  It was a felicitous, even thrilling, substitution. Yet the true history and philosophical meaning of the famous phrase are apparently unknown.

In an article entitled “The Pursuit of Happiness,” posted at the Huffington Post July 4, 2007, Daniel Brook summed up what most of us learned in school: “The eighteenth-century British political philosopher John Locke wrote that governments are instituted to secure people's rights to ‘life, liberty, and property.’ And in 1776, Thomas Jefferson begged to differ. When he penned the Declaration of Independence, ratified on the Fourth of July, he edited out Locke's right to ‘property’ and substituted his own more broad-minded, distinctly American concept: the right to ‘the pursuit of happiness.’ "

Familiar as all this sounds, Brook is wrong on three points. John Locke lived from 1634 to 1704, making him a man of the seventeenth century, not the eighteenth. Jefferson did not substitute his “own” phrase. Nor is that concept “distinctly American.” It is an import, and Jefferson borrowed it.

The phrase has meant different things to different people. To Europeans it has suggested the core claim—or delusion—of American exceptionalism. To cross-racial or gay couples bringing lawsuits in court, it has meant, or included, the right to marry. And sadly, for many Americans, Jefferson might just as well have left “property” in place. To them the pursuit of happiness means no more than the pursuit of wealth and status as embodied in a McMansion, a Lexus, and membership in a country club.  Even more sadly, Jefferson’s own “property” included about two hundred human beings whom he did not permit to pursue their own happiness.

The “pursuit of happiness” has led its own life in popular culture. It provided the title for a 1933-34 Broadway comedy written by Lawrence Langner and Armina Marshall. That comedy became a musical of the same title in the 1940s. In the 1980s it was the name of a Canadian rock group whose first big hit was the single, “I’m an Adult Now.” In 1993 the phrase served as the title of a self-help book whose subtitle was “Discovering the Pathway to Fulfillment, Well-Being, and Enduring Personal Joy.” The phrase, coyly misspelled, was appropriated for the title of a 2006 Will Smith movie about upward mobility, the acquisition of wealth, and the triumph of talent over adversity. Blogging on the subject on November 8, 2007, Arianna Huffington lamented contemporary greed, our happy hours and Happy Meals, but concluded, “but the American idea, embedded deep in our cultural DNA, is inspiring us to pursue a much less shallow happiness.” Most recently, in his new book Kids are Americans Too , Bill O‘Reilly erroneously wrote,  “the Constitution guarantees us life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He was corrected by an American kid, Courtney Yong of San Francisco, a city O’Reilly often castigates.

If Thomas Jefferson did not coin the phrase, who did? Wikipedia (drawing on, I think, an old edition of the Encylopedia Britannica) attributes its coinage to Dr. Samuel Johnson in his long fable Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia , published in 1759.  Rasselas is an Abyssinian prince who lives in the Happy Valley, a paradise in every respect imaginable. But the Prince is discontented. Accompanied by his sister Nekayah and a wise, well-traveled poet, he escapes from his utopia and travels around the known world.  They visit the Great Pyramid, where a dear friend of Nekayah is kidnapped by Arabs. Wounded by this loss, the Princess laments: “what is to be expected from our pursuit of happiness when we find the state of life to be such, that happiness itself is the cause of misery?” 

In 1770 Dr. Johnson used the phrase again in a political essay entitled “The False Alarm.”  He began by observing that the “improvement and diffusion of philosophy” among his contemporaries had led to a diminution of “false alarms” about events such as solar eclipses, which once aroused terror in the populace.  He predicted that advances in “political knowledge” and the “theory of man” will further erode “causeless discontent and seditious violence.”  But while humans are neutral about scientific discoveries, they will never be neutral about politics. “The politician’s improvements,” he observed, in a statement that still resonates today, “are opposed by every passion that can exclude conviction or suppress it; by ambition, by avarice, by hope, and by terror, by public faction, and private animosity.” 

What Dr. Johnson called “civil wisdom” was, he wrote, lacking in the English public. Therefore, in another resonant passage, he declared: “We are still so much unacquainted with our own state, and so unskillful in the pursuit of happiness , that we shudder without danger, complain without grievances, and suffer our quiet to be disturbed, and our commerce to be interrupted, by an opposition to the government, raised only by interest, and supported only by clamor, which yet has so far prevailed upon ignorance and timidity, that many favor it, as reasonable, and many dread it, as powerful.”

It seems unlikely that Jefferson plucked “the pursuit of happiness” from the prose of a Tory like Dr. Johnson.  Jefferson’s intellectual heroes were Newton, Bacon, and Locke, and it was actually in Locke that he must have found the phrase. It appears not in the Two Treatises on Government but in the 1690 essay Concerning Human Understanding. There, in a long and thorny passage, Locke wrote:

The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty .  As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness ; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action, and from a necessary compliance with our desire, set upon any particular, and then appearing preferable good, till we have duly examined whether it has a tendency to, or be inconsistent with, our real happiness: and therefore, till we are as much informed upon this inquiry as the weight of the matter, and the nature of the case demands, we are, by the necessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases.

Just the ideas that inspired our intellectual Founders were primarily European imports, so that defining American phrase, “the pursuit of happiness,” is not native to our shores. Furthermore, as the quotation from Locke demonstrates, “the pursuit of happiness” is a complicated concept. It is not merely sensual or hedonistic, but engages the intellect, requiring the careful discrimination of imaginary happiness from “true and solid” happiness.  It is the “foundation of liberty” because it frees us from enslavement to particular desires.

The Greek word for “happiness” is eudaimonia .  In the passage above, Locke is invoking Greek and Roman ethics in which eudaimonia is linked to aretê , the Greek word for “virtue” or “excellence.” In the Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle wrote, “the happy man lives well and does well; for we have practically defined happiness as a sort of good life and good action.”  Happiness is not, he argued, equivalent to wealth, honor, or pleasure. It is an end in itself, not the means to an end. The philosophical lineage of happiness can be traced from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle through the Stoics, Skeptics, and Epicureans.

Jefferson admired Epicurus and owned eight copies of De rerum Natura ( On the Nature of Things ) by Lucretius, a Roman disciple of Epicurus. In a letter Jefferson wrote to William Short on October 13, 1819, he declared, “I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.”  At the end of the letter, Jefferson made a summary of the key points of Epicurean doctrine, including:

Moral.—Happiness the aim of life. Virtue the foundation of happiness. Utility the test of virtue.

Properly understood, therefore, when John Locke, Samuel Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson wrote of “the pursuit of happiness,” they were invoking the Greek and Roman philosophical tradition in which happiness is bound up with the civic virtues of courage, moderation, and justice. Because they are civic virtues, not just personal attributes, they implicate the social aspect of eudaimonia . The pursuit of happiness, therefore, is not merely a matter of achieving individual pleasure. That is why Alexander Hamilton and other founders referred to “social happiness.” During this political season, as Americans are scrutinizing presidential candidates, we would do well to ponder that.           

Copyright Carol V. Hamilton

The Pursuit of Happiness: The True Meaning of the Misunderstood Phrase

By lorna wallace | jul 1, 2024.

One of the most famous quotes in American history comes from the Declaration of Independence , which proclaims that “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” are “unalienable Rights.”

These days, the right to pursue happiness is often thought to concern seeking subjective joy, but language is constantly evolving. Back in the 18th century, both pursuit and happiness had secondary definitions which completely change the meaning of the iconic quote.

Jump for Joy

When Thomas Jefferson drafted the declaration in the summer of 1776 , he almost certainly wasn’t thinking of the joyful emotional state when listing happiness as a right. As political science professor James R. Rogers explained in First Things , at that time happiness could also mean “prosperity” and “well-being in the broader sense.” This sense encompassed “physical needs, but it also included a significant moral and religious dimension.”

So how do we know which definition Jefferson was using? The Founding Father based the declaration on similar contemporary political documents, many of which used happiness to mean the physical and spiritual well-being of all citizens rather than an individual’s fleeting pleasure. For instance, the Virginia Declaration of Rights —written mainly by George Mason and adopted on June 12, 1776—speaks of “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” 

This broader meaning of happiness is even clearer in later documents. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 notes that “the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality.” Similarly, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 declares that “Religion, morality, and knowledge” are “necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind.”

The misunderstanding over what happiness means in this context isn’t just a modern problem. In a 1786 letter to James Monroe, James Madison complained that “ultimate happiness” is often misinterpreted as the “immediate augmentation of property and wealth.” If the latter definition were accurate, he surmised that “it would be the interest of the majority in every community to despoil & enslave the minority of individuals; and in a federal community to make a similar sacrifice of the minority of the component States.”

In Hot Pursuit

There's a reason why it’s merely the pursuit of happiness that’s a right rather than happiness itself. In a 1964 article published by The William and Mary Quarterly [ PDF ], historian Arthur Schlesinger pointed out that while pursuit could mean “chase” or “follow,” when Jefferson was putting quill pen to paper he was likely thinking of a different definition : “The action of following or engaging in something, as a profession, business, recreation, etc.”

This meaning of pursuit is synonymous with practice and experience , and so, in Schlesinger’s words, the Declaration of Independence actually “proclaimed the practicing rather than the quest of happiness as a basic right equally with life and liberty.” The Virginia Declaration of Rights is again helpful in illustrating this, thanks to its statement about not only “pursuing” happiness, but also “obtaining” it.

Based on this reading, “the pursuit of Happiness” doesn’t mean chasing whatever your heart desires; rather, it’s about engaging in activities which support overall physical, mental, and moral well-being.

The Origin of the Phrase

While “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” may feel like a distinctly American phrase, the Founding Fathers were actually inspired by an English philosopher . The idea traces its roots to John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1689), which states that mankind has a natural right “to preserve his property—that is, his life, liberty, and estate.” Jefferson replaced “estate” with “pursuit of Happiness,” but those words were also pulled from Locke. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), the philosopher argues that “the foundation of liberty […] lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness.”

Although the declaration’s phrasing echoes Locke, this deeper conception of happiness dates back to at least ancient Greece. Greek philosophers—particularly Aristotle—contemplated eudaimonia , which is sometimes translated as “happiness,” but more accurately means “human flourishing” or “living well.”

The declaration’s “pursuit of Happiness” essentially repackaged the Greek concept of eudaimonia for American colonists in the 18th century. In an interview with Emory , theology professor Brent Strawn summarized that the phrase isn’t concerned with “momentary pleasurable sensations (‘I’m happy the sun came out this afternoon’) but with deep and extended qualities of life (the happiness one feels to be cancer-free, for instance).”

Read More Stories About Famous Quotes:

The Fundamental Importance of Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

This essay is about the three unalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness which are foundational to democratic societies. It explains that the right to life ensures protection from harm and underpins health and safety laws. Liberty encompasses freedoms such as speech assembly and personal autonomy essential for democratic dialogue and individual choice. The pursuit of happiness allows individuals to seek personal fulfillment in their own ways promoting societal conditions that support personal growth and well-being. The essay highlights how these interconnected rights are crucial for individual dignity societal well-being and just governance emphasizing the need for their continuous protection and realization.

How it works

The idea of unalienable rights is super important in democracies—it’s all about the basic freedoms and values that hold societies together. Three rights stand out big time: life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These rights famously laid out in the Declaration of Independence in the United States aren’t just for one place or time—they’re seen as universal and core to fair and respectful governance.

First up is the right to life the most basic of all.

It says every person has the right to live and that laws and society should protect this right. This means making laws against stuff like murder and violence and standing up against things that threaten life like wars and capital punishment. Protecting life means making sure everyone can live safe and sound without fear of being hurt for no good reason.

Next there’s liberty—this means lots of freedoms that are vital for people’s dignity and independence. It covers things like freedom of speech assembly and religion. These freedoms let folks speak up follow their beliefs and live their lives without the government or others getting in the way. Liberty is crucial in a democracy because it allows people to speak out against unfairness share ideas and push for change. It’s about giving folks the power to make choices about their lives and futures.

Then there’s the pursuit of happiness which is a deep and special right. It says that while the government can’t make people happy everyone has the right to try. This means folks can chase after what makes them feel good—whether it’s through relationships careers or just doing what they enjoy. The pursuit of happiness means creating a society where everyone has the chance to grow and find joy. It calls for policies that give folks a fair shot at success and break down barriers that hold them back.

These three rights are all tied together. The right to life makes sure folks are safe enough to enjoy liberty and chase after happiness. Liberty lets people go after what makes them happy by giving them the freedom to make choices and speak their minds. And the pursuit of happiness is about everyone having the chance to find fulfillment and joy in their own way—it’s the goal of being able to live a good life.

Protecting these rights is crucial for making fair and caring societies. They give a moral and legal guide for how governments and groups should treat folks making sure everyone’s dignity and freedom are respected. In lots of democratic countries these rights are the heart of laws and freedoms that keep people safe from unfair treatment.

But making sure these rights are respected isn’t always easy. Societies need to work hard to balance folks’ freedoms with what’s good for everyone and to fight problems like unfairness prejudice and keeping folks safe.

In the end the unalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are super important for how humans live together and grow. They protect our dignity help us find our way and make sure governments treat us fairly and kindly. These rights show what’s most important about freedom and how folks should be treated. Keeping these rights strong means always respecting and caring about each person’s value and worth.

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July 3, 2018

"The pursuit of happiness" means more in the Declaration of Independence than simply chasing a fleeting feeling.

3 ways to pursue 'thick' happiness

First, the most important thing is to realize that the happy life is about more than just me: my health, my wealth, my safety and security.

A robust understanding of human flourishing means it is for all and that means that our “pursuit” of happiness must transcend narrow nationalisms and thin tribalisms.

We would not permit, say, one political party to flourish and deny the chance for another to do the same. Or, to shift the imagery, we would not want our daughters to flourish but not our sons. Why, then, are we satisfied to let some neighborhoods in a city languish, or some schools in a district fail? Why are we willing to let some countries deteriorate?

Not because we are committed to the “unalienable right” of happiness, but only because we are selfishly committed to a narrow, individualized understanding of localized hedonism. But, as the positive psychology literature shows (and the biblical book of Ecclesiastes knows this too), more pleasure or more “stuff” will never bring true happiness and flourishing.

So, first and foremost, we have to think more globally, more organically. In the republic, all citizens should flourish, and in the global village, all persons should flourish — including those that aren’t (yet) citizens!

Second, thinking about happiness as a “global village” issue shows that human flourishing will only be achieved if we take better care of our world.

This is a truly transnational issue. All humans share this planet and therefore all humans — and all governments — must take responsibility for its care, particularly in redressing the lack of care that we have exercised for far too long. Without doing so, there will simply be no place for humans to flourish. Could it be any more simple?

Third, despite the important role played by governments and law, it is increasingly clear that important things like food, medicine and safe living conditions cannot always wait for the slow movements of governments.

Positive psychology has highlighted the crucial role of positive institutions , including — when they function at their best — families, workplaces and communities of faith. These must be ready to do the hard work of helping others flourish when the government proves ineffectual (as it often does).

When the government is effective and rightly functioning as one such positive institution, I firmly believe we will see far less “enforcement,” whether via the police or military, and far more “empowerment.” I myself believe these are related: more empowerment of people — facilitating their flourishing — will mean enforcement just won’t be needed anymore. It will become passé !

In the Bible, the prophet Isaiah has a vision along these very lines: a time where everyone will turn in their weapon and melt them all down to make more farm equipment (Isa 2:4). That is not a bad vision of thick happiness: for both humanity and the world!

Editor's note: Since this interview was originally published on June 30, 2014, it has consistently ranked among the most-read articles in the Emory News Center. As the Fourth of July holiday again approaches, we spoke with Professor Brent Strawn about why a "thick" understanding of "the pursuit of happiness" may be even more important in our current political climate. His additional answers appear at the end of the interview.

More than just fireworks and cookouts, the Fourth of July offers an opportunity to reflect on how our founders envisioned our new nation — including the Declaration of Independence's oft-quoted "unalienable right" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

But our contemporary understanding of "pursuit of happiness" is a thinner, less meaningful shadow of what the Declaration's authors intended, according to Brent Strawn, who teaches religion and theology in Emory's Candler School of Theology and Graduate Division of Religion.

"It may be that the American Dream, if that is parsed as lots of money and the like, isn't a sufficient definition of the good life or true happiness. It may, in fact, be detrimental," notes Strawn, editor of "The Bible and the Pursuit of Happiness: What the Old and New Testaments Teach Us About the Good Life." (Oxford University Press, 2012)

As we celebrate Independence Day, Strawn discusses what "pursuit of happiness" is commonly thought to mean today, what our founders meant, and how a "thick" understanding of happiness can be a better guide for both individuals and nations.

What 'happiness' means

The Declaration of Independence guarantees the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." What do you think the phrase "pursuit of happiness" means to most people who hear it today?

I think most people think "pursuit" in that phrase means "chasing happiness" — as in the phrase "in hot pursuit." This would mean that "the pursuit of happiness" has to do with "seeking it" or "going after it" somehow.

How does this differ from what our nation's founders meant when the Declaration of Independence was written?

It differs a lot! Arthur Schlesinger should be credited with pointing out in a nice little essay in 1964 that at the time of the Declaration's composition, "the pursuit of happiness" did not mean chasing or seeking it, but actually practicing happiness, the experience of happiness — not just chasing it but actually catching it, you might say.

This is demonstrated by documents that are contemporary with the Declaration, but also by the Declaration itself, in the continuation of the same sentence that contains "the pursuit of happiness" phrase. The continuation speaks of effecting people's safety and happiness. But the clearest explanation might be the Virginia Convention's Declaration of Rights, which dates to June 12, 1776, just a few weeks before July 4. The Virginia Declaration actually speaks of the "pursuing and obtaining" of happiness.

Why does this difference matter?

Seeking happiness is one thing but actually obtaining it and experiencing it — practicing happiness! — is an entirely different matter. It's the difference between dreaming and reality. Remember that the pursuit of happiness, in the Declaration, is not a quest or a pastime , but "an unalienable right." Everyone has the right to actually be happy, not just try to be happy. To use a metaphor: You don't just get the chance to make the baseball team, you are guaranteed a spot. That's a very different understanding.

Unalienable rights and the role of government

The next part of the sentence in the Declaration of Independence states "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men." What does it mean to say, as you have written, that "the Declaration makes that obtaining and practicing of happiness a matter of government and public policy, not one of individual leisure or pleasure"?

I think it means, at least in part, that the happiness of which the Declaration speaks is not simple, light and momentary pleasure à la some hedonic understandings of happiness ("do what feels right"; "if it makes you happy…"). In the Declaration, "the pursuit of happiness" is listed with the other "unalienable rights" of "life" and "liberty." Those are qualities of existence, states of being. You are either alive or dead, free or enslaved.

Governments have something to say about those states by how they govern their citizens. If happiness is akin to life and liberty —as the Declaration and the original meaning of "the pursuit of happiness" say — then we are not dealing with momentary pleasurable sensations ("I'm happy the sun came out this afternoon") but with deep and extended qualities of life (the happiness one feels to be cancer-free, for instance).

According to the Declaration, the extended quality of happiness — what we might call the good or flourishing life — is or should be a primary concern of government. That means it isn't just about my happiness, especially idiosyncratically defined, but about all citizens' happiness.

If the founders' understanding of the "pursuit of happiness" does, indeed, have "profound public policy ramifications, and thus real connections to social justice," what are some specific examples of actions the government does or should take to secure that right today?

If we operate with a thick definition of happiness, then we have to think beyond simplistic understandings of happiness — as important as those are — and think about the good life more broadly. It may be that the American Dream, if that is parsed as lots of money and the like, isn't a sufficient definition of the good life or true happiness. It may, in fact, be detrimental.

Empirical research in happiness has shown that more money does not, in fact, make a significant difference in someone's happiness. The ultra-rich are not any happier than the average middle-class person (and sometimes to the contrary). So, moving beyond just the hedonic aspects of happiness, researchers have demonstrated the importance of positive emotions, positive individual traits (e.g., virtues), and positive institutions.

Governments could (and should, according to the Declaration) enable such things. To lift up just two examples that I think a lot about myself, the government needs to take action to guarantee all citizens' health and safety. A thick definition of happiness certainly includes many things — and sick people can in fact be very happy, can live flourishing lives — but positive institutions that keep us healthy and safe are, to my mind, specific and concrete ways the government can help a country's "gross national happiness" index (the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan actually measures its country's GNH!).

Food, medicine, safe living conditions — those are a few important building blocks of a happy life that governments can address.

Your book focuses on what the Bible teaches us about the pursuit of happiness, and you also note the current role of positive psychology as our society's primary arena for asking what "happiness" means. What is the most important lesson we can learn from both of those sources to help us understand and pursue happiness now?

Just this — that both the Bible and positive psychology give us a very thick understanding of the word "happiness." It is not about breakfast being yummy. It is about human flourishing, the good life, the obtaining and experiencing of all that can be glossed with the word "happiness," but only carefully and usually with a few sentences of explanation required to flesh it all out.

A thick understanding of "happiness" means that we have to think beyond only pleasurable sensations or think about redefining "happiness" altogether if "pleasure" is the only thing it means. If that's the only thing "happiness" means anymore, then we have a case of "word pollution" and we need to reclaim or redefine the word or perhaps use a different one altogether, at least for a while.

Redefining simplistic, thin definitions of "happiness" means that we come to terms that the happy life does not mean a life devoid of real problems and real pain. Those, too, are part of life and can even contribute to human growth and flourishing, which means they can and must be incorporated into a thick notion of happiness. As one positive psychologist has said: The only people who don't feel normal negative feelings are the pathologically psychotic, and the dead. Or, according to the biblical book of Psalms, the only people who live lives of constant comfort and pleasure are the wicked!

So, positive psychology speaks of post-traumatic growth — a kind of growth only experienced (and only able to be experienced) after grief. Or, to think about the New Testament, when Christians call the day Jesus was crucified "Good Friday," they certainly do not mean by that that it was a fun-filled day.

Instead, that is a very thick use of the word "good" and that is the kind of thick use that we must have when we speak of "happiness" — one that can encompass sorrow; that includes social concerns like food, health, and safety; and that is about experiencing the good, flourishing life, not just hoping for it.

Pursuing happiness in today's world

(Update) Does the current political climate in the United States impact the need for a “thick” understanding of the pursuit of happiness?

Since this article first appeared, I admit that I am even more struck now, in 2018, by the need for the government to help people attain — pursue and actually reach — key elements of human flourishing: food, safety, medicine and the like.

Politically, of course, people will differ on these issues and how they are best achieved, but it is clear that in recent years in this country we have had vicious political debates over things that are, at root, profoundly connected to these elements of happiness and who will gain access to them. Take, for example, the debate over universal health care. Or debates over gun violence and gun control. Or immigration. Each is complicated and multifaceted. 

People who are for stricter immigration laws are likely concerned about their own safety and well-being. This is fully understandable. And yet, if happiness is a universal right, which is what the Declaration of Independence states, then that means we must consider the safety and well-being of others, too — including the safety and well-being of immigrants and refugees who would otherwise be turned away at our borders.

In this regard, the biblical story of Ruth the Moabitess is rather remarkable. Had she been turned away at the border, then Israel would have never had its greatest king, David, since he was her great-grandson. Or, to continue the lineage a bit further, without Ruth there is not only no David, there is also no Jesus, since, according to the New Testament, he is a direct descendant from Ruth, the Moabite refugee. 

Or, to switch topics, one might like to stockpile weapons in order to feel safe, but one must ask about the effects of gun culture, the proliferation of guns, and if all that is, in fact, a truly safer way of life for the flourishing of all people. Statistics from other modern industrialized countries in the world that do not have the same gun obsession as America suggest, in fact, that it is not necessarily a safer way — or at least, such data indicate that the proliferation of weaponry is certainly not the only way to think about safety and well-being.

So, now, in 2018, I continue to think that the thickest and best definition of “the pursuit of happiness” means we must think about facilitating the achievement of others’ happiness, and not be inordinately or exclusively self-obsessed with our own.

Such a regard for others and their happiness would have certainly resonated with the early founders of our country, many of whom were themselves immigrants, and who were concerned not simply with their own well-being but with all those who would come after them in the United States.

The happiness of other, future generations was insured, as it were, in the Declaration and its claim regarding this “unalienable right.” Concern for other people’s happiness is also unquestionably true for the Bible where, among many examples, one might cite Jesus' instruction to his disciples: "No one has greater love than to give up one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13, Common English Bible).

I have to admit, however, that I am less sanguine now, in 2018, about the government’s interest in and ability to produce widespread happiness of the thickest variety for all people. The vast majority of what comes across the news scrawl these days seems remarkably parochial if not downright tribalistic. The “happiness” that is being sought is typically up for sale to the highest bidder with the most power (including firepower).

Such a vision of “happiness” is truly thin and can never lay appropriate claim to the Declaration’s grand vision of flourishing. But the Declaration’s grand vision is still there! And that gives me hope that good peoples throughout the world and throughout society and government may yet seek the greatest good for all humanity. May it be so!

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This I Believe

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan was born in England and educated at Oxford and Harvard. At 27, he became editor of The New Republic , a position he held for five years. As a writer, commentator and blogger, Sullivan addresses political and social issues, and advocates for gay rights.

I believe in life. I believe in treasuring it as a mystery that will never be fully understood, as a sanctity that should never be destroyed, as an invitation to experience now what can only be remembered tomorrow. I believe in its indivisibility, in the intimate connection between the newest bud of spring and the flicker in the eye of a patient near death, between the athlete in his prime and the quadriplegic vet, between the fetus in the womb and the mother who bears another life in her own body.

I believe in liberty. I believe that within every soul lies the capacity to reach for its own good, that within every physical body there endures an unalienable right to be free from coercion. I believe in a system of government that places that liberty at the center of its concerns, that enforces the law solely to protect that freedom, that sides with the individual against the claims of family and tribe and church and nation, that sees innocence before guilt and dignity before stigma. I believe in the right to own property, to maintain it against the benign suffocation of a government that would tax more and more of it away. I believe in freedom of speech and of contract, the right to offend and blaspheme, as well as the right to convert and bear witness. I believe that these freedoms are connected -- the freedom of the fundamentalist and the atheist, the female and the male, the black and the Asian, the gay and the straight.

I believe in the pursuit of happiness. Not its attainment, nor its final definition, but its pursuit. I believe in the journey, not the arrival; in conversation, not monologues; in multiple questions rather than any single answer. I believe in the struggle to remake ourselves and challenge each other in the spirit of eternal forgiveness, in the awareness that none of us knows for sure what happiness truly is, but each of us knows the imperative to keep searching. I believe in the possibility of surprising joy, of serenity through pain, of homecoming through exile.

And I believe in a country that enshrines each of these three things, a country that promises nothing but the promise of being more fully human, and never guarantees its success. In that constant failure to arrive -- implied at the very beginning -- lies the possibility of a permanently fresh start, an old newness, a way of revitalizing ourselves and our civilization in ways few foresaw and one day many will forget. But the point is now. And the place is America.

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

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Who Really Wrote ‘the Pursuit of Happiness’?

The voice of Doctor Johnson, archcritic of the American Revolution, was constantly in mind for the Declaration of Independence’s drafter.

I n a playful moment a century ago, the historian Carl Becker pondered this counterfactual: What if Benjamin Franklin, not Thomas Jefferson, had drafted the Declaration of Independence? A scholar of the American Revolution, Becker knew that such a thing was plausible. Franklin was, after all, on the Committee of Five in Philadelphia, which was allotted the job of drawing up the text in June 1776. A gifted writer of great standing, he was just the sort of person who might compose a document of such paramount importance.

Yet Becker thought the idea absurd. Although he admired Franklin for his “intimate and confidential” style, Becker did not believe that the author of Poor Richard’s Almanack could have written such sentences as “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,” or “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” These lines were charged with a peculiar, arresting quality, mixing precision with poetry. This quality Becker associated with Jefferson’s “engaging felicities”—quite different from Franklin’s prose, which had an “air of the tavern or print shop.”

In fact, Franklin would have been very unlikely to produce the Declaration’s first draft. By 1776, he was too worn out by the strains of life to tackle the challenge. Also, as he later confided to Jefferson, he had made it a rule to “avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body,” because taking on a task of that nature was to invite trouble. Jefferson, then still 33, would learn the wisdom of this for himself when Congress debated his draft. First, on about June 12, he sat down at a traveling desk of his own design in the parlor of his lodgings on Seventh and Market Street and started work on the Declaration of Independence.

Tom Nichols: Reclaiming real American patriotism

Franklin was, however, among the first to read Jefferson’s efforts, a week or so later—as was John Adams, who found himself “delighted with its high tone, and the flights of oratory with which it abounded.” From Adams, this was high praise, but there was also a hint of something else in his compliment. The “flights of oratory” certainly had luster, but did the words have real substance? Becker himself, in a close rereading of the “original Rough draught,” confessed that Jefferson’s prose sometimes left him with a feeling of insecurity, “as of resting one’s weight on something fragile.”

N owhere is this sensation more present than in the Declaration’s most celebrated phrase, “the pursuit of Happiness.”

This appears in the second sentence of the document as Jefferson outlines his brief list of “unalienable rights”—“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The final four words have an instant aesthetic allure, but the longer one lingers over them, the more a riddle appears. Why has Jefferson denoted both life and liberty as rights, but not happiness , which is qualified by the word pursuit ? Was this use of pursuit purely rhetorical? As the 19th-century lawyer Rufus Choate believed, was it nothing more than one of those “glittering and sounding generalities” designed to ornament “that passionate and eloquent manifesto”?

Many commentators have interpreted pursuit in this way over time. It adds rhythm and flourish at a pivotal early moment in the text. Others, however, have not been so sure. To the Harvard historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr., “the pursuit of Happiness” had real meaning, but not the meaning most readers recognize today. To illustrate his point, Schlesinger sifted through patriot literature by such writers as James Otis, Josiah Quincy II, James Wilson, and Adams himself. All of them wrote about happiness, though—unlike Jefferson—framed it not as something people should merely “strive for but as something that was theirs by natural right.”

The clearest expression of this strand of American thought came in George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was drafted in May 1776. In it, Mason spoke of “pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” Mason’s text, which was reprinted in Philadelphia newspapers in early June, has long been acknowledged as a key influence on Jefferson. The link between the two declarations is plain enough, yet the crucial shift from “obtaining happiness” to simply pursuing it is not so easily explained.

Arthur C. Brooks: Ben Franklin’s radical theory of happiness

In 1964, Schlesinger wrote a striking short essay titled “ The Lost Meaning of ‘The Pursuit of Happiness,’ ” in which he offered a new interpretation. For years, he argued, people had been reading that line incorrectly. Schlesinger believed that when Jefferson wrote pursuit , he was using it in the word’s “more emphatic” meaning—as lawyers used to talk about “the pursuit of the law” or doctors spoke of “the pursuit of medicine.” This did not mean questing after or chasing down. Instead, it implied a person’s engagement with a practice or vocation already in their possession. Jefferson was not at odds with the other Founders at all, according to Schlesinger, but in his reading of the line, the shift in meaning was significant: Some of the romantic sense of mission, some of the novelty of its idea of itself, was gone.

“The pursuit of Happiness” may be pure rhetoric, as Choate believed, or it may have a lost meaning, as Schlesinger argued, but there is a third interpretation we should consider. The age of Enlightenment out of which the United States arose was abuzz with discussions of happiness. What was it? How best to acquire it? Debating clubs churned over these issues. The philosopher Francis Hutcheson came up with complex formulas involving human qualities such as “benevolence” (B), “ability” (A), “self-love” (S), and “interest” (I) to create the conditions for what he termed the “moment of good” (M). (One part of his workings went M = B + S x A = BA.) Others relied on experience more than theory. Having encountered the Indigenous people of New Holland (modern-day Australia) for the first time, Captain Cook sailed away mulling, ungrammatically, whether they were “far more happier than we Europeans.”

But the author who wrote with the most intensity about happiness during the Revolutionary period was Samuel Johnson. Johnson was someone all of the Founders knew well. Ever since the reproduction of parts of his poem “The Vanity of Human Wishes” in Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1750, his work had found a ready audience in the colonies. As the historian James G. Basker has pointed out, “Johnson was a part of the consciousness of every literate American during the Founding Era.” And for Jefferson, he notes in particular, “the connection was unusually subtle and sustained.”

A s a young man , Jefferson sought out Johnson’s political tracts. He recommended Johnson’s Dictionary as a necessary addition to the library a friend was constructing, and he always made sure he had a copy to hand himself, whether he was in Monticello or Paris. Later, in a 1798 letter, he confessed to using it as “a Repertory, to find favorite passages which I wished to recollect,” although he added intriguingly, “but too rarely with success.”

This line captures something of the place Johnson occupied in Jefferson’s mind—often there, not always as a welcome guest. In 1775, Johnson had emerged as the sharpest British critic of what he called the “wild, indefinite and obscure” resolutions of the Continental Congress. Jefferson had felt the warmth of his prose more than most. Reading the copy of Johnson’s furious polemic Taxation No Tyranny that he’d acquired shortly after its publication that year, the slave-owning Jefferson would have been confronted with a distinctly personal taunt: “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

Read: Lessons from Thomas Jefferson’s failure on slavery

Johnson’s admonitions did not just haunt Jefferson at Monticello; they also followed him to Philadelphia in 1776. The week that Jefferson arrived to attend the Congress in May, The Pennsylvania Evening Post printed a long letter about “Doctor Johnson,” his Dictionary , and the use of words as weapons. Jefferson would not respond openly to any of this. In politics, he and Johnson were as divided as could be, but when it came to another matter, happiness, there was an odd convergence between the two. Five times before 1776, in all of his major works — The Rambler , Dictionary , The Idler , the novella Rasselas , and the political pamphlet The False Alarm —Johnson used the phrase the pursuit of happiness .

That construction was not itself exceptional: As Basker observes, “it also occurs in other writers of the period and the question of whether Jefferson took it directly from Johnson remains tantalizingly open.” More notable, and important, is the similarity in how these two great figures thought about happiness. Time and again, Johnson stressed his belief that pursuing happiness was a natural human instinct. This impulse, however, came with a warning. To pursue was natural; to obtain was a different proposition.

Johnson demonstrated this distinction most powerfully in Rasselas , which was published first in Britain in 1759 and then in Philadelphia in 1768. This moral fable recounted the adventures of an Abyssinian prince who, with his colorful entourage, was always seeking but never quite finding happiness. Sometimes, their journey would be lit up by moments of hope; more frequently came disappointment. At one point, in a quintessentially Johnsonian twist, one of the characters cries out in exasperation at the paradox that confronts them: “Yet what, said she, is to be expected from our persuit of happiness, when we find the state of life to be such, that happiness itself is the cause of misery?”

As the literary scholar Thomas Keymer has noted, Rasselas provides a clue to help us unpick one of the most engaging and ambiguous lines in the Declaration. By 1776, Jefferson was already known for his “happy talent for composition,” but this was only a part of his genius. He seems, too, to have had the gift of foresight. In that line, he frames, eloquently yet economically, the kind of country this new republic would be.

It was to be a place of promise, but it would not promise too much. It could not be both the land of opportunity and a place of greater safety. Pursue happiness, by all means, but do not expect a guarantee of obtaining it. Already in Jefferson’s rough draft, “The United States of America”—one of the very first uses of this name—we can glimpse the emerging nation’s essential character.

That character endures to this day. The United States would offer those who wished to come the chance of bettering themselves. But like Johnson, Jefferson seems to have appreciated the risks of the quest. Who knew, especially in the perilous summer of 1776, what lay ahead? The “pursuit of Happiness” was enough.

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Thomas Jefferson’s Goals: Life, Liberty and Happiness Essay

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The right to life

The right to liberty, the right to pursue happiness, works cited.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is a popular phrase among the US citizens. This phrase introduces the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. As such, the phrase guarantees every American citizen the right to liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness (Malloch & Scott 2). According to Thomas Jefferson, one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence, every government should allow its citizens the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to life entitles all Americans the abilities to pursue all the actions essential for the protection and satisfaction of their lives.

Equally, the right to liberty allows all Americans the abilities to conduct themselves, work, and think in accordance with their judgments. This implies that the government is forbidden from interfering with an individual’s life and affairs. In the same way, the right to pursue happiness ensures that all individuals are given freedom to transform the nation’s physical resources, their energy, and their knowledge into good things in life for their satisfaction. Generally, the phrase Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is the driving force behind our democratic systems of government. In this regard, this paper seeks to investigate whether the nation has achieved the goals envisioned by Jefferson.

After these words were written, American activists and citizens of that time adopted the phrase immediately. Prior to the writing of this phrase, the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness were not acknowledged by the political systems of the day. Instead, the goal of the monarchical government was to pursue happiness for those in power and to pursue unhappiness for the masses. For instance, the nation lacked economic systems that could guarantee the masses their basic needs. Similarly, during Jefferson’s time his goals as illustrated in the above phrases were only defined within the contexts of the whites. Over the last two centuries, the American societies have struggled through several wars and social upheavals with the aim of ensuring that all individuals regardless of their color, race, ethnicity, and social status enjoy these rights. Currently, these rights are not only enjoyed by all men, but also enjoyed by all women.

The first objective of the Declaration of independence was to champion the right to life for every individual. What this means is that no government or an individual is allowed to take the lives of its people. In the current American society, Jefferson’s vision of the right to life has been achieved. Currently, Americans respect their lives and the lives of other citizens. As compared to other countries, individuals in America are free to exercise their morals and beliefs thus enhancing the right to life. Equally, the current American societies have become more diverse than during the 17 th century. Currently, different individuals from different races and ethnicity live side by side without confrontation. This has been possible through the Americans’ value for life. If the right to life was not valued in the US as it is in other countries, different communities and religions living side by side could be in disputes.

Before the abolition of slavery in the US, during the 18 th century, slaves’ right to life was being violated. Masters often mistreated their slaves. Occasionally, the slaves’ lives were not given priority as compared to the settlers’ lives. This was illustrated from the disparities in their living conditions and healthcare services. However, through several struggles and movements slavery was later abolished. Over time, human rights were able to champion for the right to life for every individual in the US. Through these struggles, every individual is guaranteed the right not to be killed and to be rescued from impending danger. The fact that US government offers its citizens with favorable working conditions and the right to clothing, housing, and education, implies that it upholds the right to life.

Despite of the words emphasized in the Declaration of Independence, the right to liberty in the US was a distant dream during Jefferson’s era. During this time, a few individuals were allowed to exercise the right to liberty. As such, the framers of the US constitution allowed slavery to continue during the early years. Similarly, women were also excluded from exercising their right to liberty. However, towards the end of the 18 th century a new group of reformers emerged in the American societies. The groups were determined to enlarge the circle of liberty and freedom to include all Americans who had been discriminated. These reformists were determined in ensuring that all the slaves and the minorities regained their right to liberty. Out of these initiatives, the American society was divided into two groups.

During the early 19 th century, the US government had extended civil rights to white males who owned no land. However, the Native Americans and the minority groups were still restricted from exercising these rights. Prior the mid 20 th century, the struggle for equal treatment in the southern parts of the US had gained prominence. Even though slavery had been abolished, the minority groups were not allowed to exercise their full liberty rights. Civil rights and civil liberty activists of the mid 20 th century organized peaceful campaigns and protests with the aim of enhancing equal representations within the American societies. Generally, the struggle for the right to liberty of every American resulted in an enduring revolution to minority groups in America.

Currently, the right to liberty is entitled to every American regardless of his or her race, nationality, and social background. In this regard, the current American society has achieved the liberty rights as envisioned by Jefferson. Unlike other western countries, individuals in the US enjoy excess liberty rights. For instance, in the US freedoms of speech and worship have little restrictions that some individuals suggest that they should be restrained for security purposes. Equally, with the election of Barack Obama as the first African American in the year 2009 signifies a huge transformation in the American societies. During Jefferson’s era, no one could have ever imagined that African Americans would one day be entitled equal civil rights with the whites as it is today.

Currently, the right to pursue happiness has become an essential part of American culture. This declaration has a strong connection with economic liberty, religious liberty, and political liberty. Regarding this, the three rights envisioned by Jefferson are interlinked and need to be understood in terms of one another (Rus 110). In this regard, liberty is necessary for happiness, and happiness is necessary for liberty.

During Jefferson’s era, the right to pursue happiness was only enjoyed by the few individuals who were in leadership positions. As such, the political leaders were allowed to use the public resources, and workers’ energy and knowledge for their satisfaction at the expenses of the poor. Over time, human rights activists championed for equal rights and liberties in the American societies. With these struggles, the slave trade, racial discriminations, social discriminations, and other forms of discriminations were abolished. These initiatives have enhanced happiness in American societies.

At the present, the US politics, economics, and culture have undergone through enormous transformations to embrace the pursuit of happiness as its central drive and value. As envisioned by Jefferson, the present American government and institutions support each individual’s definitive rights to live freely and happily. From the mid 20 th century, American governments have redefined its economies, government structures, laws, and cultural expressions towards continuous improvements of human life. Currently, it is estimated that the America’s GNP per person ranges from $40000 to $50000. With these figures, America is considered one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Similarly, these figures illustrate that the pursuit of happiness among the Americans is a reality. Equally, in the US the society and the government are so favorable that all individuals are allowed to nurture their dreams or talents for their happiness.

Despite the fact that the current Americans have achieved the goals envisioned by Jefferson, we should be weary of the fact that these goals are now facing emerging ethical challenges. Notably, the right to life has raised several controversies among scholars, religious leaders, and the public. For instance, religious leaders argue that government is not supposed to take a life of a condemned criminal, as doing so implies that the criminal’s right to life would be violated. Similarly, by allowing a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy implies that the right of the unborn child to life would be violated. On the other hand, the right to pursue happiness is facing several ethical challenges. Currently, recession, disparities in wealth, war, and religious conflicts are compromising on the gains gained so far in the pursuit of happiness.

In conclusion, we should all acknowledge the fact that Jefferson’s goal has been achieved in the US. The US constitution emphasizes that every individual is entitled to indisputable rights to life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness. As required by the constitution, all American citizens and immigrants across the US enjoy these rights. Similarly, several countries around the world that embrace human rights have adopted and implemented these rights in their constitutions. Despite the benefits of these rights, many citizens in the US do not exploit these rights to their full potential. Instead, the rights are taken for granted by most individuals. For instance, some Americans have not learned how to pursue happiness. More often, these individuals associate happiness with material wealth rather than attainment of self-actualization.

Equally, we should acknowledge the challenges facing these inalienable rights and start working on a framework that would reduce these challenges (Moyers & Betty 45). For instance, Americans should focus on new technologies that will increase their pursuit of happiness rather than reduce it. Through this, they should explore new projects that will increase job creation, job satisfaction and wealth creation. By doing so, we would ensure that our future generations also have a chance to pursue their happiness.

Malloch, Theodore R., and Scott T. Massey. Renewing American culture: the pursuit of happiness . Salem, MA: M & M Scrivener, 2006. Print.

Moyers, Bill D., and Betty S. Flowers. A world of ideas : conversations with thoughtful men and women about American life today and the ideas shaping our future. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Print.

Rus, M. “Architectural Digest.” The Pursuit of Happiness 09.01 (2011): 108-119. Shatford Library . Web.

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IvyPanda. (2020, May 19). Thomas Jefferson’s Goals: Life, Liberty and Happiness. https://ivypanda.com/essays/thomas-jeffersons-goals-life-liberty-and-happiness/

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IvyPanda . 2020. "Thomas Jefferson’s Goals: Life, Liberty and Happiness." May 19, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/thomas-jeffersons-goals-life-liberty-and-happiness/.

1. IvyPanda . "Thomas Jefferson’s Goals: Life, Liberty and Happiness." May 19, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/thomas-jeffersons-goals-life-liberty-and-happiness/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Thomas Jefferson’s Goals: Life, Liberty and Happiness." May 19, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/thomas-jeffersons-goals-life-liberty-and-happiness/.

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Pursuit of Happiness

Thomas Jefferson never explained his use of the phrase " pursuit of happiness " in the  Declaration of Independence . He was almost certainly influenced by George Mason's  Virginia Declaration of Rights  (adopted June 12, 1776), which referred to "the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety." [1]

Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence used the expression, "... life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness." [2] In the final version, Jefferson altered the wording slightly to read "... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." [3]

Further Sources

• Ellis, Joseph J. "The Spring of '76: Texts and Contexts." In  What Did the Declaration Declare? , edited by Joseph J. Ellis, 79-94. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999. See especially pp. 88-90.
• Gerber, Scott Douglas, ed.  The Declaration of Independence: Origins and Impact .  Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002.
• Maier, Pauline.  American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence .  New York: Knopf, 1997.
• Schlesinger, Arthur M.  "The Lost Meaning of the 'Pursuit of Happiness'."   William and Mary Quarterly  3rd ser. vol. 21, no. 3 (1964): 326-27.  Focuses mostly on the use of the word "pursuit."
• Look for further sources in the Thomas Jefferson Portal .
• ^ The full text of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, along with draft versions and other related documents, is available online at  "George Mason & Historic Human Rights Documents,"  provided by  "George Mason's Gunston Hall."
• ^ Jefferson’s "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence, June 11-July 4, 1776, in  PTJ , 1:423.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.
• ^ The Declaration of Independence as Adopted by Congress, June 11-July 4, 1776, in  PTJ , 1:429.  Transcription  available at Founders Online.

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

• Morgan Faith
• July 4, 2024

[DED] Celebrations for July 4 have begun where picnics, parades, and fireworks are all scheduled to take place this week honoring the freedom that our country has acquired.

The Declaration of Independence, largely written by Thomas Jefferson and a few others including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman, declared independence for the United States in 1776.

Civilians of the new world, America, were desiring to break away from the chains that Britain had them tied to. The citizens of the new world desired to be free from their chains of British taxes, religious ties, and British rule. Within the Declaration of Independence , the authors write, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Amidst the Revolutionary War and many soldiers dying, the United States desired to fight for freedom. They desired to break the chains and ties they had with Britain. Truly, they desired for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence allowing the United States to break away from the monarchy of the British Empire. The Congress formally adopted this declaration on July 4.

Since 1776, citizens across the United States have celebrated the separation of the United States from Britain. People have celebrated with parades, fireworks, live events with music and bands, picnics, and barbeques, and even large yard sales.

For 248 years, freedom has been celebrated within our country. However, our world is ever-changing, and the question arises as to whether or not we are continuing to truly acknowledge, love, and appreciate our lives that are filled with pure independence and happiness.

For our own personal lives, we may have numerous adversities or hardships weighing us down. We could be experiencing grief, loss, heartache, loneliness, or confusion within our daily lives that make us feel like we are not so free. Our hearts, minds, and souls are tied to this heavy weight within our chest daily that we can’t seem to get rid of.

We may feel like we have chains around our hands that are pulling us down constantly. We are pulling, tugging, and begging for someone to set us free, but no one ever seems to answer. We begin to feel hopeless in our lives, and we lose the interest to ever pursue life and the pure happiness that God, our Creator, has all allowed for us to have.

We begin to ignore the offer that God is our stronghold in our times of struggle. In the end, we allow our adversities, hardships, and even sin to diminish our freedom and pursuit of happiness within Christ. Truly, we forget that Christ is our only hope for pure happiness and freedom.

Yes, the United States did write a Declaration of Independence allowing our country to break free from the chains of the British Empire. However, this same freedom of the United States is not the same freedom that God can offer.

The freedom of Christ is beyond what we can fathom. Unfortunately, we have chains in our own personal lives that affect our own personal freedom. It affects our viewpoint of how we see a relationship in Christ. Quite frankly, our own viewpoint of our own personal freedom, whether within Christ or without Christ, can ultimately positively or negatively affect our view of how we see freedom within our country.

Freedom could be dead if heavy chains are prevalent within our lives daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. On the other hand, freedom and the appreciation of independence could flourish and thrive, if we begin to understand, see, and believe what true freedom looks like through a relationship with Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 3:17 in the New Living Translation emphasizes, “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

The Spirit of Lord ultimately helps us to understand what true freedom is and how to break free from the chains that are holding us back from pure freedom and happiness.

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary , the definition of freedom is, “liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another.”

In our times of struggle, we are seeking freedom from shame, guilt, insecurities, and our pain. We desire to be free from the sin that holds us down, but we soon forget to run to the one who can only break our chains.

Is it possible that, as citizens of America, we are constantly searching for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the wrong areas of our lives? Is it possible that we are forgetting that God is our only true source of freedom from the chains that are weighing us down as a person and as a country?

Galatians 5:1 shares, “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.”

Reflect on what chains are holding you back from experiencing God’s freedom and happiness today. Ask yourself if your specific viewpoints of personal freedom are positively or negatively affecting your viewpoints on our country’s freedom.

If we desire to experience life, liberty, and the pursuit of pure happiness, we have to begin to understand that God, our Creator has given the opportunity to have all of these things without any charge. Like the Declaration of Independence says, God is our Creator and has given us all unalienable rights for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Today and always, remember that freedom has never been free. A sacrifice was made on the cross, through Jesus Christ, for our chains of sin. Through much bloodshed and tears, freedom was earned for this country as well. Picnics, fireworks, and parades are all great celebrations of this freedom given to us, but we must never forget the main source and true meaning of our life, liberty, and pursuit of true happiness.

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Dennis W. Flythe 1953-2024

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Arnold W. Wagaman 1939-2024

Arnie was employed at Mack Truck as a quality control specialist until his retirement; a total of 39 years. In his free time, he enjoyed fishing and gardening.

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The Pursuit of Happiness

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” ( Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776).

American children learn the words early in life. They hear them quoted often and for many reasons; they are taught in history classes, sometimes earlier than junior high. But what is “the pursuit of happiness,” and how has it been complicated by this present society? 

First of all, the pursuit of happiness is not a new concept. The idea came about long before our American Declaration of Independence was written.

According to John Locke

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), John Locke wrote, “The highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness.” He also declared that “The Necessity of pursuing true Happiness [is] the Foundation of Liberty.” 

Many of this country’s founders were influenced by Locke, but others also contributed similar ideas to their worldview.

According to Burlamaqui

Jean Jacques Burlamaqui (1747) was another “natural rights” philosopher who certainly influenced the American founding fathers, and was quoted notably by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison concerning “the pursuit of happiness,” a concept originally rooted in property. In his Principles of Natural Law , Burlamaqui identified the pursuit of happiness as the purpose of all human actions. Burlamaqui maintained that “Natural liberty is the right which nature gives to all mankind, of disposing of their persons and property, after the manner they judge most convenient to their happiness.” He went on, “Nature, I confess, has put into man a desire of happiness and an aversion to misery.” Locke referred to these as the “innate practical principles,” that “Do continue constantly to operate and influence all our actions without ceasing: these may be observed in all persons and all ages, steady and universal.”

According to Mason

Thomas Jefferson’s decision to include “the pursuit of happiness” as an “unalienable right” was a close association to George Mason’s claim in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776). Mason (also a reader of John Locke) wrote that all men have certain inherent rights, including “the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” Sound familiar?

These days, people are constantly demanding what they perceive as their rights , especially those rooted in the third clause–happiness. It’s the right of all Americans to be happy, correct? Hmmmm…That’s not what it says. In fact, I believe the demand for constant happiness is at the root of many of the problems in this country, and that demand is nurtured early in the lives of our children.

According to Koch

Author and speaker Kathy Koch teaches that, due largely to the readily available technology, there are 5 lies in which we are raising children:

• I am the center of my universe.
• I deserve to be happy.
• I must have choices.
• I am my own authority.
• Information is all I need.

Note the first two: I am the most important human to me, and I deserve –I am entitled–to be happy. At a recent conference that I attended, Koch spoke these sobering words: “Entitlement will send people to hell.” We are allowing our young people to be taught that they deserve to be happy , not just as a goal for which to strive, not just as something to pursue, but a thing to be demanded here and now. It is a right.

In addition, one must consider that it is often in the valleys that growth and progress take place. Mountaintop experiences are great, but they don’t usually promote “pursuit.” When one is in a valley of unhappiness or unfulfillment, forward movement toward happiness is encouraged.

According to Definition

However, the problem is that the unalienable right of the pursuit of happiness is not the same as the promise of happiness itself. According to Vocabulary.com , “happiness , in psychology, [is] a state of emotional well-being that a person experiences either in a narrow sense, when good things happen in a specific moment, or more broadly, as a positive evaluation of one’s life and accomplishments overall—that is, subjective well-being.” Although it is possible for everyone to pursue happiness, happiness is not a guaranteed result. Since everyone’s idea of happiness is different, and everyone’s circumstances are different, and many circumstances are impossible for a person to control, happiness can not be assured.

The scriptures allow:

Ecclesiastes 3:13 – And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labor, it is the gift of God.

Galatians 5:1 – Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Matthew 6:31- 33 – So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 

Matthew 7:7-8 – Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened.

It’s All About the Verbs

None of these scriptures say that one will be handed happiness as a right, not even a “saved and born again Christian.” There is always a verb: work, stand fast, ask, seek, knock– pursue! Do you see a theme here? If you want to be happy, you have to make an effort. It is not an entitlement. Period.

God bless you! Have a happy day!

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Opinion: Americans are getting our ‘pursuit of happiness’ all wrong. There’s a simple fix

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When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our unalienable rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he had a very specific definition of happiness in mind. He believed that happiness was the result of living virtuously — that becoming a fully happy human required devoting yourself to service to your fellow beings.

His words galvanized generations of Americans to seek out their own personal well-being. Yet the happiness we pursue today is a far cry from that which Jefferson envisioned. It’s putting us in conflict with ourselves, and with others.

Modern Americans have been conditioned to believe that happiness is something that we get for ourselves, by ourselves, through achieving material wealth, personal success and individual gratification. I call this belief Old Happy. It is powered by systems of individualism, capitalism and domination that have fueled our culture for generations.

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Growing up in this individualistic culture, we are taught to see ourselves as separate from other people . We’re taught that happiness comes from focusing more and more on ourselves and that we can perfect and grow this happiness through personal achievement. This does not work. In one 2015 study , researchers tried to understand why Americans who aggressively pursued happiness were, in fact, more likely to be lonely and depressed. It was because they believed that focusing on themselves was the secret to finding happiness.

This belief is further amplified by the difficulties of living in our Old Happy culture. We have no social safety net and are the only developed nation that does not offer a paid family leave policy, even though years of research has found that the happiest countries are the more equal ones. We have the highest number of billionaires and millionaires of any country, who collectively could use their power and resources to permanently end the struggles of millions of Americans. We ignore decades of research that shows that the conditions people are born, grow up, live, work and age in influence up to 80% of their well-being, all the while telling people to “think their way” to happiness. In a culture like this, it can seem as if we have no choice but to retreat even deeper into our own self-interest.

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The data speak to Old Happy’s devastating impact. In March, according to Gallup data in the “World Happiness Report,” America fell out of the top 20 rankings for the first time. One in four Americans are struggling with their mental health . Fifty percent of Americans say they are lonely . Powered by the unshakable feeling that something is deeply wrong with our society, we look for something to blame it on, be it technology or generational differences or any number of other moral panics, all the while ignoring the root cause of our misery.

Believing that we are separate is what separates us from happiness. True happiness is collective. It is the experience of being connected to others, of participating in relationships of mutuality, of knowing yourself to be a needed and useful part of a greater whole. The road to true well-being is not about elevating the self, but about using the self to do good for others. Changing our perception of happiness to this interconnected one will help.

While we have tentatively started to recognize the effects that our relationships have on our physical and mental health, we haven’t used this awareness to change our culture. To do so, we must affirm and act on the fact that our relationships sustain us and that most moments of our lives demonstrate our dependence upon one another.

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The ice cream that you savored last night was made possible by those who crafted the flavor, tested the recipe, maintained food safety, designed the packaging, marketed the brand and shipped it to your store.

The good professional day you had yesterday was the result of supportive feedback from your boss, an interesting project that benefited your clients and a fun happy hour with colleagues.

Even if you think about something that you did on your own — for example, facing one of your fears — there was someone else who helped to make that moment possible: the parents who instilled a certain value within you, the friend who checked in beforehand, the therapist who helped you process your emotions.

Treating reliance on others like a flaw leads us to miss out on one of the most reliable sources of happiness: contributing to interconnectedness.

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Many studies have demonstrated the profound ways that helping other people benefits us, affecting our physical health , longevity and happiness . Even those who are suffering benefit. In one recent study , researchers took people with depression and anxiety and split them into three groups for a five-week program. The first group was taught how to challenge their automatic negative thoughts. The second group was told to plan social activities every week. The third group was instructed to do three acts of kindness a day, twice a week. It was the third group that saw the greatest improvement in well-being, both five weeks and 10 weeks later.

If we contribute our knowledge, talents and humanity to our collective happiness rather than the pursuit of personal wealth, power and fame, personal happiness would likely also be achieved.

Our Old Happy culture did not appear out of nowhere. Human beings, operating under this flawed understanding of happiness, made it this way. This has contributed to some of the biggest problems that we collectively face, including climate change, inequality and injustice. But all is not lost. We have the power to reorient ourselves toward the promise that Jefferson wrote about: a country where everyone can be happy.

Stephanie Harrison is the founder of The New Happy, and author of “ New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That’s Got It Wrong .”

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