"Pursuit of Happiness"--Our Founders Didn't Mean What You Think

“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, 1776

The word “happiness” may sound out of place among these august words of the Declaration of Independence. The word is kind of feathery and soft. What did the Founders mean? What is happiness anyway? Is financial security a prerequisite? Where does collective happiness fit into the feeling of individual happiness? Why is a right to happiness included as one of only three unalienable rights in our Declaration of Independence?               

Let’s begin our exploration with several definitions of happiness:

• “…the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one's life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.” The How of Happiness, by Sonja Lyubomirsky

• “…an emotion of joy, gladness, satisfaction, and well-being.” American Psychological Association, 2023

• “Being able to do anything you want to, anything that feels good, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.” From Interview.

Many scientists have concluded that pleasure, engagement, and meaning are the three things that make most people happy. But our founders had a different take.

Thomas Jefferson, with input from John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, crafted the familiar and loved words of the Declaration of Independence. The phrase “pursuit of happiness” was no causal, vague filler added because it sounded appealing—the phrase meant something specific for them.

Our Founding Fathers were well-read students of history and philosophy  who came to believe that happiness comes from doing good more than it comes from feeling good.

Professor and Attorney Conklin wrote “…the Founders viewed happiness as the proper end of man and the protection of the pursuit of happiness as a proper end of government. In discussing that end, Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin frequently and overtly drew a connection between happiness and virtue.” Their belief was that without virtue, you would not be happy.

In 1776 in Thoughts on Government, John Adams wrote: … “All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.…”

Long interested in this subject, a 29-year-old Franklin wrote in 1735: “the Science of Virtue is of more worth, and of more consequence to [man’s] Happiness than all the rest [of the sciences] put together.” 

In 1816 Jefferson wrote, “Without virtue, happiness cannot be.”

Our Founders considered the pursuit of happiness to be a private right and a public duty. They based this conclusion on a deep study of writings about natural law, philosophy, and jurisprudence—starting with Cicero in the first century BC. If you read anything about the lives of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, you will likely be awed by the depth and breadth of their reading and writing.

Of course, our founders didn’t get it all right. Their most egregious failure deals with slavery. Their commitment to happiness didn’t apply to the more than half a million of enslaved blacks in the colonies in 1776. This is a sobering reminder of how easy it is to justify certain behaviors, even those as unjust as owning slaves—many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution owned slaves. The failure of our founders to face the scourge of slavery probably doomed our country to the awful Civil War and contributed to the racism so woven into our culture. Was it greed, arrogance, or a lack of courage that held these men back from honestly facing injustice of slavery? What an irony that these wise and learned men failed in this singular test. I consider it a humbling reminder of our human frailty.

SUGGESTIONS:

1. Jeff Rosen was interviewed by NRP about his new book,  In Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America. Consider reading the book or listening to this 35-minute long interview, which moved me to write this blog.

2. Check out Ben Franklin’s list of virtues.

3. Many of the founders of our nation wore blinders when it came to slavery. We feel better wearing blinders because then we see only what we want to see and avoid seeing things that upset us or make us feel angry or guilty. Do You Prefer Your Blinders or the Truth?

4. Reflect on what really makes you happy.

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Dr. Donna Chacko promotes health of body, mind, and spirit through her website (serenityandhealth.com), her blog, her podcast/vlog series, “Engaging with a Messy World” and " “Pop-Up Conversations on Health of Mind, Body, and Spirit,” and programs at her church. She is the author of Pilgrimage: A Doctor’s Healing Journey (Luminare Press, 2021), a recent best-seller on Amazon, 2022 Illumination Awards Gold Medal Winner, 2022 Reader Views Literary Award Gold Medal Winner, and 2022 Catholic Media Association First Place Awards.