![]() ![]() ![]() It was an aspirational document charting a new course for a new country, reflecting the entrepreneurial, inventive, and explorer ethos of our people. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson enshrined the “pursuit of happiness” as a basic right, writing: “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.”īut why did Jefferson include the qualifier, “pursuit of”? Couldn’t he have just left those words out, indicating a right to happiness in and of itself-as do certain constitutions around the world, such as the one in Turkey (See Article 5)? Jefferson’s deliberate word choice reveals that the Declaration of Independence wasn’t just a declaration of grievances or even of our rights.
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