"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase in the United States
Declaration of Independence.
The phrase gives three examples of the "unalienable rights" which the Declaration says has been
given to all human beings by their Creator, and for which governments are created to protect.
Origin and phrasing The United States Declaration of Independence
was drafted by Thomas Jefferson, edited by the Committee of Five, then further edited
and adopted by the Committee of the Whole of the Second Continental Congress on July
4, 1776.
The second section of text in the Declaration contains the phrase.
Jefferson's "original Rough draught" is on exhibit in the Library of Congress.
This version was used by Julian Boyd to create a transcript of Jefferson's draft, which reads:
We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent,
that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which
are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness; ...
The Committee of Five edited Jefferson's draft.
Their version survived further edits by the whole Congress intact, and reads:
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.
——
A number of possible sources or inspirations for Jefferson's use of the phrase in the Declaration
of Independence have been identified, although scholars debate the extent to which any one
of them actually influenced Jefferson.
Jefferson declared himself an Epicurean during his lifetime: this is a philosophical doctrine
that teaches the pursuit of happiness and proposes autarchy, which translates as self-rule,
self-sufficiency or freedom.
The greatest disagreement comes between those who suggest the phrase was drawn from John
Locke and those who identify some other source.
Lockean roots hypothesis Locke argued in his Two Treatises of Government
that political society existed for the sake of protecting "property", which he defined
as a person's "life, liberty, and estate".
In A Letter Concerning Toleration, he wrote that the magistrate's power was limited to
preserving a person's "civil interest", which he described as "life, liberty, health, and
indolency of body; and the possession of outward things".
He declared in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding that "the highest perfection
of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness".
According to those scholars who saw the root of Jefferson's thought in Locke's doctrine,
Jefferson replaced "estate" with "the pursuit of happiness", although this does not mean
that Jefferson meant the "pursuit of happiness" to refer primarily or exclusively to property.
Under such an assumption, the Declaration of Independence would declare that government
existed primarily for the reasons Locke gave, and some have extended that line of thinking
to support a conception of limited government.
The first and second article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted unanimously
by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776 and written by George Mason,
speaks of happiness in the context of recognizably Lockean rights and is paradigmatic of the
way in which "the fundamental natural rights of mankind" were expressed at the time.
That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights,
of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive
or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring
and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
Benjamin Franklin was in agreement with Thomas Jefferson in downplaying protection of "property"
as a goal of government.
It is noted that Franklin found property to be a "creature of society" and thus, he believed
that it should be taxed as a way to finance civil society.
Alternative hypotheses Garry Wills has argued that Jefferson did
not take the phrase from Locke and that it was indeed meant to be a standard by which
governments should be judged.
Wills suggests Adam Ferguson as a good guide to what Jefferson had in mind:
If, in reality, courage and a heart devoted to the good of mankind are the constituents
of human felicity, the kindness which is done infers a happiness in the person from whom
it proceeds, not in him on whom it is bestowed; and the greatest good which men possessed
of fortitude and generosity can procure to their fellow creatures is a participation
of this happy character.
If this be the good of the individual, it is likewise that of mankind; and virtue no
longer imposes a task by which we are obliged to bestow upon others that good from which
we ourselves refrain; but supposes, in the highest degree, as possessed by ourselves,
that state of felicity which we are required to promote in the world.
The 17th-century cleric and philosopher Richard Cumberland wrote that promoting the well-being
of our fellow humans is essential to the "pursuit of our own happiness".
Locke never associated natural rights with happiness, but his philosophical opponent
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz made such an association in the introduction to his Codex Iuris Gentium.
William Wollaston's The Religion of Nature Delineated describes the "truest definition"
of "natural religion" as being "The pursuit of happiness by the practice of reason and
truth".
An English translation of Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui's Principles of Natural and Politic Law prepared
in 1763 extolled the "noble pursuit" of "true and solid happiness" in the opening chapter
discussing natural rights.
Historian Jack Rakove posits Burlamaqui as the inspiration for Jefferson's phrase.
Comparable mottos worldwide Other tripartite mottos include "liberté,
égalité, fraternité" in France; "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit" in Germany and "peace,
order, and good government" in Canada.
It is also similar to a line in the Canadian Charter of Rights: "life, liberty, security
of the person".
The phrase can also be found in Chapter III, Article 13 of the 1947 Constitution of Japan,
and in President Ho Chi Minh's 1945 declaration of independence of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam.
An alternative phrase "life, liberty, and property", is found in the Declaration of
Colonial Rights, a resolution of the First Continental Congress.
The Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution declare
that governments cannot deprive any person of "life, liberty, or property" without due
process of law.
Also, Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads, "Everyone has the right
to life, liberty, and security of person".
References