treatments from the society which has not been accomplished after the civil right era.
G. The Phrase of the Pursuit of Happiness
1. The Origin of the Pursuit of Happiness
There are no two documents more important than the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution in the history of American society. These
two documents express the American ideals of freedom such as freedom of speech, freedom of tyranny, freedom from unreasonable government, and many more.
They show how important the freedom or liberty for every human being. As stated in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, God endowed the human
beings with unalienable rights such as right of life, liberty and 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.
http:www.ushistory.orgdeclarationdocumentindex.htm , cited
on July 05
th
2009, 10:55 am In this preamble, the phrase of the pursuit of happiness is the most famous
among all. Happiness is mentioned specifically in the declaration, an addition that becomes unusual and seems odd. Thomas Jefferson did not provide an
explanation for the meaning and the origin of this phrase so we can just interpret based on our thinking and assumption.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, the draft he sent to the congress was too much longer, and the original draft was heavily
edited by the committee. One phrase that was in both original and final versions is “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Many scholars assumed that
Jefferson’s intention to mention this phrase was influenced by the thought of the English philosopher named John Locke. Indeed Thomas Jefferson was interested
in Locke’s ideas and thoughts. In Locke’s journal entitled Two Treaties on Government
1690 he wrote: Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom
and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of Nature, equally with any other man, or number of men
in the world, hath by nature a power not only to preserve his property—that is, his life, liberty, and estate.
http:www.fordham.eduhalsallmod1690locke-sel.html , cited on
17
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July 2009, at 11.15 am
When we pay notice to this writing, we can see that Locke does not mention happiness. Clearly, Jefferson took the concept of the right of life and
liberty and applied it in the declaration of independence. No one is certain where the phrase of “the pursuit of happiness” came from, Thomas Jefferson never said.
Interestingly, this phrase was not also used by Thomas Jefferson at that time. A British political observer named Samuel Johnson used the phrase “pursuit of
happiness” in his essay entitled “the false alarm”. But it is more likely the phrase the pursuit of happiness was derived from John Locke’s thought. In 1690, Locke
wrote an essay entitled concerning human understanding. In that essay, he wrote:
The necessity of pursuing true 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;
…the stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness is general;
http:hnn.usarticles46460.html , cited on 17
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July 2009, at 11.55 am
In the writing above, it showed that Locke precisely used the same phrase as Jefferson did in the declaration of independence.
2. The Meaning of the Pursuit of Happiness
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