The Lost Meaning of "The Pursuit of Happiness"

Abstract

ROBABLY no historical expression is more familiar to Americans than of immortalized by the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. Yet it has puzzled many that life and liberty should be pronounced by the great document as unalienable rights of all men but not happiness-only the of it. It is worth asking, however, what Jefferson and his associates on the drafting committee really meant by the famous phrase. Able scholars have repeatedly examined the meaning of the text as a whole, but none has given attention to this particular wording.' What, then, was the import of the term pursuit in the minds of the framers of the Declaration? Did it signify merely the pursuing or seeking of happiness, as is conventionally assumed, or was it used in a different sense, as when we today refer to the of law or the of medicine? According to the New English Dictionary it has borne both meanings since at least the sixteenth century.2 Obviously the distinction is a vital one, for, if the common supposition is mistaken, it follows that the historic manifesto proclaimed the practicing rather than the quest of happiness as a basic right equally with life and liberty. For evidence of this