It is the most famous line in the history of democracy. You probably memorized it in third grade. Most of us can recite the words life liberty and the pursuit of happiness as easily as our own phone numbers. But here is the thing: we’ve mostly been getting it wrong for about 250 years. Thomas Jefferson wasn't just being poetic when he scratched those words onto parchment in a sweltering Philadelphia boarding house. He was actually engaging in a high-stakes philosophical argument that still dictates how we live, work, and argue today.
Jefferson was a bit of a thief. Intellectual theft was the norm back then. Most historians, like Garry Wills in his seminal work Inventing America, point out that Jefferson was heavily "borrowing" from John Locke. Locke’s original trio was "life, liberty, and property."
Why the switch?
It wasn't because Jefferson hated houses or land. It’s because he had been reading a lot of Epicurus and a bit of Scottish Enlightenment philosophy. He wanted something bigger. Something more elusive. He wanted to bake the idea of a meaningful life into the very DNA of a new nation.
The Weird History of Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
If you look at the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, you can see where the ideas collided. Jefferson was obsessed with the idea that the government shouldn't just stay out of your way—it should actually protect your ability to find fulfillment. This wasn't about "happiness" in the way we think of it now. It wasn't about a new car or a dopamine hit from a social media notification.
In the 18th century, "happiness" was closer to the Greek concept of eudaimonia. It meant flourishing. It meant being a complete, virtuous human being.
Honestly, the "liberty" part was almost more straightforward. It meant not being under the thumb of a king. But the "pursuit" bit? That’s where the legal scholars get into the weeds. Does it mean the right to attain happiness, or just the right to chase it?
The Locke Connection and the Property Problem
John Locke wrote his Second Treatise of Government in 1689. He argued that since you own your own body and your own labor, you own the stuff you produce. This was radical at the time. It suggested that a King couldn't just take your farm because he felt like it.
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Jefferson liked this. He loved it. But he also saw the limitations. By swapping "property" for the "pursuit of happiness," he broadened the American experiment. He made it about the mind and the soul, not just the dirt and the wallet. Carol V. Hamilton, a researcher who has written extensively on this linguistic shift, suggests that Jefferson was likely influenced by the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason just weeks earlier. Mason’s version was longer and clunkier. Jefferson, being the editor-in-chief of the Revolution, trimmed the fat. He gave us the hook.
Why We Struggle With This Trio Today
We live in a world that is incredibly good at providing the "liberty" to buy things, but we’re often pretty bad at the "happiness" part.
Modern psychology often references the "hedonic treadmill." This is the idea that we work harder to get more things, but our baseline level of happiness stays exactly the same. We are pursuing, but we aren't catching much.
Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness has become a sort of catch-all defense for almost anything.
- Want to start a business? It’s your right.
- Want to move across the country? Pursuit of happiness.
- Want to protest? Liberty.
But there is a tension here. Your pursuit of happiness might occasionally step on my liberty. That is where the Supreme Court usually has to step in and play referee.
Take the case of Meyer v. Nebraska in 1923. The Court had to figure out what "liberty" actually meant in the context of the Fourteenth Amendment. They decided it wasn't just about being out of a jail cell. It included the right to marry, to establish a home, and to bring up children. Essentially, the Court codified Jefferson’s vague poetic line into actual legal protection for a lifestyle.
The Epicurean Influence You Weren't Taught in School
Jefferson once wrote, "I am an Epicurean." People often hear that and think he liked fancy wine and silk sheets. Not quite.
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Epicureanism was about the absence of pain and fear. It was about tranquil living. When Jefferson wrote about life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he was thinking about a society where people weren't terrified of their government or their neighbors. He wanted a "public happiness."
This is a concept that Hannah Arendt, the political theorist, explored deeply. She argued that the Founders believed happiness was something you found by participating in public life. By voting. By debating. By being a part of a community.
We’ve largely privatized the concept. Now, we think of happiness as something that happens behind closed doors, on a couch, watching a screen. Jefferson would have found that incredibly lonely. He saw the "pursuit" as a team sport.
Is the Phrase Legally Binding?
Technically? No.
The Declaration of Independence is a "statement of intent." It isn't the law of the land—the Constitution is. You can't walk into a courtroom and sue someone for "interfering with my pursuit of happiness" and expect a judge to hand you a settlement.
However, it acts as the North Star. Every major civil rights movement in American history—from the abolitionists to the suffragettes to Dr. King—has used this specific phrase as their primary piece of evidence. They argued that the "unalienable rights" weren't being applied equally.
They weren't asking for new rights. They were asking the country to finally deliver on the original promise.
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Actionable Ways to Reclaim Your Own Pursuit
If we take the historical and philosophical context seriously, we can actually use these three pillars to audit our own lives. It's not just dusty history; it's a framework for a better existence.
1. Define your "Liberty" boundaries. Liberty isn't just the absence of a dictator. It’s the ability to control your own time. Look at your week. How much of it is spent on "obligations" that don't serve your life or your goals? If you have no autonomy over your schedule, you have no liberty in the Jeffersonian sense. Start by reclaiming one hour a day where no one else has a claim on your brain.
2. Audit your "Pursuit." Are you chasing "property" or "happiness"? Locke and Jefferson represent two different paths. If your pursuit is purely material, the hedonic treadmill will eventually exhaust you. Shift your "pursuit" toward skill acquisition or community building. Research from the Harvard Study of Adult Development—the longest-running study on happiness—shows that the only thing that consistently predicts a "happy" life is the quality of your relationships. That is the real pursuit.
3. Protect the "Life" part through health. You can’t pursue anything if you’re burnt out or physically failing. The "life" pillar is the foundation. This sounds basic, but in a culture of "hustle," we often sacrifice the first right (life/health) for a perceived gain in the third (happiness). It’s a bad trade. Sleep, movement, and real food are the prerequisites for the liberty to do anything else.
4. Engage in "Public Happiness." Stop scrolling and start participating. Join a local board, volunteer, or just talk to your neighbors. Happiness, as the Founders saw it, was a civic duty. When we isolate, we lose the very thing the Declaration was trying to protect.
The genius of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is its flexibility. It’s an unfinished sentence. It’s an invitation to keep building. It doesn't promise that you’ll be happy every day. It promises that you have the right to try, and that no one—not a King, not a corporation, and not a neighbor—gets to tell you what that looks like for you.