As we approach the end of our semester, I find myself pondering the words that Thomas Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence. Borrowing his ideas from John Locke, Jefferson asserted that all people were born with three unalienable rights—“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. The establishment and protection of these three rights became the primary objective of both our political and economic systems. It was, in fact, no coincidence, that the same people who declared their independence from Britain and set up a democratic government also embraced the writings of Adam Smith—the father of capitalism—who had published in 1776 his book entitled The Wealth of Nations. Of those three rights, the most intriguing to me is Jefferson’s idea of the “pursuit of happiness”—not property, as John Locke had written in his Treatise on Government. As the American democratic political system and capitalist economic system evolved, many came to believe that Jefferson’s idea of pursuing happiness was nearly synonymous with Locke’s principle of property rights. After all, didn’t Adam Smith state that capitalism was a free market economic system rooted in private property and self-interest? In order for an economy to flourish, Smith advocated for a limited government—laissez-faire were his words—to insure government would keep its hands off our economic pursuits. If left alone, Smith argued that the “invisible hand” would self-regulate the economy and would enable citizens to pursue their happiness by acquiring wealth, profit, and property. This “profit motive” would be the engine that drove the capitalist economy. So it seemed logical that Jefferson’s “pursuit of happiness” was just another way of saying that citizens should be free to pursue that “American Dream” and acquire property and material possessions. Did Jefferson believe that that the pursuit of happiness was found in the acquisition of property? Did our founding fathers establish a Constitution to reinforce such a principle? I don’t think so.
I believe that Jefferson and our other founding fathers would have taken exception to some of Smith’s ideas of “limited government”. Smith felt that the only legitimate role of government was to provide for the national defense, establishment of a national currency, protection of patents and copyrights, and the construction of roads and bridges. In these roles, government would need few tax dollars and would mostly exist to protect our individual pursuit of happiness (property). If our founding fathers supported such ideals, why did they reject the Articles of Confederation and replace it with a Constitution that clearly strengthened the national government? The founding fathers witnessed the near collapse of our fledgling nation under the Articles of Confederation. That government had allowed so much liberty and pursuit of happiness, that chaos like Shays’s Rebellion had become all too commonplace. So a Constitution was written that gave the national government the power of the sword (military) and the purse (the ability to tax). On top of that, the writers of the Constitution included an “elastic clause” which gave the national government the authority to “stretch “its powers to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities. Some of those responsibilities are found in the Preamble. Our founding fathers stated that two of the purposes of our national Constitution were to “insure domestic tranquility” and “promote the general welfare”. Applying the elastic clause to these principles, the implications of the government’s role in our pursuit of happiness is obvious. There seems no doubt that our Constitution rejects the idea of laissez-faire. Our founding fathers empowered the government to intercede on our behalf to protect our pursuit of happiness. How does the government play a role in our pursuits of happiness? The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution was added to insure that all citizens would be guaranteed “equal protection under the law”. The government cannot sit idly by while corporations mistreat workers, gouge consumers, wreck the environment, and produce faulty products. Government must insure that one person’s pursuit of happiness does not prevent another from attaining his/her own happiness. In the end government must serve as some sort of social conscience. It must discourage selfish, destructive pursuit of materialism which is eroding away our national spirit. Government must encourage social responsibility and promote the common good. If government can do these things Americans might be re-discover their own humanity and remember that true happiness is not rooted in property, it is found in community. That is what I believe Jefferson meant by the pursuit of happiness. That happiness cannot be just for some. It cannot be a selfish, personal pursuit. It must be a collective, national pursuit that will serve to strengthen our American identity.
