USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Thomas Jefferson took the phrase “pursuit of happiness” from Locke and incorporated it into his famous statement of a peoples’ inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence.

Detailed explanation-2: -Locke wrote his Second Treatise of Government in 1689 at the time of England’s Glorious Revolution, which overthrew the rule of James II. Locke wrote that all individuals are equal in the sense that they are born with certain “inalienable” natural rights.

Detailed explanation-3: -In the Declaration, “the pursuit of happiness” is listed with the other “unalienable rights” of “life” and “liberty.” Those are qualities of existence, states of being. You are either alive or dead, free or enslaved. Governments have something to say about those states by how they govern their citizens.

Detailed explanation-4: -In the Declaration of Independence (1776), the pursuit of happiness is listed as an unalienable right bestowed by the Creator upon all men, who are created equal. Men like Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration, focused on the “pursuit” portion of the phrase.

Detailed explanation-5: -John Locke on the rights to life, liberty, and property of ourselves and others (1689) Found in The Two Treatises of Civil Government (Hollis ed.)