Thursday, July 30, 2026
Jefferson's Genius
The famous second sentence of the Declaration of Independence enumerates three “unalienable Rights.” The first is life, naturally. The second is liberty. Those concepts are rather standard. But the third—the pursuit of happiness—is not. It is an expression of Jefferson’s genius, I think, and it contains the seeds of what has made America unique. You will find it [in] no other national charter, in no international human rights document. It is solely American.
What does it mean? It means that the individual is paramount, that every person has the right of self-determination. That every American can make his own judgments, chart his own course, choose his own goals, live out his own values, measure success by his own yardstick, and dream big. He owes no accounting to the government or to his fellow citizens for the way he chooses to live his life.
