Every Independence Day, I try to remember to reread the Declaration of Independence. It always leaves me with a sense of wonder and gratitude. And also a lump of nagging discontent.
Everyone knows Thomas Jefferson wrote the first draft, but the five-man drafting committee ? which also included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman ? very easily could have watered it down. The Continental Congress as a whole could have amended it to death or refused to act on it.
Instead, the Founders adopted a public document so powerful and perfect that it left them with no other option than to win the war and to try to fulfill their vision of a just government.
Because they succeeded, the Declaration is now rightly thought ? after the King James Bible ? the second-greatest literary achievement produced by a committee.
The King James Bible continued the shift of religious power from the Catholic Church and state-sponsored Protestant churches to the individual. Likewise, the Declaration said that protecting the God-given rights of the individual ? not the state, or some lucky group of favored citizens ? was the only proper reason for a government to exist.
Tom Brokawmay have sold a million books, but he was wrong. With respect to those from the World War II era, the Founders are our greatest generation.
I am grateful ? to the same God the Founders cited ? that I live in the nation their Declaration shaped. I am doubly grateful that the Founders had the moral courage ? and, paradoxically, the lack of selfishness ? to willingly give up power.
We still have not fully lived up to the Declaration?s ideal. That disappoints, but it is nothing new.
The Continental Congress did chop Jefferson?s anti-slavery sentiments from the Declaration. Countless slaves and soldiers bled to resolve that issue.
The Founders? Constitution outlined a democratic republic with minimal powers over the individual. But today?s politicians seldom restrain themselves from using democratic means to regulate, tax or prohibit whatever they feel like.
In the last five years, balancing the rights of the citizen and the requirements of a government just strong enough to protect those rights has been a particular challenge.
Still, our nation?s respect for individual liberty over the last 230 years stands unequaled.
It is the Declaration?s peculiarly Jeffersonian phrase that leaves me with a nagging discontent.
The pursuit of happiness.
It wasn?t a mere rhetorical flourish. Any other writer would have instead used the word property ? which at the time could be taken to refer only to the land-owning class ? along with life and liberty.
The new phrase enabled us to begin to think about people apart from their station in life and to start the process of recognizing the rights of blacks, women and others previously slighted.
But Jefferson also gave us the permission to seek ? and perhaps feel entitled to ? something that is hard to define and even harder to feel. The implication is that happiness is an individual pursuit, when it is something that can only really be enjoyed with other people.
A new study from the American Sociological Review says that the average American reports having just two close friends. One in 4 reports having no one to discuss important personal issues with. If accurate, that?s really scary.
Is it our pursuit of career and status that causes this? Are we spending too much time working? Are we too willing to leave friends and family for the job three time zones away?
We spend a lot of time and money buying things, watching DVDs, eating too much and working out. And then there?s sex, drugs and iPods. Do these things make us happy? Or do they merely give us a momentary flash of what it might feel like to be happy?
Is happiness even possible?
I don?t have any answers. Maybe you do.
Aaron Keith Harris writes about politics, the media, pop culture and music and is a regular contributor to National Review Online and Bluegrass Unlimited. He can be reached at [email protected].
