Did the founders....?

Question

put "Life" before "Liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for a reason? Do you think it might have been a prioritized list?

"Cora" - My PERSONAL definition of "The Founders" includes those who wrote the document which is the "foundation" for the structure of our country - The Constitution. But thanx for taking a snotty swipe at me!!

"Cora" - Oops. I read you pointless corection backwards. Whatever. Both documents are part of the "foundation" of our country in my humble opinion, and those who wrote them "the founders" - so whatever.

Answer 1

It's hard to have liberty and pursue happiness if you are dead

Answer 2

Good heavens! You asked a perfectly sensible question, and look at the silly answers you received. Howse about I juts ANSWER what you asked?

What a concept.

The question of whether the particular order was there for a reason is one I can't answer based on any research into Tom Jefferson and the others who worked on the D of I and Const. That said, it would certainly have been TJ's nature to put things in order of preference or dependency, as he was a scientific kind of guy. And so, maybe something like this.

1. Liberty and Pursuit mean nothing is you're not alive, so life is first. I'll buy that.

2. And you can't pursue happiness (or anything, really, unless you are free to do so. Therefore, Liberty is #2. Makes sense.

3. Which obviously leaves "Pursuit of Happiness" bringing up the rear.

The Life, liberty pursuit (LLP) thing, though was by no means original to Jefferson. It helps to look at both historical and idealogical context, I think.

Among the first to utter an LLP concept was good old John Locke, the 17th century Englishman whose notion of a social contract (meaning what you give up to government for what it gives back the governed) had not a small influnce on the French Revolution, which gave birth to the tripartite catch-phrase, liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality and brotherhood). But Locke's LLP had "PROPERTY" for the "p," not pursuit: Life, liberty and property. (OK, "Life, liberty and estate," is what he really said). What he meant was that the government should NOT be allowed to mess with your stuff. ("no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions" is what he actually put on the sticky note).

Then Adam Smith, early 18th century British Economist whose ideas are still haunting college freshman everywhere, picked up Locke's idea, and came out with his own LLP, this time, being "pursuit of property." Property? Smith, ever the revolutionary, did not think, evidently, that people should just HAVE property, but rather that they should be able to try and get some. But what was really behind all this was an effort to level the playing field when it came to owning property, the principal form of wealth back then: it shouldn't all belong to just a few folks.

And that brings us to Sam Johnson, the most quoted figure in English literary history after Shapespeare (some say) who came up with the LLP we all know and love in his novel Rasselas, written mind 18th century. It was a work of fiction about a fellow who was the Prince of Abysinnia. I couldn't make that up. It seems likely to me that Jefferson, literary aficionado that HE was (he had thousands of volumes in his home just a few miles from me -many are still there) probably read some of Sam's work, in much the same way that you and I cozy up to a Tom Clancy story on a cold winter's night.

It almost HAD to be something like that, because the first Continental Congress actually used the "property" version in its "Declaration of Colonial Rights" which obvioulsy preceded the D of I. Those guys were quite obviously concerned with the crown's claim to the land that they actually worked.

All that being so (and it is so) it occurs to me that the the Life and Liberty parts had been pretty well established and oft-quoted by the time TJ started writing the big D and the Bill of Rights which were subsequently attached to the enabling Constitution. I can only guess that Tom "got it" that people wanted land because it provided security -a place to live, a place to grow food, a place for your slaves to clown around. In other words, its all about happiness. It is also worth noting that the phrase "pursuit of" back in TJ's day meant something very different from what people now think. It's not like a quest, like reaching for the brass ring. Back THEN it implied that the thing you sought was already obtained -you were more involved in maintaing and improving it -sort of like pursuing a career. You've already GOT the career, NOW you are DOING it.

John Adams, not always a buddy of Tom Jefferson, had to agree. He wrote, "...happiness of society is the end (the purpose) of government." (Insertion mine.)

So, my guess is that L&L were already firmly entrenched as ideological precepts, and, what the heck, they do kind of roll of the tongue. Pursuit of happiness -in the sense of the PRATICE of happiness- being the reason for starting a whole new country in the first place, was therefore #3.

It is interesting to note that the Japanese, with the able help and probably the pressure of Doug MacArthur, actually made the LLP the 13th article of Chapter 3 of their own constitution, adopted in 1947 after WW2.

I hope this helps. Discerning the minds of historical figures is a worthy, if not always productive, past time.

Answer 3

These were brilliant men, and attempting to get into their heads over 200 years after they wrote something is not an easy task, however, they did borrow heavily from John Knox, and this is is almost a direct quote from him. Having studied the founding fathers as a hobby for years, I would say that this would have been the order in which they would have valued these items.

Answer 4

No, it's actually poetic meter. 1 syllable, 3 syllables, 6 syllables; the growth of the sounds allows a speaker to raise the level of passion. Plus the alliteration of life and liberty. They wrote it that way, because it sounds better. Aside from it's historical significance, the Declaration of Independence is a fantastic piece of writing, isn't it?

Answer 5

"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" are not in the Constitution -- that phrase is from the Declaration.

And yes, it's a prioritized list -- you cannot have happiness or liberty without life. And you cannot have happiness, according to them, without liberty.

Answer 6

maybe, best ask bush cause I think he and his administration have rewritten most of the "founders" words. I'd guess that bush thinks that maybe they meant life of important people, liberty of the powerful, and pursuit of happiness as long as it does not involve a long list of things that make the powerful important people lose money.

Answer 7

No. The sequence is more because of how good the phrase sounds.

Life and Liberty and the freedom to pursue ones dreams and live according to one's beliefs are all equal.

Answer 8

The original wording was "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of property".

Yes, I do think TJ put this in order of importance.

Answer 9

What an observation! I haven't come across that before!

Well done, I think you might have a good point. I'll be keeping my eyes open for similar "lists" now that I am aware of it. Writing was very much taken seriously, and word placement was an art.

Thank you.

Answer 10

I think it's likely because it sounded better that way, but also because each term is a prerequisite for the following term.