Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness example essay topic

The Declaration Then and Now The year was sixteen hundred and eighty-nine and a man by the name of John Locke wrote Second Treatise on Government (Zinn 73). In it, Locke wrote that in a natural state everyone, all people, are born free and equal, and possess certain rights. He said that these "natural rights" were life, liberty, and property. He also said that the evildoers who conspired to deprive others of their life, liberty, or property ruined the good life of the state of nature (Locke).

The only way to protect these rights is by joining together to form governments. The power of government, then, stems from the consent of the governed, which entrust the government with responsibility for protecting their lives, liberty, and possessions. Should the government fail in their task, the people have the right to revolt and institute a new government. From this, Americans drew one of the most important concepts.

In the Declaration of Independence, the founders used Locke's theory to justify their independence from Great Britain. Americans were justified in revolting against the King, the founders declared, because the King deprived them of their rights to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". Thomas Jefferson substituted the phrase "pursuit of Happiness" for the word "property", in order to give the document a more idealistic tone. The colonists were tired of being mistreated by the British. They wanted to separate themselves completely from British rule. The King allowed the quartering of soldiers, taxes without consent, cutting of trade relations, taking away of charters, obstructed the Laws of Naturalization, and countless other offences against the colonists (Jefferson 685-86).

They had been abused long enough. In June of 1776, Congress appointed a committee to draft a statement to the world presenting the colonies' case for independence. The committee consisted of John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. The committee assigned Jefferson the task of writing the original document.

After a few minor alterations made by Franklin and Adams, the document was submitted to Congress. Church bells rang out over Philadelphia on July 4, 1776... signaling that the Declaration of Independence was approved and officially adopted by the Continental Congress. They were now a free country. Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.

The words he wrote were, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness (Jefferson 685). .".. created equal... ", those are very powerful words. Equality, meaning being the same, on the same level, no one higher or lower than the other, but can we honestly say that racism is no longer prevalent in our country? Of course not, the recent incidents, such as Rodney King, James Byrd, Abner Louisa, and Amadou Diallo, proves that. In an article entitled, "Racism Down But Not Out in the US Government Study Finds", published on September 22, 2000, Assistant Secretary of State, Harold Koh reported to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, "America's struggle to secure racial equality remains incomplete. The residual effects of slavery and institutionalized racism can still be seen in the lingering disparity between blacks and whites in income, levels of education, and health care and rates of incarceration in our nation's prisons". Koh too, mentioned the recent incidents that have happened saying that, "we have not yet met the challenge of creating a color-blind society" (Husain 1).

It is not just African Americans that are being discriminated against; another group that deals with a lot of singling out is gays and lesbians. It used to be that it was the older generation that you would find being discriminate against them, but things have changed. In an article entitled, "US Teens Report Feeling Bias Towards Gays, Minorities", a survey was taken of 2,800 teenagers of Who's Who Among American High Students. The survey showed that 40 percent of teens feel bias against gays. The surveyors' blame these findings on the fact that teens in rural areas are not as exposed to gay and lesbian culture as those in urban areas (Choi 1). That is a pretty lame excuse for their ignorance.

So maybe they have never met a homosexual but does that give them the right to discriminate? The article says that the percentage dropped ten points in the last two years, yet any percentage is too high. Another phrase that is significant in the Declaration of Independence is, "with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" (Jefferson 685). Life is self-explanatory, Liberty means having freedom, emancipation if you will, and Happiness is contentment.

But who really has all three of these things at one time? Life everyone has right? Actually that would be incorrect. Think about the little babies being aborted everyday. They no longer have life, and they did not even have a choice in it.

Liberty is another word for freedom. You feel like you have achieved it when you move out of your parents' house, and strike out on your own. Everyone has some sense of freedom, but only to some extent. What did Jefferson mean when he wrote liberty? Did you mean complete liberty? In reality, or at least in our reality we cannot have complete liberty.

We will always have limitations on how far our freedom goes. In Jordan's essay Freedom Time, she writes about a situation in which she was staying with a friend and one morning during breakfast, a group outside her friends' house began to picket. They held signs speaking out against abortion. When Jordan went outside to get the story she met a man by the name of David Terpstra. Jordan seemed to be disturbed by what Terpstra told her. "As I listened to David Terpstra, a good-looking white man in his twenties, it occurred to me that he was the kind of person who might have shot and killed Dr. Gunn.

Certainly he would see no reason not to kill a doctor who 'kills babies. ' David told me there are twenty-two warrants out for his arrest, and he keeps moving. He has no wife and no children and nothing special besides his mission to save 'the baby' " (Jordan 715). Now, Mr. Terpstra has the right to protest in front of this lady's house but he does not have the freedom to kill her. Which is a good limitation, because if we did have the freedom to kill a person without any consequences, people would be dropping dead everywhere. The "pursuit of Happiness", it is a nice thought, but to be honest to pursue happiness is hard work.

It is not any easy task. Pursuing happiness can take up to thirty years to achieve. But then again, happiness can be something that you find inside yourself. All in all Jefferson and his friends wrote a pretty good declaration. They got their point across, they wanted their freedom, and they achieved their goal.

Our society has changed a lot over the last two hundred years so it is hard for a document written so long ago to pertain to who we have become today. I think on some level we have obtained some kind of equality, maybe not as much as some would like but God did not create the world in a day! We also have some from of life liberty and happiness, probably not as much as we want but you cannot have everything.

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Jefferson, Thomas. "The Declaration of Independence". Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford Books. 1998.
685-86. Jordan, June. "Freedom Time". 4th ed. Boston: Bedford Books. 715. Wiretap Library. 4 December 2000 web Howard.
A People's History of the United States. New York: Harper Collins. 1980.