CATO: Constitution
Roger Pilon, director of Cato’s Center for Constitutional Studies, writes:
When the Founders spoke of liberty, they meant that each of us has a right to plan and live his own life, as he thinks best, to pursue happiness in his own way, by his own lights, provided that in doing so he respect the equal rights of others to do the same. That basic idea is captured nowhere more clearly than in Thomas Jefferson’s magnificently simple phrase, “the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal. He then immediately defined that equality by listing our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That right “to pursue happiness,” which is nothing less than the foundation of individual liberty, is key to understanding the Declaration’s basic principle — and our modern problem. Happiness, after all, is an individual, subjective notion. What makes you happy is not necessarily what makes me happy. You like vanilla; I like chocolate. That’s what makes life interesting. It would be a dull world if our tastes were all the same. In a free society, we have a right to practice whatever religion, pursue whatever job, and buy whatever product we wish, as long as we respect the rights of others in the process.
In a time when government is growing larger and more intrusive, let us not forget the source of our rights and the role of government as the Founders defined it. Pilon writes:
We are all created equal, as defined by our natural rights; thus, no one has rights superior to those of anyone else. Moreover, we are born with those rights, we do not get them from government—indeed, whatever rights or powers government has come from us, from “the Consent of the Governed.” And our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness imply the right to live our lives as we wish—to pursue happiness as we think best, by our own lights—provided only that we respect the equal rights of others to do the same. Drawing by implication upon the common law tradition of liberty, property, and contract—its principles rooted in “right reason”—the Founders thus outlined the moral foundations of a free society.
Only then did they turn to government. We institute government, the Declaration says, to secure our rights—our natural rights and the rights we create as we live our lives. But the powers government may need to do that must be derived from our consent if they are to be just. Government is thus twice limited: by its end, which any of us would have a right to pursue were there no government; and by its means, which require our consent.
