A fascinating examination of what “the pursuit of happiness” meant to our nation’s Founders and how that famous phrase defined their lives and became the foundation of our democracy.

The Declaration of Independence identified “the pursuit of happiness” as one of our unalienable rights, along with life and liberty. Jeffrey Rosen, the president of the National Constitution Center, profiles six of the most influential founders—Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton—to show what pursuing happiness meant in their lives.

By reading the classical Greek and Roman moral philosophers who inspired the Founders, Rosen shows us how they understood the pursuit of happiness as a quest for being good, not feeling good—the pursuit of lifelong virtue, not short-term pleasure. Among those virtues were the habits of industry, temperance, moderation, and sincerity, which the Founders viewed as part of a daily struggle for self-improvement, character development, and calm self-mastery. They believed that political self-government required personal self-government. For all six Founders, the pursuit of virtue was incompatible with enslavement of African Americans, although the Virginians betrayed their own principles.

The Pursuit of Happiness is more than an elucidation of the Declaration’s famous phrase; it is a revelatory journey into the minds of the Founders, and a deep, rich, and fresh understanding of the foundation of our democracy.

Review

“With insight and wit, legal scholar Rosen shows how classical philosophy inspired the Founders. … Rosen's noteworthy book offers a better understanding of philosophy and American history.” ― Booklist

"[A] fast-paced romp through early American political thought. … An entertaining window on the American founders’ reading lives.” ― Publishers Weekly

«A study of the Founding Fathers’ search for self-mastery. … In their distinguishing between being good from feeling good, the founders, Rosen hopes, may inspire readers to redefine the meaning of a good life. A thoughtful rendering of America’s history.” ― Kirkus Reviews

“Jeffrey Rosen found a ‘gap’ in his education, such as we all have. In filling it he has written a masterpiece of intellectual history about the Founders, renewing, we can hope, our reading of them and what they read. Here is the enriching story of how ‘pursuit of happiness’ never meant pleasure or success, but the self-governing quest, always unachieved, of virtue. This brilliant work is very new about very old ideas that refresh the spirit.” — David W. Blight, Yale University, author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

“To understand who we are, we must begin at the beginning—which is precisely what Jeffrey Rosen does in this remarkable and timely book. By exploring how the American Founders viewed virtue and the fabled (and often misunderstood) ‘pursuit of happiness,’ Rosen offers us a much-needed reminder of the centrality of civic and personal virtue.” — Jon Meacham, author of And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle

“Using the classical virtues prescribed by Benjamin Franklin as a way of organizing his book, Jeffrey Rosen has put together a remarkable collection of fresh and insightful essays on the Founders. Indeed, his book may be the best and most readable introduction to the ideas of the Founders that we have.” — Gordon Wood, author of Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution

“A delightful, insightful reminder of a truth obvious to the Founders but forgotten by subsequent generations of Americans: that personal happiness and the health of the republic depend on virtue, which in turn requires regular cultivation. Read this timely book for your own benefit and the good of us all.” — H.W. Brands, author of Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics

“Jeffrey Rosen’s immensely readable and thoughtful book on America’s founders makes a strong case that a life invested in understanding the past may in fact be a happier one. There are lessons here for preserving our democracy today.” — Ken Burns, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker of The American Revolution

“The Founders had no internet to educate them, but they did have advice books, contemporary and ancient. Jeffrey Rosen guides us through them to see what the Founders meant by happiness, and how they hoped to secure it. And, he suggests, we could do the same today.” — Richard Brookhiser, author of Give Me Liberty: A History of Amer

About the Author

Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG : Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine ; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Notes on Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations
Notes on Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations

This morning haze obscures the firmament

Sunlight and clouds in serried blue alloy

A narrow clearing opens, fortune sent

I glimpse a sparkling sun beam and feel joy

Stoics praise calm joy without elation

Its motion placid and to reason aligned

When it transports with wanton exultation

It fires the perturbations of the mind

The four disordered passions are emotions

That lack the moderation reason brings

Elation, lust, fear, grief are their commotions

Prudence and temperance are their golden rings

The soul that’s tranquil, calm, restrained, at rest

The happy soul, the subject of our quest