The pursuit of happiness in the founding era : an intellectual history /

"Scholars have long debated the meaning of happiness, yet have tended to define it narrowly, missing its larger context. They have focused on a single intellectual tradition, most commonly the political philosophy of Locke, and on the use of the term within a single text, the Declaration of Ind...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Conklin, Carli N., 1975-
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Columbia : University of Missouri Press, 2019
Series:Studies in constitutional democracy
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Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Part I : The pursuit of happiness in Blackstone's commentaries on the laws of England
  • Placement and purpose : a new science of jurisprudence
  • An enlightenment epistemology : Anglican theology and Scottish common sense philosophy
  • Improvement and perfection of the common law : history and architecture
  • Part II : The pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence
  • Textual context : placement, drafting, and structure
  • "No new ideas" : four strands of founding era thought
  • Intermingling of the four strands
  • Convergence of the four strands : the pursuit of happiness
  • Part III : The pursuit of happiness : a private right and a public duty
  • A single definition with dual applications
  • Improvement and perfection from the Commentaries forward
  • Conclusion
  • Appendices. I. Historiography of William Blackstone and the Commentaries
  • II. Historiography of the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence
  • III. Blackstone's Commentaries, Introduction, Section the Second, Of the Nature of Laws in General, pp. 38-44
  • IV. Jefferson's "original rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence with Thomas Jefferson's, John Adams's, and Benjamin Franklin's edits included, as reconstructed by Carl Becker
  • V. The Declaration of Independence with Edits by the Continental Congress Marked, as reconstructed by Carl Becker
  • VI. The Declaration of Independence, a transcript from the National Archives