THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

The Continental Congress compiled this amazing document over the summer of 1776, with Thomas Jefferson as the primary ‘writer’. 

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…..

And for the support of  this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

 The 'right' to the pursuit of happiness ( which won out, thanks to Jefferson, over the right to property) meant pursuit of civic virtue and duty ( everyone had a natural ‘right’ to practice their democratic responsibilities).  Each citizen had to worry about everyone else’s happiness, in order to guarantee his or her own.  What an idea!

The greater good was the defining principle behind the Declaration.  Without mutual commitments to each other,  no capitalist democracy can survive.

THE YALE UNIVERSITY TREASURER’S REPORT  - 1831