Right to Pursue Happiness Quotes
Jefferson had deliberately modified John Locke’s phrase “life, liberty and property.
In many countries, the king received all land and most property upon the death of a landowner.
Hayward claimed that Wilson was the first American President who ever criticized the American Constitution. Many do not agree as Madison and Jefferson in part, along with most other Americans, found the Constitution so wanting that it was ratified only on condition of the passage of the Bill of Rights. Jackson, was distressed by the limitations on the President and many others had their objections, but Wilson, before he became a politician was a prominent academic political scientist and wrote voluminously and had an intellectual following so his criticism was not considered so “political” as others.
Those who support the right of the individual woman to use contraception or have an abortion cite this quotation to illustrate this early statement of the right of a person to have control over his or her own body.
The preamble to this declaration of womens’ rights cleverly beginy s with the words of the Declaration of Independence with the single change that “all men” is replaced with “all men and women.” The message was clear. If the founders had a moral right and duty to revolt for these objectives women would be justified and duty bound to make similar efforts. That message terrified many men of the era.
This quotation has been used by gay rights advocates. Opponents argue that a gay lifestyle is not “innocent” in that it is Biblically prohibited. This brings the issue of separation of church and state into the argument.
