{"id":1771,"date":"2026-07-15T00:22:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T00:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/?p=1771"},"modified":"2026-07-16T00:23:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T00:23:02","slug":"what-about-the-pursuit-of-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/?p=1771","title":{"rendered":"What about \u201cthe pursuit of happiness\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The third of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s self-evident truths has been on my mind during this 250th anniversary. Is the \u201cpursuit of happiness\u201d really an unalienable right for all people, in the same breath as life and liberty? I don\u2019t think so, and I wish the Monticello president had chosen a different word or phrase, like the pursuit of meaning, virtue, or service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watched most of the naturalization event for 74 new U.S. citizens that took place at Monticello on July 4, 2026. High on Jefferson\u2019s hill above Charlottesville, Virginia, about an hour\u2019s drive from my home, I listened to a half dozen newly minted citizens express their gratitude. They came from Switzerland, Taiwan, Syria, Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. They had worked, sometimes for years, to reach their naturalization ceremony. Words like \u201cgratitude,\u201d \u201cproudest moment,\u201d \u201cdream come true,\u201d and \u201cso grateful to God\u201d poured from their hearts when they spoke to over 3000 in attendance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, they or their parents pursued happiness, and they migrated to the U.S. to find it. But happiness is not really what they sought. They wanted to live freely, to pursue goals of service and involvement in their new American communities. The immigrant from Switzerland said, \u201cMy wish, my desire, and my pledge are that I will always be a citizen who gives more to the community and to the country than I take.\u201d That\u2019s a great tone and goal that moves far beyond the more trivial \u201cpursuit of happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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World History students at Monticello with their teacher, Mr. Yoder, February 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I\u2019ve taken high school students to visit Monticello several times during my career as a history teacher. While a visit to Jefferson\u2019s grand palace on a hill is required of all 4th graders who live in Harrisonburg, Virginia, I often found that, for whatever reason, some of my high school students had never visited the home of our third president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, I took other teachers and my high school juniors in world history class to visit Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia. We discovered that Jefferson lived a life of privilege, was wealthy, and had his work done by enslaved people. But on a cold day in February, we had a grand day at Monticello, and the kids really did want to find out why Jefferson and his vision inspire me so much. We clowned around, laughed, toured the grounds, and it was a highlight of my teaching career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I worked in a small private school in Harrisonburg, the students came from families that had migrated to America from all over the globe. They came not so much to pursue \u201chappiness\u201d as to start new lives, to serve the church or community, and to improve their economic opportunities. Happiness is a by-product of our search for meaning and purpose, which often emerges over time, but it\u2019s not usually a noble goal in people\u2019s lives at the beginning. Jefferson was born into wealth, inherited land, and was an oligarch. And the fact that women, the enslaved, and immigrants were secondary citizens prompted him to switch from John Locke\u2019s \u201cownership of property\u201d to \u201cthe pursuit of happiness.\u201d I wish a different thought had entered Jefferson\u2019s mind in that historic 1776 moment.<\/p>\n\n\n

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World History classes at Monticello, Charlottesville, Va., February 2015. Teacher Elwood Yoder in front row.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The third of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s self-evident truths has been on my mind during this 250th anniversary. Is the \u201cpursuit of happiness\u201d really an unalienable right for all people, in the same breath as life and liberty? I don\u2019t think so, and I wish the Monticello president had chosen a different word or phrase, like the … Continue reading What about \u201cthe pursuit of happiness\u201d?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[227],"tags":[61,15,257,258,256,12],"class_list":["post-1771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-better-angels-of-our-nature","tag-eastern-mennonite-school","tag-harrisonburg","tag-jefferson","tag-july-4","tag-monticello-2","tag-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1771"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1778,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1771\/revisions\/1778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mennonitearchivesofvirginia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}