Hello, friends. I'm Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO of the National Constitution Center,

and welcome to We the People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.

The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit, chartered by Congress, to increase

awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people. Friends, before we start today's episode, I'm thrilled to share that we've been working on a new podcast series, which is out next week.

It's called Pursuit, the Founders Guide to Happiness.

Here's the trailer.

Walk with me through Philadelphia in the 18th century.

Blacksmiths hammering metal outside their shops.

Men drinking in taverns and trading gossip in the streets.

Ships docking at busy ports.

Cries for liberty that would lead to the American Revolution.

And the voices of Ben Franklin, John Adams,

Thomas Jefferson, and others whose debates, convictions, and compromises helped shape a nation.

But long before Jefferson included the famous phrase about the pursuit of happiness

in the Declaration of Independence, he and the other founders

were struggling to pursue happiness in their own lives. Ben Franklin devises in his notebook

a beautiful means of keeping track of conquering each of his faults, of hewing to each of

these virtues on a weekly basis.

In his early 20s, Franklin had been reading classical Greek and Roman philosophers, like Pythagoras, Plutarch, and Cicero, and scanning popular magazines for advice to print in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

Based on his reading, he concluded that the secret to self-improvement was self-examination.

Our founders were realists. They knew a thing or two about the good parts of human nature and also the worrying and bad parts of human nature.

The pursuit of happiness, they believed, wasn't about feeling good, it was about being good.

...