The title of my talk tonight is the pursuit of happiness, the least understood of our fundamental

rights. Nearly every American child of school age can recite that central line from our nation's

Declaration of Independence. You can probably all recite it with me. 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.

It's the last of these three rights that I would like to focus on this evening, is the least

understood of the three.

Now in saying that the pursuit of happiness is the least understood of our fundamental

rights, I don't mean to argue that we understand or appreciate or apply the other two perfectly.

We don't.

For example, the right to life seems like a given, so basic,

that no one would argue against its being extended to all.

But every era in our nation's history, including our own,

bears the stain of our governments,

not giving full legal recognition to the right to life of some.

Because of their race, think of the slaves of the 18th and 19th centuries,

or their health, the handicapped of the early 20th century,

or their age, the unborn and increasingly the elderly of today.

The right to liberty, too, is basic, and is today the most celebrated of our fundamental rights.

But what kind of liberty do we Americans claim for ourselves as inalienable?

The freedom of the autonomous self, indifferent to all goods but self-expression?

Or the freedom of the social animal that grows and deepens the more we virtuously pursue our particular and common goods together.

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