by Dennis Crouch
It is Constitution Day 2025, and I am freshly inspired by a lecture from my Colleague Dr. Carli Conklin on the "pursuit of happiness" as used in the Declaration of Independence. Her scholarship reveals the phrase is not a hedonistic right that might be implied when used today, but rather part a collective project of human flourishing rooted in virtue, knowledge, and useful improvements. Although the Declaration is not directly part of the Constitution document, Professor Akhil Reed Amar's new book, BORN EQUAL: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920, argues that the Declaration's ideals and commitments continued to reshape American constitutional development long after the founding era. In this book, he particularly focuses on how it worked through President Abraham Lincoln during and immediately after the Civil War.
Although "pursuit of happiness" is typically seen as a liberty interest -- a freedom from governmental interference -- historical record also reveals many examples of a more action-oriented approach, where that promise for the people calls for government action to eliminate barriers and "promote the progress." In his first annual message to Congress in 1790, President George Washington declared that "knowledge" is "the surest basis of public happiness." That same speech also urged Congress to act quickly to give "effectual encouragement" to this pursuit, particularly for the "introduction of new and useful inventions" into the United States. Within a few months of President Washington's speech, Congress responded with the Patent Act of 1790.
This post is intended to highlight this underappreciated connection that might already be apparent: the patent system represents one of the federal government's earliest (and most successful) efforts to transform a somewhat abstract right to pursue happiness into a concrete program that enables individual citizens to flourish through innovation and discovery. At the same time, it was never only about private gain. Promoting the progress of the useful arts means channeling individual ingenuity toward improvement of the common good -- ensuring that the fruits of invention would ultimately expand the shared store of knowledge that improves the nation as a whole. In that same 1790 speech, I see Washington referring to this when he spoke of fostering "a wise and happy Government."