Author’s Introduction
According to historical records, the phrase “pursuit of Happiness”, as used within our nation’s Declaration of Independence, embraced the right to pursue and accumulate wealth, and much more. For example, the then-influential seventeenth-century English philosopher Richard Cumberland wrote that promoting the well-being of our fellow humans is essential to the “pursuit of our own happiness.”
Because they wanted the Declaration to express the highest, and broadest of ideals, Jefferson and Franklin agreed to avoid specific reference within the Declaration to the “protection of property”. Remember, the Declaration was essentially an open letter to a doubtful world.
Since our nation’s birth, we, as a people, have debated the acceptable balance between our God-given right to accumulate wealth, and our moral duty to help others. This is as noble a debate as a nation can have. Yet often overlooked within the debate is the simple fact that without wealth, in all its degrees, we become unable to help ourselves, let alone others.
More recently overlooked is the power of our free economy. I have heard supporters of the current Administration refer to our free-market economy as “an outdated nineteenth-century model.” Yet that model – in place since our founding — has made America the wealthiest, most powerful, and most generous nation on earth.
That our nation has tilted so far in favor of redistributing wealth, in the manner of European Socialism; that our institutions of government have become so cynically incapable of real reform; and that that this Administration, in particular, has so minimized the potential of our free-market economy, all serve as the inspiration for America’s Declaration of Economic and Financial Independence, and our Reaffirmation of the Declaration of Independence.
–Keith DeGreen
Read America’s Declaration of Economic and Financial Independence
