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Speaker 1: Life, liberty in the pursuit of happiness is a shared

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Speaker 1: goal of every American. The US Constitution was written to

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Speaker 1: make it possible. Now, we all have a pretty good

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Speaker 1: idea about what life and liberty mean. But what about

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Speaker 1: the last part of the phrase, the pursuit of happiness.

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Speaker 1: That's a little harder to pin down. Let's give it

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Speaker 1: a try. The seventeenth century English philosopher John Locke spoke

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Speaker 1: narrowly of the rights to life, liberty, and property. The

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Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence widen the scope to something far grander,

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Speaker 1: the quest for what Aristotle termed the true end of

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Speaker 1: all human endeavor, happiness itself. We think today of happiness

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Speaker 1: and relativistic terms, something each person pursues in their own way.

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Speaker 1: For example, in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Polonium advises Laerties quote to

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Speaker 1: thine own self be true, in other words, be yourself.

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Speaker 1: We hear this a lot today. To John Adams, America's

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Speaker 1: second president and a seminal figure in the creation of

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Speaker 1: the country. This was bad advice for Adams and the founders. Generally,

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Speaker 1: happiness was a modus vivendi, a way of living expressed

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Speaker 1: by how one conducted oneself, especially in public. Adams understood

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Speaker 1: that people are an imperfect amalgam of the admirable and

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Speaker 1: the abominable. That being yourself does not automatically lead to

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Speaker 1: good character. It's more likely, in fact, to lead to

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Speaker 1: self absorption. The only way to attain a good character is,

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Speaker 1: like everything else, to work at it. Now. The best

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Speaker 1: way to do this, Adams contended, was literally to imagine

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Speaker 1: a noble character. Here we're talking about a character, like

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Speaker 1: a character in a play, and then strive to become

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Speaker 1: that character. Walk like that character, think like him, feel

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Speaker 1: like him, act like him. Over time, through the result

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Speaker 1: of continue effort and the slow working of habit, one

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Speaker 1: can become that person. Adams practiced what he preached in

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Speaker 1: this way. He became a public figure both incorruptible and

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Speaker 1: unfailingly honest. He became the best version of himself. This

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Speaker 1: takes us back to the founder's conception of happiness. They

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Speaker 1: subscribed to the Aristotelian belief the genuine happiness is achieved

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Speaker 1: when the quote activity of the soul is in perfect

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Speaker 1: harmony with virtue. None of the founders reflected on this

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Speaker 1: idea more than John Adams. Not only did he want

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Speaker 1: his own life to be defined by virtue. He also

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Speaker 1: wanted the infant republic to be built on it. Without virtue,

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Speaker 1: he believed America could not succeed now. Today, the term

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Speaker 1: virtue seems anachronistic, a notion from the past, but to

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Speaker 1: Adam's America's survival as a free country depended on it. Quote.

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Speaker 1: The preservation of liberty, he wrote, depends on the intellectual

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Speaker 1: and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge

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Speaker 1: and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation,

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Speaker 1: it is impossible they should be enslaved In a monarchy.

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Speaker 1: Adams noted that people don't need virtue. They can be

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Speaker 1: quote as vicious and foolish as they please, because all

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Speaker 1: political responsibility lies in the hands of the king and

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Speaker 1: his retinue. In a republic, however, the people are the government.

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Speaker 1: So the virtue of the state is a reflection of

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Speaker 1: the virtue of the people. Given that human nature is

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Speaker 1: deeply flawed, this created and obvious problem of which Adams

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Speaker 1: was painfully aware. Quote I've seen all along my life.

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Speaker 1: He observed such selfishness and littleness that I sometimes tremble

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Speaker 1: to think that although we are engaged in the best cause,

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Speaker 1: that ever employed the human heart. The prospect of success

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Speaker 1: is doubtful, not for want of power or wisdom, but

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Speaker 1: of virtue. How could the new nation develop a virtuous

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Speaker 1: citizenry a devout Christian with an ormal respect for the

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Speaker 1: Jews and the Hebrew Bible. Adams certainly saw belief in

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Speaker 1: God and fear of his judgment as indispensable, so was

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Speaker 1: a proper education, but he did not think these were enough.

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Speaker 1: A virtuous government would also be necessary. Here's whay. A

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Speaker 1: clearly delineated and easily understood constitution would be essential, and

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Speaker 1: no one worked harder than Adams to create one. His

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Speaker 1: focus was to give citizens the ability to thwart the conniving, corrupt,

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Speaker 1: power lusting politicians for which he had so much contempt.

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Speaker 1: Once identified, they could simply be voted out of office

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Speaker 1: and better people could take their place. Additionally, good government

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Speaker 1: would attract good people, capable leaders on whose ambition could

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Speaker 1: be enlisted. Quote on the side of virtue. Arguably, we're

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Speaker 1: a long way from having the kind of leaders elected

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Speaker 1: by the kind of people that Adams wanted the American

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Speaker 1: constitutional system to help create, and well more likely to

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Speaker 1: think of percion suing happiness in narcissistic terms than in

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Speaker 1: the way that Adams and the Founders perceived it. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: it is only by reflecting on our political problems as

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Speaker 1: a reflection of flawed human nature, and on adams proposed remedies,

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Speaker 1: beginning with the development of good character in each citizen,

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Speaker 1: that America has a chance of finding its way back

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Speaker 1: to the path on which the Founders so wisely and

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Speaker 1: deliberately placed us