State Constitutions vs Federal Constitution/Declaration of Independence


In 2 of the first state Constitutions to be written (New Hampshire and Massachusetts), here's how the rights were defined:

Massachusetts State Constitution:

Article I. All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.
~*~*~

New Hampshire State Constitution:

All men have certain natural, essential, and inherent rights - among which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing, and protecting, property; and, in a word, of seeking and obtaining happiness.
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Notice that in the Federal Constitution/Declaration of Independence, property was taken out of the general idea about what the rights/freedom/liberty consisted of, and the 'seeking and obtaining of happiness' was reduced to a 'pursuit':

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.

pursuit: the act of pursuing in an effort to overtake or capture


obtaining: to gain or attain usually by planned action or effort

Personally, although I enjoy the journey of a pursuit, I enjoy the occasional obtaining of things pursued... don't we all? I'm not sure an unending pursuit of happiness without obtaining it was what our founding fathers had in mind for this nation...

In a way, maybe it was recognized that Federal Government was a huge risk to obtaining happiness... happiness was going to be harder to obtain, reduced to a potential life-long 'seeking' and pursuit with a Federal government in place, as happiness would now basically have to be something overtaken or captured, instead of sought and obtained, and the barrier would be the federal government itself, if we allowed things to go unchecked and shirked our responsibility to keeping the Republic moral and just. I think our founding fathers knew this, and figured honesty was the best policy in the matter.

They put a lot of ways to keep our Federal government in check and bound to the law of the land... but we've not done a good job of doing it. We're starting to now, but in dealing with a misinformed and/or uninformed 'mass' of voters, it's going to be a pretty interesting and potentially long 'pursuit' to the facts and the truth about the role of government.

The role of government got completely twisted up in a gigantic maze of State and Federal Constitution amendments - and our public schools, full of good intentioned 'teachers', fell prey to the 'idea' that we were a Democracy.

There's already some pretty pissed off teachers who figured out they were manipulated and frauded into that crap... breaks my heart, cuz it's always really kind, bright folks who get the most hurt by the facts. Nobody likes to be duped. Especially by an entity they trust.

And our government is an entity that most still 'trust' - somewhat. Deep inside, most are figuring out, slowly but surely, that something is amiss... something is missing. And when they figure out it's the principles & common sense that are missing, eureka!

The principles got confused as being 'religious', when the principles this country were founded upon, although found in many religious texts, aren't so much religious as they are just common sense and logical guidelines, as well as absolute truths and facts about the human spirit, human capacity for compassion and good will towards mankind, as well as a sustainable and prosperous foundation for any community to build upon.

I sure hope we get back to the principles soon. Call me zany, but I still hold out hope that we will, as a nation, rise up to this occasion and get back to the solid foundation.