>>>Question:
>>>
>>>Do you pursuit freedom or hapiness ?
>>>
>>>
>>>Some will answer they will pursuit happiness through freedom. But the fact of the matter is that freedom does have nothing to do with happiness.
>>>
>>>Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
>>
>>It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?
>
>ISTR learning that an earlier draft of the Declaration didn't have "pursuit of happiness," but had "property" instead.
>
>Tamar

ISTR??

I'm not familliar with an actual early draft of DOI which contained "property" but I know the phrase was from Locke who wrote in his Second Treatise of Civil Government of life, liberty and property where property meant more than material possessions but also his own self and his labor.
http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm

I read somewhere that pursuit of happiness was used to include opportunity but I cannot speak to the truth of that.

Mason was also greatly influenced as seen in the Virginia Declaration of Rights - Section 1
That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/VirginiaDeclaration.html