http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Thomas_Jefferson_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_16781.jpg/396px-Thomas_Jefferson_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_16781.jpg
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Actually, a pretty good argument can be made that just the opposite was true.

Jefferson was pretty obviously influenced by both George Mason's "Preamble to the Virginia Constitution" and John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" In both of these influential documents, FOUR areas of God given rights were established, namely life, liberty, acquisition of property, and pursuit of happiness.

Jefferson intentionally left out any reference to the acquisition of property and reduced the four rights to three, perhaps indicating a belief that the desire to acquire property was not the holy grail that some believe it to be.

In those years, pursuit of happiness most likely had a meaning quite separate from pursing wealth, as evidenced by William Penn's quote: "Seek not to be Rich, but Happy. The one lies in Bags, the other in Content: which Wealth can never give."
http://www.ushistory.org/penn/penn_business.htm

Another philosopher that Jefferson was known to study was a Scotsman named Kames " who argued for the right to "the pursuit of happiness" in his acclaimed work "Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion." Kames argued that it was wrong to strive for only your own happiness , you should strive for the happiness of all.
http://www.myloc.gov/Exhibitions/CreatingtheUS/interactives/declaration/HTML/pursuit/documents.html

Robert Frost calls the search for the meaning of "pursuit of happiness" the"hard mystery of Mr. Jefferson" , but it seems more likely that their concept of happiness was based in philosophical or religious pursuits than in the getting of possessions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyYZUhSeRYc
Source(s):
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Jefferson_-_Project_Gutenberg...
http://www.ushistory.org/penn/penn_business.htm
http://www.myloc.gov/Exhibitions/CreatingtheUS/interactives/declaration/HTM...
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Virginia+Declaration+of+Right...
http://www.ushistory.org/us/historians/ellis.asp

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