Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Fourth of July Stories

This book tells American stories occurring on one day-the Fourth of July-beginning with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and throughout our 250 year history. The Declaration of Independence announced that the new nation was grounded in an idea: "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." Inside this book's covers are the Founders who gave birth to that idea-Adams, Jefferson, Washington, with each having more than one consequential Fourth of July.

The Declaration's promises now include more people and the concept of liberty is more expansive than what the Founders believed. Subsequent birthdays witnessed efforts by Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Filipinos to include more people within the Declaration's promises. The resulting expansion of liberty sometimes took many decades. The pursuit of happiness has also evolved and is highlighted by three different men on three very different Fourth of Julys: Theodore Roosevelt, Thoreau, and Lou Gehrig, with each pursuing different versions.

Important victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg and heart-rending scenes of military prisoners still honoring America have coincided with the nation's birthday, illustrating the costs of freedom and the sacrifices that have been made. Nonetheless, freedom has expanded and that expansion has often coincided with the fourth day of the seventh month. This all makes the Fourth of July worthy to be our only Federal holiday with America as the honoree.