'The pursuit of happiness'.

• Author: Rock, Robert H.
• Position: LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN - Column

Thanksgiving is America's secular holiday that glorifies our nation as a land of opportunity, of sharing, of plenty. For my wife Caro and me, Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday. There's lots of great food, no pressure to exchange gifts, and no elaborate ceremony. Thanksgiving is a great meal, at home, with family and friends. Like Americans throughout the United States, we give thanks for our blessings and for the fruits of our labor, and we reconfirm our commitment and devotion to our family, friends, and nation.

For over 25 years I have delivered a "Thanksgiving Day Address." This year I focused on arguably the most meaningful expression of American exceptionalism. Perhaps no sentence in American history is better known or has had a greater impact than the powerful words about equality and rights that Thomas Jefferson penned in 1776. The Declaration of Independence constitutes the founding creed of America's civil religion, and its preamble, or more precisely its second paragraph, puts forward the fundamental proposition of American government in a single, inspirational passage: "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."

Almost a quarter millennium later, the Declaration of Independence remains the expression of the American ideal: freedom from tyranny, freedom to live life as one chooses, freedom simply to be happy. We point to the Declaration to understand both ourselves and our government; it is our nation's "true north."

"The pursuit of Happiness" is the Declaration's most famous phrase. Since its publication, Jefferson's elastic and elusive phrase has meant different things to...