What are unalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration?

The unalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The famous formulation appears in the second paragraph of the Declaration, drafted by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776: 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.

Each phrase has its own weight. The right to life means government cannot legitimately deprive a person of life arbitrarily; it must follow due process and meet other constitutional limits. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments expand on this, prohibiting deprivation of life without due process of law.

The right to liberty means freedom from arbitrary restraint and the ability to think, worship, speak, work, travel, and associate without unreasonable government interference. Liberty is a recurring word throughout the Constitution, appearing in the Preamble, in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and elsewhere. It covers personal autonomy, political freedom, and economic liberty, with limits set by other constitutional provisions and by ordinary law.

The right to the pursuit of happiness was Jefferson's deliberate substitution for property, the third right John Locke had identified in his Second Treatise of Government in 1689. The change broadened the goal beyond material possessions. Pursuit of happiness in eighteenth-century usage meant the conditions necessary for a meaningful life, including not only economic opportunity but also moral, intellectual, and civic flourishing.

The Declaration uses the phrase among these are, signaling that the list is illustrative rather than exhaustive. Other rights, including those eventually written into the Bill of Rights and later amendments, also count as unalienable. The Ninth Amendment in 1791 confirmed this point by stating that the listing of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. The three rights named in the Declaration are foundational, not exclusive.

They have been invoked by abolitionists, suffragists, civil rights leaders, and many others as standing demands for fuller inclusion of those originally left out, including enslaved people, women, and Native Americans.