From the true meaning of the "pursuit of happiness" to the philosophies that guided Thomas Jefferson. Historian Garry Wills and journalist Bill Moyers sit within Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home in Charlottesville, Virginia to discuss the radical and flawed ideas that shaped early America. They dig into the "lost world" of Jefferson's studies as a young man — and the Scottish Enlightenment's influence on the founding father. Wills explains how Scottish philosophers shaped Jefferson's belief in an innate "moral sense"—a universal understanding of right and wrong—that pushed back against John Locke’s individualism and put human kindness at the center of politics and society. Moyers and Wills confront the stark contradiction of Jefferson's life: how a man who believed in this shared moral sense could personally enslave hundreds of people. This 1979 episode titled “Inventing America: A Conversation with Garry Wills” was broadcast on “Bill Moyers' Journal," a weekly current affairs prog...