George Mason was born in Virginia on December 11, 1725. In spite of his numerous contributions to the new country of the United States, he is generally omitted from the pantheon of “Founding Fathers.” This may be because he was one of the three delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 who refused to sign the document, which made him very unpopular with the other Founding Fathers.
George Mason
Mason got involved in politics, and supported the revolutionary cause. He served in both the pro-independence Fourth Virginia Convention in 1775 and the Fifth Virginia Convention in 1776.
At the 1776 Virginia convention, Mason was appointed to a committee to draft a bill of rights and new constitution for the state. The Virginia Declaration of Rights was largely authored by Mason, although James Madison assisted Mason with the section on religious freedom, and other members of the convention added small edits. It was adopted on June 12, 1776.
Inspired by the English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, among others, Mason asserted:
. . . that all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights . . . among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”
This document – you can read the full text of the Virginia Declaration of Rights here) –
was the first in America to call for freedom of the press, tolerance of religion, proscription of unreasonable searches, and the right to a fair and speedy trial.
Law professor and historian William G. Hyland Jr. observed:
Mason’s Declaration of Rights was personally handed to Jefferson in manuscript form by [Richard Henry] Lee, who had received it from his brother, T.L. Lee, in late May, 1776. Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration, which has never been found, seemed extremely similar to Mason’s Declaration of Rights. Both Franklin and Adams, who were on the committee with Jefferson in Philadelphia, later prepared a Bills of Rights for their respective states. Yet neither of them adopted Jefferson’s version of the Declaration. The Pennsylvania’s Bill of Rights of September 28, 1776 also used Mason’s language:
‘All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights, amongst which are, the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring and possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.’
Thus, the historical case can be made that George Mason should be fully credited with the original draft of what ultimately became the famed Declaration of Independence.”
In 1787, Mason attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He was distressed over the amount of power being given to the federal government, the convention’s unwillingness to abolish the slave trade, and its lack of acceptance of a bill of rights to preface the new Constitution. He therefore refused to sign the document.
But Mason’s ideas were widely accepted, and at the first session of the U.S. Congress, James Madison introduced a Bill of Rights that echoed the Virginia Declaration.
[On the matter of Mason’s opposition to the convention’s unwillingness to abolish the slave trade, Jeff Broadwater, in his biography of Mason (George Mason: Forgotten Founder, 2006), explains that Mason had economic rather than moral objections to slavery. Mason owned many slaves; in Fairfax County, only George Washington owned more, and Mason is not known to have freed any even in his will, in which his slaves were divided among his children. But he feared land was being cleared and planted with tobacco faster than the market for it could expand, meaning that its price would drop even as more and more capital became tied up in land and slaves. Moreover, such a system would result in a huge future slave population in Virginia, which could only cause trouble.]
Why was Mason erased from history for so long?
Broadwater argues (1) Mason was resented by other Founders for his refusal to sign the Constitution; (2) Mason died in 1792, and thus did not play a major role in the new government; and (3) Mason himself had a reluctance to seek the historical spotlight. Donald J. Senese, in the conclusion to the collection of essays on Mason published in 1989, noted that in addition, many of Mason’s writings were lost in a fire, so he left no extensive paper trail.
Professor Hyland points out that while few Americans today are familiar with the role Mason played, his contemporaries described him in superlatives:
Madison exuded that ‘Mason possessed the greatest talents for debate of any man I have ever seen or heard speak.’ Patrick Henry pronounced him ‘the greatest statesmen I ever knew.’ Jefferson complimented his mind as ‘great and powerful.’ Philip Mazzei, the Florentine physician and world traveler, wrote, ‘he is not well enough known. He is one of those brave, rare—talented men who cause nature a great effort to produce.’ The Italian ranked Mason as one of the intellectual giants: ‘[Mason] is one of those strong, very rare intellects, which are created only by a special effort of nature, like that of a…Machiavelli, a Galileo, a Newton…and so forth.’”
In the summer of 1792, both family and slaves at the Mason’s plantation, “Gunston Hall” fell ill. By October, Mason was dead. His reputation has only been resurrected relatively recently.
Gunston Hall, donated to the Commonwealth of Virginia by its last private owner, is now “dedicated to the study of George Mason, his home and garden, and life in 18th-century Virginia.” George Mason University, with its main campus adjacent to the city of Fairfax, was formerly George Mason College of the University of Virginia from 1959 until it received its present name in 1972. A major landmark on the Fairfax campus is a statue of George Mason by Wendy M. Ross, depicted as he presents his first draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, in 2015, with the statue of Mason
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