George Mason

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George Mason, detail of an oil painting by L. Guillaume after a portrait by J. Hesselius; in the … (credit: Courtesy of the Virginia Historical Society)

(born 1725, Fairfax county, Va. — died Oct. 7, 1792, Fairfax county, Va., U.S.) American Revolutionary statesman. The owner of a large plantation, he became active in efforts to promote the westward expansion of the colonies. In 1774 he helped his neighbour George Washington draft the Fairfax Resolves (1774), which called for a boycott of English goods. In 1776 he drafted the Virginia state constitution and the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which influenced Thomas Jefferson and was used as a model by other states. A member of the Virginia House of Delegates (1776 – 88), he attended the Constitutional Convention but did not sign the Constitution of the United States, which he believed granted large and indefinite powers to the central government.

For more information on George Mason, visit Britannica.com.

The American statesman George Mason (1725-1792) wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights and persistently advocated safeguarding the rights of individuals during the formative years of the republic.

George Mason was born in Virginia, son of a wealthy planter. He inherited several large estates along the Potomac River and became a friend and neighbor of George Washington. He married Ann Eilbeck in 1750 and soon was performing the tasks incumbent on a gentleman planter - justice of the peace, vestryman, and county delegate in the House of Burgesses. He speculated in land and became expert in colonial land law. In 1773 he became a widower with nine children. Despondent for months, he turned his attention to the growing Revolutionary crisis. A year later his Fairfax Resolves set the tone for Virginia's resistance to British domination.

Mason preferred to advise statesmen rather than be one. He served in the 1775 Virginia convention and so impressed fellow delegates that he was selected to the Continental Congress delegation. He declined to serve, as he steadfastly avoided higher offices in his reluctant role as a Revolutionary statesman.

At the 1776 Virginia convention Mason's drafts of the Declaration of Rights and the constitution emerged as models for other colonies turned states. Though ill, Mason was hardworking and helped write key legislation in the state assembly. Between 1776 and 1780 his bills for western land sales were designed to erase the public debt. In 1780 he outlined a plan which evolved into the western land cession act that eventually created the Northwest Territory.

Mason remarried and after the Revolution turned to his family and his fields. At the urging of friends he served at the Mount Vernon Convention of 1785 but avoided the Annapolis Convention. He went to the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, convinced that the Revolution and "the Formations of our new Governments at that time, were nothing compared to the great Business now before us". Though some of his suggestions in the Federal Constitutional Convention seemed to favor southern interests, his attack on slave importation showed that he could place humanitarianism beyond local concerns.

Many details in the approved Constitution, such as the mandatory origin of tax bills in the House, bore testimony to Mason's persistence. He refused to sign the Constitution, however, and worked indefatigably for its revision prior to a final ratification. He and Patrick Henry almost brought the ratification process to a standstill in Virginia, but after the Federal Bill of Rights was adopted, Mason conceded that with a few more alterations "I could chearfully put my hand & heart to the new government." He died at his plantation home, Gunston Hall, on Oct. 7, 1792.

Further Reading

The Papers of George Mason, 1725-1796 was edited by Robert A. Rutland (3 vols., 1970). There is no thorough study of Mason's life. The standard work is Kate Mason Rowland, The Life of George Mason (1892). Interpretive studies are Helen Hill [Miller], George Mason: Constitutionalist (1938), and Robert A. Rutland, George Mason: Reluctant Statesman (1961).

Additional Sources

Rutland, Robert Allen, George Mason and the War for Independence, Williamsburg, Va.: Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission, 1976.

Rutland, Robert Allen, George Mason, reluctant statesman, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980 1961.

(1725-1792), Virginia planter and political leader during the revolutionary era. Born and reared in the genteel plantation society that produced a generation of extraordinary leaders, Mason was unique in preferring public duties that did not bring the fame and glory sought by many of his contemporaries. From Gunston Hall in Fairfax County, Virginia, Mason watched the crisis between the North American colonies and Britain become critical, and he helped his neighbor, George Washington, prepare the influential Fairfax Resolves of July 1774. The resolves, carried by Washington to the Virginia House of Burgesses, clearly asserted colonial rights, called for an economic boycott of English goods, and denounced the slave trade, demanding an end "to such a wicked cruel and unnatural Trade." The resolves helped cement a close alliance among Mason, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Washington, and other leading Virginians, as the tensions between the colonies and England escalated.

After April 1775 Mason was drawn into the vortex of the resistance movement in Virginia. He refused to take a place on the Virginia delegation to the Continental Congress but was active on the county Committee of Safety (procuring weapons for the militia) and replaced Washington on the county delegation elected to the Virginia Convention. Widowed in 1773, Mason carried on extensive tobacco cultivation at Gunston Hall while attending to his nine children's upbringing. He was saddened when the break with England made his participation on revolutionary councils urgent.

In May 1776 the Virginia Convention took the first step in severing the colony from the British Empire, and Mason's plans for a declaration of rights and a constitution "swallowed up all the rest." Printed in a Williamsburg newspaper and widely circulated, Mason's stirring rhetoric and systematic catalog of human rights, prefaced by an affirmation of every freeman's right to "life and liberty ... and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety," had an electrifying effect on other state assemblies. Thereafter, as most states cut the bonds with England they adopted similar declarations, often borrowing Mason's articles verbatim.

Mason continued to avoid public service outside Virginia, but he was active in the state legislature, and his intellectual grasp of political problems won the admiration of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Mason threw his support behind Jefferson's bill establishing religious freedom, which became law in 1786.

When the crisis in national affairs came to a head in 1786, Mason set aside his reservations and agreed to serve on the Virginia delegation at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787. He was one of the most active speakers and consistently advocated liberal provisions for national elections, safeguards for majority rule, and limitations on presidential power. Mason urged schemes to give states power in the Senate and to control their exports, but was disappointed when his suggestion for a bill of rights was voted down.

Somewhat embittered by this rejection, Mason was one of three delegates at Philadelphia who refused to sign the finished Constitution on September 17, 1787. He wrote a critique of it that appeared in pamphlet form as his "Objections." His first sentence--"There is no Declaration of Rights"--became a rallying point for the Antifederalist opposition to the ratification of the Constitution. In June 1788 Mason served at the Virginia ratifying convention but was bested in the debate by Madison. He would not back down, however, calling even in defeat for a bill of rights in the Constitution--a concession finally made after a close vote (89 to 79).

With the new government in operation, Mason found that his opposition had somewhat alienated his old friend Washington. But he maintained his relationships with Jefferson and Madison, and the latter introduced the set of ten amendments that became part of the Constitution in December 1791. Mason then let his wartime associates know he was ready to "chearfully put my Hand & Heart to the new Government." He refused a proffered seat in the Senate, however, falling back on his old excuses of ill health (he suffered from gout) and family matters. Jefferson visited him on September 30, 1792, and they talked of political matters past and future in friendly fashion. A week later, Mason was dead.

Bibliography:

Helen Hill Miller, George Mason: Gentleman Revolutionary (1975); Robert A. Rutland, George Mason: Reluctant Statesman (1980).

Author:

Robert Allen Rutland

See also Bill of Rights; Constitution; Philadelphia Convention; Ratification of the Constitution; Revolution.

George Mason was an eighteenth-century statesperson who in 1776 wrote the Declaration of Rights for the State of Virginia and who later helped write the U.S. Constitution. Mason was a champion of liberty whose opposition to slavery and a strong federal government led him to refuse to sign the Constitution.

Mason was born on October 7, 1725, in Fairfax County, Virginia, the son of a wealthy commercial and agricultural family. Mason studied law but was primarily a plantation owner and real estate speculator. He was a neighbor of George Washington. Mason was deeply interested in western expansion, and in 1749 he became a member of the Ohio Company, which developed land and trade on the upper Ohio River.

At about this time, Mason helped found the city of Alexandria, Virginia. Because he suffered from chronic poor health, Mason avoided public office, serving only a short time in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Yet he did not shun the political debate over British interference with the colonies. British attempts at taxing and controlling the colonies through the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts led many colonial leaders to consider political independence.

In 1775 Mason attended the Virginia convention, where he helped write most of the Virginia constitution. In June 1776 he wrote the VirginiaDeclaration of Rights. Thomas Jefferson was probably familiar with Mason's concepts and language when he wrote the Declaration of Independence later that year, and other states soon copied Mason's work. French revolutionaries also showed they had been influenced by Mason's declaration in their Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was composed in 1789.

The Virginia Declaration of Rights stated that government derived from the people, that individuals were created equally free and independent, and that they had inalienable rights that the government could not legitimately deny them.

As a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Mason was called on to write part of the first draft. By the end of the convention, however, he had become deeply alienated by the result. Although he came from a slaveholding state, Mason opposed slavery on both moral and economic grounds. He sought an end to the slave trade and the manumission of all slaves. Instead, the Constitution allowed the slave trade to continue for twenty years, and it said nothing about the institution of slavery.

Mason also objected to the lack of provision for individual rights, believing that the Constitution gave too much power to the federal government. His criticism contributed to the enactment and ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, portions of which were modeled on Mason's Declaration of Rights.

Mason died on October 7, 1792, at his estate in Fairfax County, Virginia.

For other persons named George Mason, see George Mason (disambiguation).

George Mason IV
Born	George Mason December 11, 1725(1725-12-11) Fairfax County, Colony of Virginia
Died	November 7, 1792 (aged 66) Gunston Hall, Fairfax County, Virginia
Cause of death	natural causes
Residence	Gunston Hall, Fairfax County, Virginia
Nationality	British, American
Ethnicity	English American
Citizenship	Kingdom of Great Britain United States
Occupation	patriot, statesman, and delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention
Religious beliefs	Anglican, Episcopalian
Spouse(s)	Ann Eilbeck Sarah Brent
Children	George Mason V Ann Eilbeck Mason Johnson William Mason William Mason Thomson Mason Sarah Eilbeck Mason McCarty Mary Thomson Mason Cooke John Mason Elizabeth Mason Thornton Thomas Mason James Mason Richard Mason
Parents	George Mason III Ann Stevens Thomson

George Mason IV (December 11, 1725 – October 7, 1792) was an American patriot, statesman, and delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention. Along with James Madison, he is called the "Father of the Bill of Rights."^[1][2][3][4] For these reasons he is considered one of the "Founding Fathers" of the United States.^[5][6]

Like anti-federalist Patrick Henry, Mason was a leader of those who pressed for the addition of explicit States rights^{[citation needed]} and individual rights to the U.S. Constitution as a balance to the increased federal powers, and did not sign the document in part because it lacked such a statement. His efforts eventually succeeded in convincing the Federalists to add the first ten amendments of the Constitution. These amendments, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, were based on the earlier Virginia Declaration of Rights, which Mason had drafted in 1776.

On the nagging issue of slavery, Mason walked a fine line. Although a slaveholder himself, he found slavery repugnant for a variety of reasons. He wanted to ban further importation of slaves from Africa and prevent slavery from spreading to more states. However, he did not want the new federal government to be able to ban slavery where it already existed, because he anticipated that such an act would be difficult and controversial.

Contents 1 Family 2 Politics 2.1 Slavery 3 Death and remembrance 4 References 5 Bibliography 6 External links

Family

George Mason was born on December 11, 1725 to George and Ann Thomson Mason at the Mason family plantation in Fairfax County, Virginia. His father died in 1735 in a boating accident on the Potomac, when the boat capsized and he drowned. After this event the younger Mason lived with his uncle John Mercer. On April 4, 1750, he married sixteen-year-old Ann Eilbeck, from a plantation in Charles County, Maryland.^[7] They lived in a house on his property in Dogue's Neck, Virginia. Mason completed construction of Gunston Hall, a plantation house on the Potomac River, in 1759. He and his wife had twelve children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. Mason's first child, George Mason V of Lexington^[8], was born on April 30, 1753. He married Elizabeth Mary Ann Barnes Hooe (Betsy) on April 22, 1784, and after having six children, died on December 5, 1796. The next Mason offspring was Ann Eilbeck Mason, fondly known as Nancy. Born on January 13, 1755, she married Rinaldo Johnson on February 4, 1789 and had three children before dying in 1814. The third child was named William Mason, but he did not live over a year and died in 1757. The fourth child, born on October 22, 1757, was also named William Mason, and he married Ann Stuart on July 11, 1793. They had five children together, and he died in 1818. The fifth child was a son they named Thomson Mason. He was born on March 4, 1759 and died on March 11, 1820. Thomson married Sarah McCarty Chichester of Newington in 1784; they had eight children.

George Mason's sixth child, christened Sarah Eilbeck Mason but fondly known as Sally, was born on December 11, 1760 and married in 1778. She had ten children with her husband Daniel McCarty, Jr. before dying on September 11, 1823. The seventh of the Mason children was another girl, Mary Thomson Mason. She was born on January 24, 1764, and married John Travers Cooke on November 18, 1784, with whom she had ten children before dying in 1806. John Mason was Mason's eighth child, being born on April 4, 1766. He married Anna Marie Murray on February 14, 1796, had ten children, and died on March 19, 1849. The ninth child was a daughter named Elizabeth Mason. She was born on April 19, 1768 and died sometime between 1792 and June of 1797. She married William Thornton in 1789 and they had two children. The tenth child, Thomas Mason, was born on May 1, 1770 and died on September 18, 1800. He married Sarah Barnes Hooe on April 22, 1793 and the two had four children together.

George Mason's last two children were James and Richard Mason; twins who were born in December, 1772 but died six weeks later. Their mother died three months later on March 9, 1773 due to complications. George Mason remarried on April 11, 1780 but did not have any children with his new wife, Sarah Brent. George Mason also suffered from the condition known as gout for a large part of his life, and in accordance with current medical treatment, relied upon bloodletting.

Coincidently, George Mason was the aunt's sister's cousin of the renowned composer Lowell Mason.^{[citation needed]}

Mason had virtually no formal schooling and essentially educated himself from his uncle's library.^[9]

Politics

Gunston Hall in May 2006, seen from the front

Mason served at the Virginia Convention in Williamsburg in 1776. During this time he created drafts of the first declaration of rights and state constitution in the Colonies. Both were adopted after committee alterations; the Virginia Declaration of Rights was adopted June 12, 1776, and the Virginia Constitution was adopted June 29, 1776.

Mason was appointed in 1786 to represent Virginia as a delegate to a Federal Convention, to meet in Philadelphia for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. He served at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia from May to September 1787 and contributed significantly to the formation of the Constitution. "He refused to sign the Constitution, however, and returned to his native state as an outspoken opponent in the ratification contest." ^[10] One objection to the proposed Constitution was that it lacked a "declaration of rights". As a delegate to Virginia's ratification convention, he opposed ratification without amendment. Among the amendments he desired was a bill of rights. This opposition, both before and during the convention, may have cost Mason his long friendship with his neighbor George Washington, and is probably a leading reason why George Mason became less well-known than other U.S. founding fathers in later years. On December 15, 1791, the U.S. Bill of Rights, based primarily on George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, was ratified in response to the agitation of Mason and others.

At the convention, Mason was one of the five most frequent speakers. Mason believed in the disestablishment of the church. Mason was a strong anti-federalist who wanted a weak central government, divided into three parts, with little power, leaving the several States with a preponderance of political power.^{[citation needed]}

An important issue for him in the convention was the Bill of Rights. He did not want the United States to be like England. He foresaw sectional strife and feared the power of government. ^[11]

Slavery

A Virginia planter, Mason owned many black slaves. Like some of his contemporary slave owners (e.g. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington), Mason conceded that the institution was morally objectionable, once calling it a "slow Poison" that "is daily contaminating the Minds & Morals of our People." ^[12] Mason favored the abolition of the slave trade, but he did not advocate for the immediate abolition of slavery. Like Jefferson, he owned slaves whom he did not set free.

Two of Mason's stated reasons for opposing the U.S. Constitution were seemingly contradictory: on the one hand, he said that the draft Constitution did not specifically protect the right of states to let slavery continue where it already existed, and on the other hand he also said that the draft Constitution did not allow Congress to immediately stop the importation of slaves.^[12][13] Mason's immediate concern was to prevent more slaves from being imported, and to prevent slavery from spreading into more states.^[14] He was not eager to ban slavery where it already existed: "It is far from being a desirable property. But it will involve us in great difficulties and infelicity to be now deprived of them."^[14] Mason ostensibly balanced his anti-slavery argument that importation should stop, with a pro-slavery argument that the draft Constitution should protect slavery from being taxed out of existence; however, the latter argument had already been incorporated into the Constitution according to James Madison.^[15]

Because of his efforts to stop the spread of slavery, and his recognition of the undesirability of slavery, some historians have said that Mason should be categorized as an abolitionist.^[16] Other historians have disagreed.^[16]

Death and remembrance

George Mason died peacefully at his home, Gunston Hall, on October 7, 1792. Gunston Hall, located in Mason Neck, Virginia, is now a museum and tourist attraction. The George Mason Memorial in East Potomac Park, Washington, D.C., near the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, was dedicated on April 9, 2002. The George Mason Memorial Bridge connects Washington, DC, to Virginia. George Mason High School in Falls Church, Virginia and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, are named in his honor, as are Mason County, Kentucky, Mason County, West Virginia and Mason County, Illinois.

References

1. ^ "The New United States of America Adopted the Bill of Rights: December 15, 1791". The Library of Congress. http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/nation/bofright_1. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 
2. ^ Heymsfeld, Carla R.; Lewis, Joan W. (1991), George Mason, father of the Bill of Rights, Alexandria, Va.: Patriotic Education Inc., ISBN 0912530162, http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v3=1&DB=local&CMD=010a+91067692+&CNT=10+records+per+page 
3. ^ Spratt, Tammy. "Father" of Our Country vs. "Father" of the Bill of Rights". The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. http://www.historynow.org/09_2007/lp4.html. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 
4. ^ "Bill of Rights Day - December 15th". Bill of Rights Defense Committee. http://www.bordc.org/resources/borhistory.php. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 
5. ^ Yardley, Jonathan (November 5, 2006), A founding father insisted that the Constitution wasn't worth ratifying without a bill of rights, The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/02/AR2006110201182_pf.html, retrieved 2007-12-06 
6. ^ Henderson, Denise; Henderson, Frederic W. (March 15, 1993), How The Founding Fathers Fought For An End To Slavery, The American Almanac, http://american_almanac.tripod.com/ffslave.htm, retrieved 2007-12-06 
7. ^ Rowland, Kate Mason (1892), The Life of George Mason, 1725-1792, G.P. Putnam's Sons, pp. 56, http://books.google.com/books?id=F0F6TuWe_LwC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=%22george+mason%22+%22charles+county%22&source=web&ots=xbN1oQvrJz&sig=fm8phiNVUGg-fMdVkq1363_w2iM, retrieved 2007-12-13 
8. ^ "Hollin Hall". George Mason's Plantations and Landholdings. Gunston Hall Plantation official website. http://look.net/gunstonhall/landholdings/. Retrieved 2007-02-29. 
9. ^ From Revolution to Reconstruction: Biographies: George Mason II
10. ^ Borden, Morton, ed. (1965). The Anti federalist Papers. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. pp. ix. 
11. ^ Broadwater, Jeff (2006-09-01). George Mason: Forgotten Founder. Chapel Hill: Fred W. Morrison Fund for Southern Studies of the University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3053-6. 
12. ^ ^{a b} "George Mason's Views on Slavery"
13. ^ This issue is further discussed in Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers (Knopf, 2000).
14. ^ ^{a b} See Kaminski, John. Necessary Evil?: Slavery and the Debate Over the Constitution, pages 59 and 186 (Rowman & Littlefield 1995). Mason said: "The Western people are already calling out for slaves for their new lands; and will fill that country with slaves, if they can be got through South Carolina and Georgia....[T]he General Government should have the power to prevent the increase of slavery."
15. ^ See "Debate in Virginia Ratifying Convention", The Founders’ Constitution (transcript from 1788-06-15). Mason said, "There is no clause in this Constitution to secure it; for they may lay such a tax as will amount to manumission." Madison responded: "From the mode of representation and taxation, Congress cannot lay such a tax on slaves as will amount to manumission....The census in the Constitution was intended to introduce equality in the burdens to be laid on the community."
16. ^ ^{a b} See Broadwater, Jeff. George Mason, Forgotten Founder page 294, note 39 (UNC Press 2006).

Bibliography

• Bailyn, Bernard, ed. (1993). The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Anti federalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification, 2 vols. Library of America. 
• Broadwater, Jeff (2006-09-01). George Mason: Forgotten Founder. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Fred W. Morrison Fund for Southern Studies of the University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3053-6. 
• Curtis, Barbara Jocelyn (1938). George Mason, Statesman, Rebel, Public Servant. 
• Hawkes, Robert T., Jr. (1996). "An Uncommon American Hero: George Mason And The Bill Of Rights". Northern Neck of Virginia Historical Magazine 1 (46): 5328–5338. 
• Henriques, Peter R. (1989). "An Uneven Friendship: The Relationship Between George Washington And George Mason". Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 2 (97): 185–204. 
• Jensen, Merrill et al., eds. (1976-). The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution of the United States, 20 vols. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 
• Ketcham, Ralph, ed. (1986). The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates. Penguin. 
• Lee, Emery G. (1997). "Representation, Virtue, and Political Jealousy in the Brutus-Publius Dialogue". The Journal of Politics 59 (4): 1073–1095. doi:10.2307/2998593. 
• Leffler, Richard (1987). "The Case Of George Mason's Objections To The Constitution". Manuscripts 4 (39): 285–292. 
• Meltzer, Milton (1990). The Bill Of Rights: How We Got It And What It Means. New York: Thomas Crowell. 
• Miller, Helen Hill (July 2001). George Mason, Constitutionalist. Safety Harbor, Fl.: Simon Publications. ISBN 1931313458. 
• Miller, Helen Hill (1966). George Mason, Constitutionalist. Gloucester: P. Smith. 
• Pole, J.R., ed. (1987). The American Constitution--For And Against: The Federalist And Anti-Federalist Papers. New York: Hill and Wang. 
• Rowland, Kate Mason (1892). The Life Of George Mason, 1725-1792. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. http://books.google.com/books?id=F0F6TuWe_LwC&dq=dogue's+neck&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0. 
• Rutland, Robert A. (September 1980). George Mason : Reluctant Statesman. 
• Rutland, Robert A., et al. eds. (1970). The papers of George Mason, 3 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 
• Storing, Herbert, ed. (1985). The Anti-Federalist. University of Chicago Press. 
• Storing, Herbert; Murray Dry, eds. (1981). The Complete Anti-Federalist 7 vol. University of Chicago Press. 

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: George Mason

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• Website of George Mason University
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• MasonStudents - GMU's Student Run Discussion Forum

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