Difference between revisions of "George Mason"

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George Mason
Personal
Date & Place of Birth	December 11, 1725 Fairfax County, Virginia Colony
Parents	George Mason III Ann Stevens Thomson Mason
Religion	Episcopalian
Spouse	Ann Eilbeck (m. 1750; d. 1773) Sarah Brent (m. 1780)
Children	By Ann: 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
Date & Place of Death	October 7, 1792 Fairfax County, Virginia
Place of Burial	Mason Family Cemetery, Lorton, Virginia
Education	Self-taught
Occupation	Politician Delegate to U.S. Constitutional Convention
Post-war career	Politician, Virginia legislature

George Mason (1725-1792) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. He was an influential member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Virginia Convention. He was a Virginia tobacco planter who grew wealthy using slave labor. Mason wrote both the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776 and the Virginia state constitution, but he is best known for his refusal to sign the Constitution. The most important reason that Mason did not sign was the lack of a bill of rights. Mason wrote the first document ever written about the U.S. Constitution; he used a printed draft of the Constitution and wrote his Objections on the reverse. His opposition played a large role in the addition of the Bill of Rights (the first ten constitutional amendments) in 1791. He did not hold major office after 1787.

Career

Anne Eilbeck Mason, his first wife and mother of all of their children.

Mason inherited more than 15,000 acres of land in Virginia and Maryland including 5,500 at Gunston Hall. Like many Virginia planters, Mason was constantly increasing his holdings. By the time of his death in 1792, he owned more than 75,000 acres. He served as a town trustee of Alexandria, Virginia, and as a vestryman of the local Anglican church. Mason was the second largest slave holder in Fairfax County after George Washington. Washington held approximately 300 slaves at Mount Vernon, Mason probably had about 100 slaves. Unlike his friend George Washington, Mason never freed the slaves he owned instead willing them to his nine children.

Fairfax Resolves

George Mason was the primary author of the Fairfax Resolves of 1774.^[1] The resolves call for "an entire Stop for ever put to such a wicked cruel and unnatural Trade" of slavery.^[2]

Despite owning slaves himself, George Mason was ardently against the practice.

Virginia Declaration of Rights 1776

Virginia's House of Burgesses

Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776; Thomas Jefferson used it as inspiration for the Declaration of Independence. The opening philosophical section is closely based on Virginia's "Declaration of Rights," a notable summary of current revolutionary philosophy, and adopted by Virginia in June 1776.^[3] Mason wrote:

That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Jefferson rewrote it:

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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Constitution

In 1787 Mason was a very active participant at the Constitutional Convention, representing the state of Virginia. Other members of the Virginia delegation to the Convention were John Blair, James Madison, James McClurg, Edmund Randolph, George Washington, and George Wythe.

Advocate for limited government

Mason was suspicious of centralized power, and he argued for limitations on such powers throughout the federal convention. Yet, he was also an effective nationalist and supported the third resolution of the Virginia Plan, which called for a national government with "supreme" departments. He defended the popular election of the House and favored the direct election of the Senate. Mason advocated age restrictions on government service, offering a motion that set the minimum age requirement for election to the House after others had moved that there be no age restrictions of House members. He also helped broker the "Great Compromise," which broke a major barrier that had threatened to break up the Convention; his compromise converted the small states into enthusiastic supporters of national power.

Bill of Rights

During the final days of the convention, Mason refused to sign the document and spoke out in 1787 and 1788 against it because it lacked a Bill of Rights. To secure adoption in Virginia James Madison compromised and made the campaign promise to propose amendments, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791. Mason was a close friend of George Washington until the 1787 Convention. After 1787, he and George Washington were no longer friends. Like his friends Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, Mason was an anti-Federalist.

Death and legacy

George Mason passed away on October 7, 1792, long believed to have been from complications with gout and possibly pneumonia.^[4]

George Mason University, a state university in Virginia, is named for him. His home, Gunston Hall, is open to the public all year, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day.

Quotes

• "Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British parliament was advised by an artful man,^[5] who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but to weaken them and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia." ^[6]
• "Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities. He lamented that some of our Eastern brethren had from a lust of gain embarked in this nefarious traffic. As to the States being in possession of the Right to import, this was the case with many other rights, now to be properly given up. He held it essential in every point of view that the General Government should have power to prevent the increase of slavery."^[7]
• "Are all laws whatever to be brought up? Is no road nor bridge to be established without the Sanction of the General Legislature? Is this to sit constantly in order to receive and revise the State Laws?–He did not mean by these remarks to condemn the expedient, but he was apprehensive that great objections would lie against it."^[8]
• The constitution as agreed to till fortnight before the convention rose was such a one as he could have set his hand and heart to.
  • 1. The president was to be elected for 7 years, then ineligible for 7 more.
  • 2. Rotation in the senate.
  • 3. A vote of 2/3 in the legislature on particular subjects and expressly on that of navigation. The 3 New England states were constantly with us in all questions (Rhode Island not there, and New York seldom) so that it was these 3 states with the 5 Southern ones against Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
• With respect to the importation of slaves it was left to Congress. This disturbed the 2 Southernmost states who knew that Congress would immediately suppress the importation of slaves. Those 2 states therefore struck up a bargain with the 3 New England states. If they would join to admit slaves for some years, the 2 Southernmost states would join in changing the clause which required 2/3 of the legislature in any vote. It was done. These articles were changed accordingly, and from that moment the 2 Southern states and the 3 Northern ones joined Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, and made the majority 8 to 3 against us instead of 8 to 3 for us as it had been through the whole Convention. Under this coalition the great principles of the Constitution were changed in the last days of the Convention.^[9]

Further reading

• See www.gunstonhall.org for more information about Mason, his house Gunston Hall, his family, and 2011 events.
• Broadwater, Jeff George Mason: Forgotten Founder. (2006)
• Miller, Helen Hill. George Mason, Constitutionalist. (2001).
• Rowland, Kate Mason. The Life Of George Mason, 1725-1792. (1892). old popular biography full text online
• Rutland, Robert A. George Mason: Reluctant Statesman (1980).

Primary sources

• Rutland, Robert A., et al. eds. The papers of George Mason, (1970). 3 vols

References

v • d • e Constitutional Convention Delegates to the Constitutional Convention by State, those who signed the Constitution are indicated by italic. Massachusetts Elbridge Gerry • Nathaniel Gorham • Rufus King • Caleb Strong Reproduction of painting of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others signing the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Henry Hintermeister. New Hampshire Nicholas Gilman • John Langdon Connecticut Oliver Ellsworth • William Samuel Johnson • Roger Sherman New York Alexander Hamilton • John Lansing, Jr. • Robert Yates New Jersey David Brearley • Jonathan Dayton • William Houston • William Livingston • William Paterson Pennsylvania George Clymer • Thomas Fitzsimons • Benjamin Franklin • Jared Ingersoll • Thomas Mifflin • Gouverneur Morris • Robert Morris • James Wilson Delaware Richard Bassett • Gunning Bedford, Jr. • Jacob Broom • John Dickinson • George Read Maryland Daniel Carroll • Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer • Luther Martin • James McHenry • John Francis Mercer Virginia John Blair Jr. • James Madison • George Mason • James McClurg • Edmund Randolph • George Washington • George Wythe North Carolina William Blount • William Richardson Davie • Alexander Martin • Richard Dobbs Spaight • Hugh Williamson South Carolina Pierce Butler • Charles Cotesworth Pinckney • Charles Pinckney • John Rutledge Georgia William Few • Abraham Baldwin • William Houstoun • William Pierce Convention Secretary William Jackson The legislature of Rhode Island declined to send delegates to the Convention.