George Mason and the Bill of Rights
George Mason wore many hats during a most important time in the birth of the United States. He was a judge, statesman, member of the Virginia legislature, author, and one of the leading voices in opposition to British tyranny. Despite owning slaves, he hated slavery, and was in favor of its abolition.
On December 11th, 1725, George Mason was born to George and Ann Thomson Mason. George was the fourth in a line of wealthy landowner Masons. George’s father drowned in a Potomac River boating accident in 1736, leaving his uncle, John Mercer, as his tutor. Mercer had one of the largest libraries in the colonies, and George Mason educated himself by devouring the contents of this collection of books. When he came of age, he took over his father’s plantation, building his home, Gunston Hall. As one of the richest men in Virginia, Mason was establishing himself as an important figure in the community.
George Mason married Anne Eilbeck in 1750; in twenty three years of marriage together they had nine children {five sons and four daughters}. In 1752, Mason was able to acquire an interest in the Ohio Company, a business organization that speculated in western land. Mason would later write his first major state paper, Extracts from the Virginia Charters, with Some Remarks upon Them, when England revoked the company’s rights. British royal policy prohibited any settlement west of the Appalachians, but the Ohio Company lobbied to change that. When the French and Indian war began on the frontier, Mason became a supply agent for troops commanded by his Virginia neighbor, George Washington. He earned the rank of colonel in the Virginia militia this way, despite having never served in the field.
Mason began to get involved with politics, becoming a justice of the Fairfax County court, and a trustee of the city of Alexandria from 1754 to 1759. He was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1759 and when the Stamp Act of 1765 caused outrage in the colonies, George wrote an open letter to a committee of London merchants to enlist their help. The oppressive British taxation of the colonies, under King George III, caused Mason to write “To the Committee of Merchants in London”; his letter was published in the London Public Ledger. As the taxation issue became even more important, Mason got behind a movement that resolved to boycott British products.
As the impending Revolution neared, George Mason lost his wife to complications from having twins, who did not survive past six weeks old. Although he had a plantation to oversee and nine children to raise, in July 1774, Mason wrote the “Fairfax Resolves”, which was a statement of the colonists’ position. With Washington named Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, Mason was urged to take his seat in the Virginia Legislature. Mason was less than enthralled with this responsibility and the squabbling amongst the lawmakers caused him to become disenchanted. In a letter to Washington, he wrote that “I was never in so disagreeable a situation, and almost despaired of a cause which I saw so ill conducted. Mere vexation and disgust threw me into such an ill state of health that before the convention rose, I was sometimes near fainting in the House.” As things began to get better he admitted that “after some weeks, the babblers were pretty well silenced and a few weighty members began to take the lead.” He was one of them.
A bit of a hypochondriac, Mason was often late for legislative sessions with a variety of excuses. But despite this, he was highly regarded for his wisdom and abilities. During a six week period in May and June of 1776, Mason wrote a state constitution and bill of rights for Virginia. Mason felt strongly that “there never was a government over a very extensive country without destroying the liberties of the people,” and his bill of rights was a way to insure this did not happen. A committee added few changes to his document and it was adopted. When 1776 came to an end, five colonies had adopted similar declarations of rights; by 1783 every state had a form of a bill of rights. Almost fifty years later, Thomas Jefferson would write that “the fact is unquestionable that the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of Virginia were drawn originally by George Mason.”
The Declaration of Rights was approved by the Assembly on June 12, 1776 and a little over two weeks later a final draft of Mason’s state constitution was approved. In 1780, Mason left office, feeling that the new government was going to get off the ground. He married once more, to Sarah Brent, and went back to live at Gunston Hall, telling anyone who would listen that he had no further intent on serving in the legislature. But the Constitutional Convention of 1787 saw Mason agree to go to Philadelphia as one of Virginia’s delegates. He complained upon arriving in the city that he had begun “to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city.” He changed his mind however when he saw how serious the business of drafting the country’s constitution was, saying “the eyes of the United States are turned upon this assembly, may God grant that we may be able to gratify them, by establishing a wise and just government.”
All through the convention, Mason spoke in favor of the rights of individuals and the states as opposed to the federal government. He was firmly against a proposed ten mile-square Federal district that became the District of Columbia. It would eventually be located a short distance from his home. He was strongly in favor of popular elections, unrestricted admission of any new western states, and a three-part executive branch system of government. Compromises on these issues were reached, but Mason was put off by an agreement to allow slavery for another twenty years. Despite being a slaveholder himself he felt that “every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant.” He favored abolition as soon as economically possible and wanted to stop all future slave importation.
Mason finally had had enough on September 12, 1787, when his proposal to include a bill of rights in the new Constitution was defeated. Federalists were against the idea, but Mason penned a three-page list of objections that were published in the Pennsylvania Packet on October 4th. This work was in opposition to the “Federalist Papers”, written during the ratification debate. The Virginia ratification convention saw Mason’s proposal defeated by a vote of 89-79, with the new constitution being ratified in the state and finally in the country. The friendship of Mason and Washington became a victim of the heated quarrels.
James Madison would eventually introduce a bill of rights that were based on Mason’s beliefs to the first session of Congress. When it was passed, it left Mason very happy, with only the slavery issue as a sticking point. George Mason died on October 7th, 1792, at the age of sixty six. To the end he remained available to give advice to the fledgling nation’s leaders. Thomas Jefferson took him up on the invitations, commenting, “Whenever I pass your road I shall do myself the honor of turning into it.”
George Mason University, located in Fairfax, Virginia, now bears the patriot’s name. The George Mason Memorial, in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2002. It stands near the Jefferson Memorial, a reminder to the country of one man’s vision of human rights.
