George Mason IV (1725–92) was an American Revolutionary patriot, political leader, and founding father. He insisted on protecting individual liberties in the composition of both Virginia and the U.S. Constitution (1776, 1787.)
Born in Fairfax County, Virginia, Mason belonged to the wealthy planter class. He was a near neighbor to George Washington, who joined in opposition to the Stamp Act and the Townshend duties.
Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776,) one of Thomas Jefferson’s templates for the Declaration of Independence. Mason helped draft the Constitution (1787) but opposed its ratification because it permitted slavery and failed to define citizens’ rights. Mason served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates 1776–88.
The first ten amendments to the Constitution were in part based on the bill of rights Mason advocated, and after their passage (1791,) he gave his support to the government but declined a seat in the Senate on the plea of ill health. Soon after the Constitutional Convention (1787,) Mason retired to his home, Gunston Hall, an 18th-century Georgian mansion near the Potomac River. It is now “dedicated to the study of George Mason, his home and garden, and life in 18th-century Virginia.”
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by George Mason
That no free government, or the blessing of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
—George Mason
Topics: Government, Liberty
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