Changes

{{American Revolution bio| image =[[File:GeorgeMason-painting.jpg|300px]]| name =George Mason| birth =December 11, 1725<br/>Fairfax County, Virginia Colony| parents =George Mason III<br/>Ann Stevens Thomson Mason| religion =Episcopalian| spouse =Ann Eilbeck (m. 1750; d. 1773)<br/>Sarah Brent (m. 1780)| children =By Ann:<br/>George Mason V<br/>Ann Eilbeck Mason Johnson<br/>William Mason<br/>William Mason<br/>Thomson Mason<br/>Sarah Eilbeck Mason McCarty<br/>Mary Thomson Mason Cooke<br/>John Mason<br/>Elizabeth Mason Thornton<br/>Thomas Mason<br/>James Mason<br/>Richard Mason| death =October 7, 1792<br/>Fairfax County, Virginia| burial =Mason Family Cemetery, Lorton, Virginia| education =Self-taught| occupation =Politician<br/>Delegate to U.S. Constitutional Convention| postwar =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 [[Continental Congress]], Virginia House of Burgesses and a signer of the [[Declaration of Independence]]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 reluctance refusal to sign the Constitution due to its . 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. 

[[File:AnneEilbeck-painting.jpg|left|150px|thumb|Anne Eilbeck Mason inherited tobacco lands and expanded , his holdings to 5first 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 GunstonHall. Like many Virginia planters, and eventually Mason was constantly increasing his holdings. By the time of his death in 1792, he owned more than 75,000 acres elsewhere. He served as a town trustee of Alexandria, Virginia, and as a vestryman of the local Anglican church. Mason was one of the second largest slave owners holder in the UFairfax County after George Washington.SWashington held approximately 300 slaves at Mount Vernon, Mason probably had about 100 slaves.; unlike Unlike his friend [[George Washington]], Mason never freed the slaves he ownedinstead willing them to his nine children. ==Fairfax Resolves==George Mason was the primary author of the Fairfax Resolves of 1774.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3a_dda80mWkC&pg=PA497 Grandpa’s US Colonial History to 1800]</ref> The resolves call for "an entire Stop for ever put to such a wicked cruel and unnatural Trade" of slavery.<ref>[http://www.constitution.org/bcp/fairfax_res.htm Fairfax County Resolves], July 18, 1774</ref> Despite owning slaves himself, George Mason was ardently against the practice.

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.<ref> see [http://gunstonhall.org/documents/vdr.html "The Virginia Declaration of Rights," Final Draft, 12 June 1776]</ref>

In 1787 Mason was a very active particiapant participant at the [[Constitutional Convention]]. 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 representing the state of Virginia Plan's third resolution, which called for a national government with "supreme" departments. He defended the popular election Other members of the House and favored the indirect election of the Senate. Mason advocated age restrictions on government service, offering a motion that set the minimum age requirement for election Virginia delegation to the House. 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 powerwere [[John Blair]], [[James Madison]], [[James McClurg]], [[Edmund Randolph]], [[George Washington]], and [[George Wythe]].

However ===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 finally 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]] compromisedand 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, but 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.<ref>[[Antifederalisthttps://books.google.com/books?id=Px8BZhzoOYsC&pg=PA249 George Mason, Forgotten Founder]] along with </ref> [[Patrick HenryGeorge Mason University]]. Mason favored very powerful , a state governments and did not want the national government university in Virginia, is named for him. His home, Gunston Hall, is open to interferethe public all year, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day.

* "To Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British parliament was advised by an artful man,<ref>Mason here was referring to Sir William Keith</ref> 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." <ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=fN3RybwnMAYC&pg=PA409&dq=to+disarm++the+people%3B+that+it+was+the+best+and+most+effectual+way+to+enslave+them&ei=Cz1ESvrlPIeyyQT87sxG The Life of George Mason, 1725-1792: Including His Speeches, Public Papers- Page 409] by Kate Mason Rowland</ref>* "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."<ref>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_822.asp Madison Debates], August 22</ref>* "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."<ref>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_823.asp Madison Debates], August 23</ref>

* Rutland, Robert A. ''George Mason: Reluctant Statesman'' (1980).  

====notes====<references/>[[Category: Founding Fathers]][[Category:United States History]]