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MASON, George: Memorial in East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C.
by Wendy Ross
Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which detailed specific rights of citizens. In addition to anti-federalist Patrick Henry, he was later a leader of those who pressed for the addition of explicitly stated individual rights as part of the U.S. Constitution, and did not sign the document in part because it lacked such a statement. His efforts eventually succeeded in convincing the Federalists to modify the Constitution and add the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments of the Constitution). The Bill of Rights is based on Mason's earlier Virginia Declaration of Rights.
Although an owner of black slaves, and a plantation owner, Mason favored the abolition of the slave trade. He once referred to slavery as "that slow poison, which is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people." However, he spoke out against including any mention of slavery in the Constitution — whether from an abolitionist or anti-abolitionist standpoint. Source: Wikipedia
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All power is vested in and consequently derived from, the people... Government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained by despotick governments. All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion Virginia Declaration of Rights June 1776 |
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Thomas Jefferson [1801?] Regarding slavery...that slow poison, which is daily contaminating the minds & morals of our people. Every gentleman here is born a petty tyrant, practiced in acts of despotism & cruelty. We become callous to the dictates of humanity & all the finer feelings of the soul. Taught to regard a part of our own species in the most abject & contemptible degree below us. We lose that idea of the dignity of man, which the hand of nature had implanted in us for great & useful purposes George Mason [July 1773?] I recommend it to my sons ... never to let the motives of private interest or ambition to induce them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace or the fear of danger or of death deter from asserting the liberty of their country and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born. George Mason March [1773?] |
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