George Mason
...and only two Virginians attended all three. The meetings were the Mount Vernon Conference of 1785, the Annapolis Convention of 1786 and the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. James Madison was one attendee, and he is well known as the Father of the Constitution and our fourth President. George Mason was the other, yet his name does not spring to mind. Does George Mason deserve the accolade "Founding Father?" This paper will explore the political life of Mason and attempt to answer the question affirmatively.
Before exploring Mason through his papers, his biographies and the papers of his contemporaries, it is necessary to decide what one must have done to be included in the list of our republic's founders. For purposes of this investigation, we must find that Mason's words or actions were influential in the document as finally ratified. While Mason's authorship of the Virginia Declaration of Rights is easily tied to the Bill of Rights, the question for this paper is whether Mason's handprints appear on the mold of our Constitution. Mason is well regarded as a political writer. "His three most brilliant papers - 'Extracts from the Virginia Charters', 'The Virginia Resolutions' and 'Declaration of Rights' have become immortalized as the very foundations of American democracy." Herbert Lawrence Ganter identified George Mason as an "eighteenth century champion of liberty for all." But these approbations are difficult to uncover. More commonly, one finds quotations such as "
the writings of the great thinkers of the age - Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Adams
"
To adequately examine George Mason, a brief review of his pre-convention life and activities helps set up his provenance as a founding father. George Mason, the fourth so named in this lineage, was born about 1725. His father drowned during a squall while crossing the Potomac in 1735. His education was...
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