Introduction and Chronology
This blog series on George Mason owes its origins from an earlier investigation for Convention of States Action into James Madison's Federalist 40 that rightly justified replacing the Articles of Confederation with our United States Constitution, plus an embarrassing personal lack of knowledge into the full scope of Mason's vital and indispensable contributions to the founding of this Republic.
While our Convention of States Action team are well-aware of two occasions at Philadelphia's 1787 Federal Convention when Mason argued the need for state legislatures to offer amendments to the U.S. Constitution and his failure to sign the U.S. Constitution, many remain unaware how Mason's pen and voice were critical to British America severing ties with Great Britain: nonimportation resolves, establishment of Virginia's rights and constitution, influence on Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, compact treaty negotiations, full debate activity in Philadelphia, objections to the U.S. Constitution which led to the first ten amendments; our Bill of Rights, and wealth of amendments submitted during Virginia's U.S. Constitution Ratification Convention.
This treatment of Mason is not biographical, but thematic. Examination of Mason's statesmanship is the theme offered, and opens with his and Virginia's response to the 1765 Stamp Act and 1767 Townsend Acts, and closes in 1788 with Mason's success in getting 40 sponsored amendments approved during the Virginia Federal Constitution Ratification Convention and forwarded to Congress.
While the proper target of this offering are George Mason's two-plus decades of heroic and tireless patriotism to his beloved Virginia and our United States, the central aim is to renew and restore Mason to his top tier positioning of Founding Father heavyweights who severed the chattel bonds with Great Britain, and established an American constitutional Republic.
A subtext to this effort will show Mason's writings were frequently borrowed, altered, and incorporated into other colonial and republic forming documents. When considering George Mason's accomplishments, he has earned equal standing in comparison to other revolutionary greats like Washington and Jefferson and, without much opposition, supplants Madison as our true "Father of the Bill of Rights."
This chronology will give our Convention of States Action teams a full insight into Mason's work, and what may be expected in future blog articles, specific to his pre-revolutionary, American Revolution, and post-revolutionary work.
Mason Chronology
1725
11 December: GM born at the Mason family plantation in Fairfax County, Virginia.
1765
23 December: In response to the Stamp Act (1765) and at the request of Washington and Fairfax, GM drafted a "Scheme for Replevying Goods and Distress for Rent." Evils of slavery mentioned, and encouraged importation of free people instead of slaves to work the unsettled Virginia lands.
1766
4 March: The Stamp Act is repealed as unenforceable.
6 June: GM, writing as "A Virginia Planter" to the Committee of Merchants in London, praised the repeal of the Stamp Act, restated his loyalty as an Englishman, yet warned another Stamp Act experiment upon British America would produce a general revolt.
1767
29 June: Parliament passed the Townshend Acts. The Revenue Act of 1767 was one of four component parts of the Townshend Acts. The Revenue Act was an external tax on British imports to America, designed to pay for officials serving in the American colonies.
1769
5 April – 18 May: GM, in response to the Townshend Acts (1767), drafted and revised Virginia's Nonimportation Association Agreement, in association with merchants in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. GM suggested ending slave importation and tobacco exportation.
16 May: Virginia Resolves introduced in the House of Burgesses. Declared that only Virginians could tax Virginia, through the House.
17 May: Royal Governor Botetourt dissolved the House of Burgesses because of the Virginia Resolves. Washington led the dissolved burgesses to the Raleigh Tavern, and presented GM's draft of the Virginia Nonimportation Association. Committee assigned that revised GM's efforts.
18 May: Eighty-eight burgesses signed The Virginia Nonimportation Resolutions of 1769. These resolutions would remain in full force until the Townshend duties (Revenue Act of 1767) are repealed.
1770
5 March: Governor Botetourt vows to resign if the Townshend Acts are not repealed. English Prime Minister Lord North moves Parliament to repeal all of the Townshend duties except those on East India Tea. "Boston Massacre" takes place. Five are killed.
7 June: GM offered his initial thoughts to Richard Henry Lee on how to improve the resolutions and the Virginia Nonimportation Association.
22 June: Virginia Nonimportation Association published its revised resolves, including GM's ideas for county committees and names of merchants who violated nonimportation.
1772
13 June: Massachusetts Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson informs the General Assembly that effective in 1773, his salary, and the salaries of all Superior Court judges, would be paid by the Crown.
1773
9 March: Ann Eilbeck Mason, GM's wife, died.
10 May: British Prime Minister Lord North moved Parliament's passage of the Tea Act. The act created a monopoly on tea imported and sold to the colonies.
16 December: The Boston Tea Party.
1774
31 March: First of the "Intolerable Acts," the Boston Port Bill, passed in Parliament and assented to by King George III.
18 July: GM wrote the Fairfax County Resolves, a 24-point tract against British aggression. Washington introduced the Resolves during the August meeting of the first Virginia Convention.
1776
20 May – 12 June: GM, now delegate of Fairfax County to the Virginia Convention in Williamsburg, wrote the first draft of Virginia Declaration of Rights (ca. 20-26 May). Final Committee draft is adopted on 12 June.
8 – 29 June: GM penned Mason's Plan for the Virginia Constitution (8-10 June). Final draft of the Virginia Constitution of 1776 is adopted on 29 June.
1784
28 June: Virginia General Assembly appointed GM, Madison, Edmund Randolph, and Alexander Henderson commissioners to meet with Maryland's commission to settle jurisdiction and navigation issues concerning the Potomac River.
1785
28 March: With only two Virginia commissioners present at the Potomac River negotiations, GM led events that would eventually become the Mount Vernon Conference, which achieved agreement with Maryland in the form of the Mount Vernon Compact.
1786
21 January: Elected to the Virginia General Assembly, GM does not attend the session due to ill health with bouts of gout. Appointed, but does not attend, the Annapolis National Conference on Trade and Regulation of Commerce.
4 December: GM is one of seven delegates chosen by joint ballot of the House of Delegates and Senate of the Virginia General Assembly to attend the upcoming Federal Convention in Philadelphia in May, with the purpose of revising the federal constitution.
1787
17 May: GM arrived in Philadelphia to attend the Federal Convention.
17 May - 17 September: GM addressed the convention 136 times. Twice debated the question of state legislatures to propose constitutional amendments. GM identified the need on 11 June and congressional oppression justifying the process on 15 September. Frequently overlooked are GM's memoranda notes specifically calling-out Article V as submitted in the Committee of Style Report (ca. 13 September). On 15 September, GM addressed the convention specific to the amendment process, and reasons he would not sign the U.S. Constitution. GM penned his initial draft "Objections" to issues debated during the convention that remained deficient in the signed U.S. Constitution (ca. 16 September), on the back of the Committee of Style Report. The U.S Constitution was approved, without GM's signature, and the Philadelphia Federal Convention adjourned on 17 September.
1788
3 – 27 June: GM elected to attend the Virginia Ratifying Convention in Richmond by Stafford County. Led Antifederalist debates in partnership with Patrick Henry. GM led committee efforts to draft 40 amendments to the U.S. Constitution; 20 to the document approved in Philadelphia, and 20 in the form of a Declaration of Rights, largely modeled after GM's 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights. GM's amendments would be formed by Madison into the United States Bill of Rights.
July – August: GM retired from active politics.
1792
7 October: A week after a visit from Thomas Jefferson, GM died at his Gunston Hall home.
Tommy Jensen is a Legislative Liaison and State Content Writer for Convention of States Action Oklahoma. He is a retired U.S. Navy Cryptologist, graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in History from University of Maryland Global Campus, and is enshrined in the Phi Alpha Theta History National Honor Society. This blog series is adapted from his COSA article, "George Mason: Our Lost Founding Father." His first article for COSA was, "Federalist 40: James Madison – 'Publius' Moves the Republic from Confederation to Constitution."
