Mason, George (1725–1792)

American public official George Mason was one of the fundamental thinkers of the American Revolution. In 1776 he wrote a bill of rights and a constitution for Virginia upon whose ideas and wording Thomas Jefferson drew up the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

US public official. He wrote Virginia's first constitution and declaration of rights in 1776, which were later used as models for both the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. He was a member and the treasurer of the Ohio Company (1752–73) and was interested in western settlement. Although he considered himself to be a private citizen rather than a politician, he served in the Virginia House of Delegates (1776–88), the House of Burgesses (1759–76), and was a member of the July Convention (1775) and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention (1787). He opposed the new Constitution because it presented such a strong federal government. Mason was born in Fairfax County, Virginia.