George Mason, Forgotten Founder
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
George Mason (1725–92) is often omitted from the small circle of founding fathers celebrated today, but in his service to America he was, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, “of the first order of greatness.” Jeff Broadwater provides a comprehensive account of Mason’s life at the center of the momentous events of eighteenth-century America.
Mason played a key role in the Stamp Act Crisis, the American Revolution, and the drafting of Virginia’s first state constitution. He is perhaps best known as author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a document often hailed as the model for the Bill of Rights.
As a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Mason influenced the emerging Constitution on point after point. Yet when he was rebuffed in his efforts to add a bill of rights and concluded the document did too little to protect the interests of the South, he refused to sign the final draft. Broadwater argues that Mason’s recalcitrance was not the act of an isolated dissenter; rather, it emerged from the ideology of the American Revolution. Mason’s concerns about the abuse of political power, Broadwater shows, went to the essence of the American experience.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
One of the fruits of publishers' recent obsession with the founding fathers is a spate of books on lesser-known revolutionary figures and none could be more welcome than this engrossing biography of George Mason (1725 1792). Until the late 1760s, Mason devoted himself principally to his Virginia plantation, his family and his health. But when Britain levied taxes on stamps and tea, he became a leader in the nonimportation movement, and as the Revolution unfolded, he emerged as one of Virginia's most important politicians, helping to raise a militia and drafting the influential Virginia Declaration of Rights and a state constitution. This biography's greatest strength is Broadwater's treatment of the post-Revolutionary years, specifically his nuanced discussion of Mason's role at the constitutional convention. Broadwater, associate professor of history at Barton College in North Carolina, shows that Mason's leadership at the convention shaped the Constitution and spells out the many factors that led to Mason's final refusal to sign it. Especially fascinating is Broadwater's speculations about Mason's relations with George Washington the two men were neighbors, but Broadwater finds hints that at times their social relationship was strained. Broadwater's prose is vigorous and his assessment of Mason judicious; this biography is a standout. 9 illus., 1 map.
