Born 1725
Fairfax County, Virginia
Died October 7, 1792
Fairfax County, Virginia

Political leader, judge, plantation owner, writer

Mason urged his descendants to prefer "the happiness and independence [of] a private [life] to the troubles and [annoyances] of public business [unless] the necessity of the times should engage [you] in public affairs."
Portrait: George Mason. Reproduced by permission of Archive Photos, Inc.

George Mason was one of the most important Americans of Revolutionary times. The intelligent and thoughtful man made a great impact on the development of the American government. He is especially remembered for the passionate arguments he made in favor of freedom for individuals at the Federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1787. There the Constitution of the United States was written and passed.

George Mason was born in 1725 on the Virginia plantation of his parents, George and Ann Thomson Mason. His father drowned when Mason was...