Less than one month prior to the adoption of Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress, another document was promulgated: the Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted in that state on June 12, 1776. George Mason was the principal author.
While George Mason is today well-known by historians and Constitutional scholars, he generally is recognized by others for the university that bears his name in Fairfax, Virginia, a suburb of Washington D.C.1
The Virginia Declaration enumerated concepts of liberty that influenced the more famous July 4th Declaration, the Constitution, and, most importantly, the Bill of Rights amendments.
George Mason was one of three delegates to the Constitutional convention of 1787 who refused to vote for the Constitution as it was then drafted. His principal objection was the lack of a bill of rights. He also objected to what he considered excessive power in the hands of the general government which could erode the power of the states. Upon submission of the proposed Constitution to the states for ratification, a lively debate followed between September 1787 and July 1788. Mason became one of the “anti-Federalists” along with Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, James Monroe, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and others. Mason wrote and promulgated his “Objections to the Constitution of Government formed by the Convention” setting forth detailed concerns for the proposed national government.
Alexander Hamilton, who along with James Madison and John Jay, wrote many of the Federalist Papers that urged the several states to ratify the Constitution. In Federalist 84, Hamilton objected to a bill enumerating rights in the Constitution as unnecessary because its enumeration of powers of Congress, and of the executive, limited as they were, did not authorize legislation that would impair those rights. Hamilton feared that any enumeration of rights would exclude those not listed. Hamilton, lawyer that he was, was doubtless aware of the legislative construction principle expressio unius est exclusio alterius.2
Several states—Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina and Rhode Island — initially balked at ratification, mainly because of the lack of a bill of rights. If these states, particularly New York and Virginia, were to reject the Constitution, it would be unworkable.
The anti-federalists in those states initially demanded inclusion of a bill of rights as a condition of ratification. James Madison initially had concerns similar to Hamilton’s. But because he was convinced ratification of the Constitution by the principal objecting states was critical Madison, together with Samuel Adams of Massachusetts and John Hancock, worked out a deal whereby the objecting states would make strong recommendations to the first Congress to propose and send to the states amendments constituting a bill of rights for ratification. Madison drafted twelve proposed amendments that addressed George Mason’s fears and his own concerns.3 He added what became the Ninth Amendment providing that the enumeration of specific rights was not exhaustive, and the Tenth that specifically reserved powers not given to Congress and the executive to the several states. This “Massachusetts Compromise” induced the four large states to ratify, and upon proposal of the bill of rights by the First Congress, North Carolina and Rhode Island joined the Union.
George Mason certainly deserves to be remembered and honored in this two-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our Nation’s founding. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, drafted mainly by him and ”made by the representatives of the good people of [that state]” in the next month was echoed in the Declaration of Independence.
- George Mason University’s faculty included the late economist Walter E. Williams from 1980 until his death in 2020. Professor Williams also wrote syndicated columns distributed nationwide. It is an institution that tends to include conservative and libertarian thought. GMU hosts the Mercatus Center, a free market economy think-tank and advocate. ↩︎
- Expression of one thing implies exclusion of another of the same class. ↩︎
- Ten of the proposed amendments were ratified by the States in the First Congress. The original first amendment stipulated that a congressional district cannot have more than 50,000 residents; it was never ratified. The second would require any pay change to happen after the election, essentially allowing citizens to approve or disapprove of any pay changes during the election; it was finally ratified in 1992 and became the 27th Amendment. ↩︎
