Reluctant Statesman.

George Mason was a private man devoted to his family and plantation, yet he was periodically called on by his community for advice and counsel. A slaveholder, Mason spent his public life attacking the institution of slavery, which violated his ideals of liberty and republican virtue. A leader in Virginia's break with England, Mason drafted the state's Declaration of Rights and called for a firm union of the states. In the 1780s Mason joined Washington and Madison in calling for a stronger union, and he helped draft the U.S. Constitution. Mason was horrified that the Constitution did not include a Bill of Rights and that it would allow the slave trade to continue for another twenty years. He opposed its ratification in 1788. The changes he proposed became the model for the Bill of Rights.

Family Life.

When Mason was ten...