Born in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1725, George Mason was the son of a wealthy planter who died when Mason was nine years old. Mason was privately educated. Inheriting several large estates along the Potomac River, he became a friend and neighbor of George Washington. Mason married Ann Eilbeck in 1750. He became a county justice and was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1759. In 1773, his wife died, leaving him with nine children. He never aspired for high public office, but he proved influential in pursuing ideals that form the basis of American government.

Mason served at the Virginia Convention (July 1775), where the colony prepared for armed struggle with Great Britain. At Virginia's constitutional convention in 1776, he introduced the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which protects individual liberties and was a forerunner to the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. Mason's drafts of the Declaration of Rights...