GEORGE MASON, FATHER OF OUR BILL OF RIGHTS

 George Mason (1725-1792) had several claims to fame during his lifetime and yet today very few Americans know anything about him, even though he was one of the men who shaped the concept and destiny of America to determine a workable frame of government that is now a model for citizen-guided rule throughout the world.

For one thing, he was one of three Constitutional delegates who refused to sign the new Constitution after working on it all summer. Mason held what was then considered a radical opinion - that a republic had to begin with the formal legally binding commitment that individuals had inalienable rights that were superior to any government. He felt the Constitution created a federal government which might be too powerful because it did not contain a bill of rights.

His second objection was that it did not end the slave trade. Mason is considered by some as one of the most outspoken founders in denouncing slavery as evil, but he also owned the second largest number of slaves in Northern Virginia. The reasons behind this are complicated, but the most well known explanation is that in Mason’s time a man had to be wealthy in order to have an influence over politics. Mason owned a huge plantation and his wealth came in part from owning slaves.

Mason’s long time friend, George Washington, was greatly disappointed by Mason’s refusal to sign and most historians believe their friendship never recovered.

Mason, a Virginian, had already written the Virginia Declaration of Rights that included protections for religious freedom, free speech, and the right of citizens to bear arms. The other framers of the Constitution were not opposed to these explicit protections but insisted they be added at a later date.

During the first session of the First Congress, it was another one of Mason’s friends, James Madison, who introduced a Bill of Rights based on Mason’s own document for Virginia, and this Bill of Rights, as we know them today, were finally ratified in 1791. Mason died one year later, after having seen the fulfillment of his dream.

Now for the rest of the story. George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public research university, was founded in 1949 as a branch of the University of Virginia, becoming independent in 1972. It was named for the Father of our Bill of Rights, George Mason, and it was the subject of an explosive news story last month.

Mason University maintains a campus in London where the Antonin Scalia Law School is located and where Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh has been hired to teach a course there this summer on the origins of the U.S. Constitution.

Students in Virginia are protesting to have the Justice removed because they believe he is a sexual predator. One student said “...this decision has impacted me negatively - it has affected my mental health knowing that an abuser will be part of our faculty.” Now keep in mind that the Law School in London where Kavanaugh will be teaching is 3600 miles away from where these students attend the main campus. But that didn’t make another student, a sophomore in Virginia, feel any more safe. She said “I feel uncomfortable going to this school and I don’t feel like l can complete the rest of my education here.”

The irony here cannot be missed. These students are protesting a university named in honor of a man who believed that all individuals are guaranteed civil rights and liberties, freedom of speech and assembly, due process of law. Whatever are they thinking?

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