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

Political leader, judge, plantation owner, writer

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 ten. With the approval of Mason's mother, his uncle, a lawyer named John Mercer, took charge of bringing up the boy. Mason had access to his uncle's large library of law books and...