George Mason (1725-92)

George Mason

George Mason University is named for one of the leading statesmen in Colonial American history. A native of what is today Northern Virginia, George Mason was active in Colonial politics within the Commonwealth of Virginia and became a leading figure in the formation of the United States of America.

In July 1774, Mason wrote a series of resolutions that advanced a congress of the colonies and urged a trade boycott against Great Britain. In August, Virginia adopted the resolutions, and the Continental Congress followed suit in October. Many feel it was George Mason's resolutions that set the stage for the type of democratic government America enjoys today.

In 1776, Mason wrote much of the Virginia Constitution and drew up the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the most advanced statement of the rights of man at that time. When these rights were not included in the U.S. Constitution in 1787, Mason was one of three delegates who refused to sign the document. He gained a measure of satisfaction when his doctrine became the basis for the first 10 amendments, the "Bill of Rights," to the U.S. Constitution in 1791.

A lifelong friend of George Washington, Mason was also a neighbor as his home, Gunston Hall, was located a short distance south of Washington's Mount Vernon along the Potomac River. He rarely left Gunston Hall, a self-sufficient plantation of more than 5,000 acres in his day.

The ideals of George Mason, a true "Patriot" in every sense of the word, live on at the University that bears his name.