July – A Month of Celebrations!
Written by ©2024 Sarah Becker
Lets start with the 4th of July. The nation’s first “organized” July 4th celebration occurred in 1777: 247 years ago, in Philadelphia and Boston. Founded in July 1749, Alexandria now celebrates its 275th birthday. The town sold the first of its available lots beginning July 13th.
In 1749 George Mason IV, a self-taught lawyer, was a member of the Fairfax County Court, a Truro parish vestryman, and a partner in the speculative Ohio Company. He was appointed to Alexandria’s Board of Trustees in 1754; then became Fairfax County’s representative to the Virginia House of Burgesses [1758-1751]. Also the House of Delegates [1776-1780].
Many describe Mason [1725-1792] as America’s forgotten founder. “The fact is unquestionable that the Bill of Rights and the [June 29, 1776] Constitution of Virginia were drawn originally by George Mason,” Thomas Jefferson said in 1825.
George Mason IV authored several important documents, perhaps none more famous than his June 12, 1776, Virginia Declaration of Rights. Section 1: “All men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”
Mason’s opening inspired Jefferson to add similar language to his July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Like many post-Colonial Americans George Mason IV contemplated revision of the revolutionary government’s 1777 Articles of Confederation. Yet ten years later, when opportunity knocked, Mason declined to sign the Constitution as written.
Mason believed passionately in human liberty. It was George Mason IV, the Ohio Company’s treasurer [1749-1792] who sent Virginia surveyor George Rogers Clark west. Mason protested not only Britain’s handling of the Ohio Company, but also the Stamp Act [1765] and the Boston Port Bill [1774].
“Let our fellow-Subjects in Great Britain reflect that we are descended from the same Stock with themselves, nurtured in the same Principles of Freedom; which we have both suck’d in with our Mother’s Milk,” George Mason IV wrote the Committee of London Merchants in 1766. “In crossing the Atlantic Ocean, we have only changed our Climate, not our Minds.”
In 1774 Mason teamed with neighbor George Washington to protest, among other things, Parliament’s passage of the Coercive Acts. The three onerous Acts were the Administration of Justice Act, the Massachusetts Regulating Act, and the Quebec Act. The Justice Act protected royal officials serving in the Massachusetts colony from law suits filed in the colonial courts. The second Act radically altered the Massachusetts colony’s political structure, the third Quebec’s.
On July 18, 1774—250 years ago—a 25-member committee including George Washington, John Carlyle, and George Mason met in Alexandria to adopt the Fairfax County Resolves. “The resolutions, authored by Mason, warned that a conspiracy existed in British halls of power bent on making the colonists second class citizens,” Mount Vernon said.
- “Resolved that this Colony and Dominion of Virginia cannot be considered as a conquered Country; and if it was, that the present Inhabitants are the Descendants not of the Conquered, but of the Conquerors. That the same was not settled at the National Expence of England, but at the private Expence of the Adventurers.”
“The Resolves contained the implied threat of further action to enforce American rights and independence,” the Library of Congress explained.
In September 1787 Virginia delegate George Mason IV attended Philadelphia’s Constitutional Convention. He made 136 speeches; offered to write a Bill of Rights, and encouraged the direct election of members of Congress. Mason’s 16 Objections are noteworthy, especially today.
Objection 1: “There is no Declaration of Rights, and the laws of the general government being paramount to the laws and constitution of the several States, the Declarations of Rights in the separate States are no security….”
Objection 2: “In the House of Representatives there is not the substance but the shadow only of representation….”
Objections 3&4: U.S. Constitution, Article 1 Section 3.1. “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each State, “chosen by the legislatures thereof….” The U.S. Senate was not “elected by the people thereof” until the beginning of the 20th century. [Amendment XVII, as ratified in 1913]
Objection 6: “The President of the United States has no Constitutional Council, a thing unknown in any safe and regular government. He will therefore be unsupported by proper information and advice, and will generally be directed by minions and favorites.”
Objection 8: “The President of the United States has the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be sometimes exercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt.” [As per the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol?]
Objection 12: “There is no declaration of any kind, for preserving the liberty of the press….” According to Pew Research, “half of Americans at least sometimes get news from social media [and] the changes have caused huge disruptions.”
Objection 15: “This government will set out a moderate aristocracy: it is at present impossible to foresee whether it will…produce a monarchy, or a tyrannical aristocracy.”
Mason’s objections changed his relationship with Washington. “I believe there are few men in whom George Washington has placed greater confidence,” Mason wrote son John in 1789. “But it is possible my opposition to the new government…may have altered the case.”
In the end Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights served as a model not only for Thomas Jefferson: James Madison and the U.S. Bill of Rights [1791], but also France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man [1789], and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights [1948].
“I sincerely hope that George Mason’s Gunston Hall, will in time, become a symbol of the rights of man and a mecca for all liberty-loving Americans,” President Harry S. Truman reminded in 1949. His plantation home was built in 1755 and housed a large slave population.
William Buckland—an indentured servant, carpenter & joiner—designed the home’s elaborately carved interior woodwork. For more information including lectures, visit https://www.gunstonhall.org
George Mason IV was of an era, the era of declarations of rights. Those who “are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights” appreciate his stewardship.
Columnist’s Reply: Thanks to the many who responded to April’s Earth Day column. NOAA and the Mauna Loa Observatory recently reaffirmed that “the amount of carbon dioxide [CO2] produced today is pushing the atmosphere further into territory not seen for millions of years…that CO2 is at levels our species has never experienced before.”
“[W]e need to do more to become a Climate Ready Nation,” NOAA Administrator Nick W. Spinrad said.
As for May’s Artificial Intelligence column, thanks to all for your comments. As was suggested, I have secured a copy of Francis Wayland’s 1851 book, The Elements of Moral Science. Q4: Technology ethics are essential why, left many asking new questions. For example, property rights: the choice of material used and ownership of; how the software is applied and trained; the moral essence, bias, and reliability thereof.
Additional Columnist’s Reply: My thanks to those who inquired earlier this year regarding the history of presidential immunity. I then withheld comment and referred readers to my 2019 online Column entitled Executive Privilege and Impeachment.
About the Author – Sarah Becker started writing for The Economist while a graduate student in England. Similar publications followed. She joined the Crier in 1996 while serving on the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association Board. Her interest in antiquities began as a World Bank hire, with Indonesia’s need to generate hard currency. Balinese history, i.e. tourism provided the means. The New York Times describes Becker’s book, Off Your Duffs & Up the Assets, as “a blueprint for thousands of nonprofit managers.” A former museum director, SLAM’s saving grace Sarah received Alexandria’s Salute to Women Award in 2007. Email: abitofhistory53@gmail.com