George Mason: Virginia Declaration of Rights

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Compare and contrast the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and the U.S. Bill of Rights. What are some similarities? What are some differences?
• 2. Read the letter from “A Virginia Planter” that was published in the London Public Ledger. What does it have in common with Mason's other writings? Does the letter hint at some of Mason's later ideas? Why or why not?
• 3. Mason and several others attempted to persuade the Constitutional Convention to include elements of the Virginia Declaration of Rights in the new Constitution. Why did they fail? What was different with the later Bill of Rights?
• 4. Look at the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. What does this document have in common with Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights?
• 5. The Mason biographer Robert Allen Rutland calls Mason a “reluctant statesman.” Although Mason wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights, he allowed someone else to introduce the document to the Virginia House of Burgesses, and he continually refused to serve in political roles. What are some other reasons why Rutland believes Mason to be a “reluctant statesman”? What does Rutland mean by this term?