George Mason was a Virginia planter and political leader, renowned as the principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776). As a delegate at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, he spoke forcefully against provisions he believed threatened liberty and state authority, ultimately refusing to sign the final Constitution.
Mason objected that the proposed Constitution granted the federal government unchecked powers—particularly in raising standing armies, taxing, and regulating commerce—while offering no explicit Bill of Rights to safeguard citizens. He warned that without clear limitations on federal authority and guarantees of individual liberties, the new system would endanger the very freedoms it claimed to secure.
Fears that omitting a Bill of Rights and centralizing unchecked federal power would override state laws, criminalize dissent as treason, and destroy individual liberty.
