George Mason, Forgotten Founder

George Mason (1725-92) is often omitted from the small circle of founding fathers celebrated today, but in his service to America he was, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "of the first order of greatness." Jeff Broadwater provides a comprehensive account of Mason's life at the center of the momentous events of eighteenth-century America.

Mason played a key role in the Stamp Act Crisis, the American Revolution, and the drafting of Virginia's first state constitution. He is perhaps best known as author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, often hailed as the model for the Bill of Rights.

As a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Mason influenced the emerging Constitution on point after point. Yet when he was rebuffed in his efforts to add a bill of rights and felt the document did too little to protect the interests of the South, he refused to sign the final draft. Broadwater argues that Mason's recalcitrance was not the act of an isolated dissenter; rather, it emerged from the ideology of the American Revolution. Mason's concerns about the abuse of political power went to the essence of the American experience.

This is the first full biography of George Mason (1725-92) in a quarter-century. Although he is often omitted from the small circle of founding fathers celebrated today, Mason was at the center of the momentous events of 18th-century America. He played a key role in the Stamp Act Crisis, the American Revolution, and the drafting of Virginia's first state constitution. He is perhaps best known as author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, often hailed as the model for the Bill of Rights. Broadwater shows that Mason was often driven by concerns about the abuse of political power, which went to the essence of the American experience.

The Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley

Broadwater, who teaches history at Barton College in North Carolina, writes clear, unadorned prose and has an admirable ability to explain complex intellectual matters in terms the lay reader can understand. Because Mason left little evidence of his private life, there are blurred edges in the portrait that Broadwater paints, but overall this is an exemplary biography: sympathetic but dispassionate, thorough but not cluttered, convincing in its interpretations and arguments. It leaves no doubt that Mason deserves to be returned to the esteem and reputation he enjoyed during his lifetime, but in no way is it hagiography.

Jeff Broadwater is associate professor of history at Barton College in Wilson, North Carolina. He is author of Eisenhower and the Anti-Communist Crusade and Adlai Stevenson and American Politics: The Odyssey of a Cold War Liberal.