Mason, George (1725–1792)

George Mason was a Virginia planter and statesman of the American revolutionary era. He was a firm proponent of limited government who used his influence as the holder of government offices to reduce its reach.

Elected in 1759 to Virginia's House of Burgesses, he proposed measures to resist Britain's 1765 Stamp Act, which he considered a usurpation of the colonists' right to elect the officials authorized to tax them. He joined with George Washington to write the 1774 Fairfax Resolves, which protested Britain's Coercive Acts, asserted colonial rights, criticized the slave trade, and called for a boycott of British goods. In 1775, he turned down a seat in the second Continental Congress and instead assumed the place vacated by Washington in Fairfax County's delegation to the ...