One of those contributions involved the document Americans celebrate on Independence Day--the Declaration of Independence. Mason had no direct role in the drafting of the Declaration; nor was he involved in the Continental Congress' debate over American independence. Nevertheless, he did clearly contribute to some of the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence. This can perhaps be seen most clearly from these words that appear in the first article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights:
That 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.
Compare these words with the words of Thomas Jefferson in these famous lines from the 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 unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Consider also the language of the third article of the Virginia Declaration of Rights:
That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation or community; of all the various modes and forms of government that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it, in such a manner as shall be judged to be most conducive to the public weal.
Jefferson expressed similar thoughts in the Declaration of Independence--although perhaps a little more concisely:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to Effect their Safety and Happiness.
Given these similarities in thought--if not in language--we might be tempted to accuse Jefferson of plagiarizing Mason. However, as the Constitutional Rights Center points out:
Jefferson did not invent the ideas that he used to justify the American Revolution [in the Declaration of Independence]. He himself said that had adopted "the harmonizing sentiments of the day." These ideas were, so to speak, "in the air" at that time.
Those "harmonizing sentiments of the day" to a large extent derived from writings of the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). Indeed, both Mason's Declaration of Rights and Jefferson's Declaration of Independence reflect the influence of Locke, so it could be said that they were drawing from a common source.
Furthermore, not only are there similarities between the two documents in the thoughts they express, there are also at least two striking differences between them. First, note the phrase "when they enter into a state of society" in the opening of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. No similar phrase occurs in the parallel passage in the Declaration of Independence. This phrase was not actually authored by Mason. Rather, it was added to the Virginia Declaration of Rights at the suggestion of Edmund Pendleton (1721-1803). Pendleton, like Mason, was a member of the Virginia Convention, which was drafting the Declaration of Rights and the new state constitution for Virginia. During the debate in the Virginia Convention over the Declaration of Rights, Robert Carter Nicholas (1728-1780), another member of the convention, objected to Mason's language asserting that "all men are by nature equally free and independent." According to author Henry Mayer:
The democratic implications disturbed [Nicholas]; he also feared that the assertion of equality...would "have the effect of abolishing" the condition of chattel slavery so fundamental to Virginia's way of life. To let the proposition stand would create "civil convulsion," either from the slaves or from licentious, propertyless whites who would demand an equality of wealth. (A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Revolution, p. 300).
Mayer tells us, that as a result of Nicholas' objections:
Work on the Virginia [Declaration of Rights] had to be postponed for a week while the committee [drafting the Declaration] sought so "to vary the language, as not to involve the necessity of emancipating the slaves." They needed some way of blunting the implication of equal birth without repudiating the claim of natural rights. (Mayer, A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic, p. 301).
It was Pendleton who came up with a solution. He proposed adding the phrase "when they enter into a state of society" after the phrase "all men are by nature equally free and independent." As Mayer explains, this had the effect of excluding slaves from the assertion that "all men are by nature equally free and independent" since they were not considered members of society by whites. The Virginia Convention accepted Pendleton's proposal, apparently with Mason's acquiescence.
In contrast, Jefferson's assertion in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" is not qualified in any way. As a result, it was possible to argue that none were excluded from such a "self-evident" truth, and in fact, this is what abolitionists would argue in the future when attacking the institution of slavery. Thus, the assertion of human equality in the Declaration of Independence would prove even more powerful than that in the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
A second difference between the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Declaration of Independence involves the rights to which Mason and Jefferson claimed "all men" were entitled. The two documents are in agreement that "life" and "liberty" are among the essential rights of men. This notion that "life" and "liberty" are fundamental rights derived from Locke. In contrast, while Mason mentions the right of "acquiring and possessing property," Jefferson does not. Exactly why this is the case has been widely debated. Some have claimed that Jefferson omitted a right to property from the Declaration of Independence because in his time (for many, at least) "property" included slaves. Thus, to assert a fundamental right to property might be seen as a providing a justification for slavery (and Jefferson, despite being a slave-owner himself, professed to abhor slavery). Others have argued that Jefferson wrote "the pursuit of Happiness" because it sounded better than "property." From this perspective, 'the pursuit of Happiness" is a mere rhetorical flourish, with little meaning. However, according to Prof. Maurizio Valsania (paraphrasing author Garry Wills):
..."pursuit of happiness" was a better and more precise phrase than property. "Pursuit of happiness," in the period, signified the right of American citizens to cultivate themselves, to pursue the realization of the property end, in this way rising above the level of brute existence. ("Thomas Jefferson Private Property: Myths and Reality," RiCOGNIZIONI. Rivista di lingue, litterature e culture moderne, 14 * (2020) VII
Thus, the "pursuit of happiness" was an essential human right from Jefferson's perspective. On the other hand, while the right of property was important, it was not, according to Prof. Valsania's interpretation of Jefferson's views, an unalienable right, that is, not a right that could never be relinquished or lost. A person could bequeath his or her property to another, gamble it away, or lose in a war. Consequently, Jefferson chose to replace Mason's notion of a right of "acquiring and possessing property" with the idea of a right to pursue happiness.
Nevertheless, despite these differences between Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights, it cannot be denied that Mason made a more than minor contribution to Jefferson's celebrated document. So, on this Independence Day, as we remember Jefferson and his role in the proclamation of American independence, perhaps we should also give a thought to the "forgotten founder" George Mason. Have a happy Fourth of July!
Image: "Portrait of George Mason (1725-1792)" by Dominic W. Boudet (after John Hesselius), from Wikimedia Commons