George Mason / George Washington

George Mason

 Neighbors and close friends for many years, they would often talk for hours together. They had agreement on many subjects but disagreed as well on some important issues.


George Mason: These evenings are full of memories that I find comforting.

George Washington: Mount Vernon in the winter with snow on the grass right down to the Potomac and a blazing fire here in the parlor are very comforting. Only Virginia planters can understand that feeling.


Mason: I was born in December as you know and I’ve always felt comfortable surrounded by heavy snow. How glad I am that we’ve both made Fairfax County our home.


Washington: I know what a tragedy it was for you to lose your father when you were so young. I was twelve when my father died but you were only ten.


Mason: The Potomac has been a blessing to us over the years but to drown there in a capsized boat is a terrible way to die. After my father's death, I lived with my uncle John, who along with my mother became my legal guardian. John Mercer was a leading Virginia attorney back then. I was placed in his care for my studies.

Washington: I remember your telling me about how pleased you were to study in Mercer's private library, which held many books on the law.

Mason: He bragged that the library consisted of between 1,500 and 1,800 volumes many of which I perused. I studied with tutors and attended a private academy in Maryland; all thanks to Mercer.

Washington: So that's how you became so interested in writing a draft for a new Virginia Constitution and a declaration of rights for Virginia.

Mason: I borrowed a bit here and there, read what other states were including in their formal demands for the basic rights of their citizens.

Washington: It was you who first wrote, I believe, that "all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights . .. among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty."

Mason: But let's not forget there was a pamphlet written by the Pennsylvania delegate James Wilson, published in Philadelphia in 1774, that declared, "All men are, by nature equal and free: no one has a right to any authority over another without his consent: a lawful government is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it."


Washington: But then you recognized the contributions of Wilson and John Adams, no less than Jefferson. You were a raging tiger during the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia. You convinced many but not all of your concerns.


Mason: I’ve been a farmer all my life; that’s who I am. You on the other hand have done many things. You are a farmer and a darn good one too but you are also a hero of the war. My friend George Washington was the great general that led armies to victory and then became the first President of these United States.


Washington: I must stop you before that Madeira wine makes you weep. I lost more battles that I won. History will bear that out. Why it wasn’t until we got to Princeton that we started to win. My soldiers were farmers just like the folks around here and they did very well against the trained soldiers of the Crown.


Mason: You still think I should have joined in the fighting back in ’75.

George Washington

Washington: That’s old stuff, George.


Mason: Old, but still true in your mind. Every time I think about all the good men we lost in New York, I feel guilty that I stayed home.


Washington: Listen my friend, I’ve always been healthy. Thank the Good Lord. If I had been plagued with painful gout like you, there would have been someone else leading the armies. Besides, you more than made up for service to our colonies. It was your writing for our liberties that was so influential. And your excellent and patient work on the Bill of Rights moved us forward.


Mason: As I said, it was not all original with me.I borrowed readily from my own previous writing, particularly from a recent draft for a new Virginia Constitution, but also from a declaration of rights for Virginia.


Washington: A Declaration of Rights, following the Preamble and preceding the Constitution itself, your words stated unequivocally that all men were "born equally free and independent"—words Adams had taken from the Virginia Declaration of Rights as written by Mr. George Mason—and that they had certain "natural, essential, and unalienable rights." These were your words.


Mason: You remember all that by heart? Do you also remember that when Jefferson was given the task of putting all that into good English, he changed a few words and was known as the writer of the Declaration?


Washington: It takes many bricks to build a wall and you can be sure that we southerners are proud of your contributions.


McCullough writes:"It guaranteed free elections, and in one of a number of articles borrowed from the constitution of Pennsylvania, guaranteed "freedom of speaking" and "liberty of the press." It provided against unreasonable searches and seizures, and trial by jury. While it did not guarantee freedom of religion, it affirmed the "duty" of all people to worship "The Supreme Being, the great creator and preserver of the universe," and that no one was to be "hurt, molested, or restrained in his person, liberty, or estate for worshiping God in the manner most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience," provided he did not disturb the public peace."


Washington: You worry about what I may think concerning your not going to battle. Tell me what you really think about slavery. You’ve seen the size of my plantations. Could I have managed to function without slaves?


Mason: I was quoted as having another opinion on the matter.


Washington: You called the traffic of slaves “infernal." “Slavery,” you were quoted as saying, “discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities."


Mason: I cannot swear to the exactitude of those words but I did say something to that effect.


Washington: There was undoubtedly some sympathy with you among a few of the members; however, the general feeling was more truly expressed a few days later by Rutledge of South Carolina, in the debate on the continuance of the African slave trade. "Religion and humanity," he said, "had nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle with nations. The true question at present is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of slaves, which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers." The response came from Connecticut, Oliver Ellsworth saying: "Let every State import what it pleases. The morality or wisdom of slavery are considerations belonging to the States themselves."


Mason: These were warnings worth heeding. But Ellsworth retorted with a sneer: "As he had never owned a slave, he could not be judge of the effect of slavery on character." He said, however, that, "if it was to be considered in a moral light, we ought to go farther, and free those already in the country."


Washington: It is notable how complete and final a settlement of the slavery question "these compromises," as they were called, seemed to be to those who made them. They were meant to be, as Mr. Madison called them, "adjustments of the different interests of different parts of the country," and being once agreed upon they were considered as having the binding force and stability of a contract."

Mason: And what about the evils?

Washington: The evils of slavery were set forth as an element in the negotiation, but no question of essential morality was raised that brought the system within the category of forbidden wrong. Whatever results might follow would be limited, it was thought, by the terms of the contract; whereas, in fact, the actual results were not foreseen, and could not be guarded against, except by the refusal to enter into any contract whatever.


Mason: On the foreign slave trade Madison had little to say, but, like most of the Southern delegates north of the Carolinas, he was opposed to it. "Twenty years," he said, "will produce all the mischief that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves. So long a term will be more dishonorable to the American character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution." The words are a little ambiguous, though he is his own reporter. But what he meant evidently was, that any protection of the trade would dishonor the nation; for at another point of the debate, on the same day, he said that "he thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men."

The Yearly Meeting of Friends in New York and in Pennsylvania sent a memorial against the continued toleration of the slave trade; and this was followed the next day by a petition from the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery, signed by Benjamin Franklin as president, asking for a more radical measure.

Washington: Do you believe that Ben Franklin’s views on slavery differ from my own?


Mason: Yes, Franklin abhorred the notion of slavery but had a few slaves who either ran off or died in their work. In later life he refused to own slaves. When you were elected President of the United States and moved to Philadelphia, you had the opportunity to free your wife’s household slaves. Pennsylvania law required that slave holders moving to Pennsylvania could not keep their slaves beyond the six-month period after arriving. They had to be freed. Instead of freeing the slaves, you shipped them back to Virginia just before the time ran out.

Washington: Good friends can and must, on occasion, disagree.