Enlightenment & Revolutions
George Mason
1725–1792 · Charter rights
He refused to sign what had no bill of rights.
In their words
“All men are by nature equally free and independent.”
Mason drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the first charter anywhere to declare that governments derive their power from the people and may be reformed by them, and that press freedom, toleration and property lie beyond the reach of the state. He left the Constitutional Convention rather than sign a document lacking those guarantees, and the Bill of Rights exists partly because he was right.
Why it matters for freedom
He refused to sign a constitution that did not name the limits of its own power, and got a bill of rights without his name on it.
Who they stood against
the slave trade he profited from, and a constitution without a bill of rights