Mason was a member of the Virginia as sembly from 1776 to 1780, and from 1786 to 1788. He was one of the committee to revise the laws of Virginia, in accordance with the changed political conditions. The other mem bers of this committee were Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe and Thomas Ludwell Lee. Mason again declined a seat in Congress, to which he was elected by the Vir ginia assembly on 22 May 1777.
Mason took an active part in the Constitu tional Convention of 1787, reaching Philadel phia 17 May. He urged that the President be elected by Congress, and that he be ineligible for a second term; that the States should have equal representation in the Senate; that the Supreme Court should be joined with the Executive in the exercise of the veto power; that Congress be empowered to enact sumptuary laws; "that no law in the nature of a Naviga tion Act be passed before the year 1808, with out the consent of two-thirds of each branch of the Legislature"; and, finally, that Congress should be given the control of slavery. Madi son reports Mason's speech in favor giving Congress the control of slavery as follows: "This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British merchants. The British government constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it. The present question concerns not the Importing States alone, but the whole Union. . . . Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor depise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigra tion 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. He lamented that some of our eastern brethren had, from a lust of gain, embarked in this nefarious traffic . . . He held it essential in every point of view, that the General Government should have power to prevent the increase of slavery.'
It was chiefly the failure to insert his views as to Congressional control of slavery and Navigation Acts which led Mason to reject the Constitution. Shortly before his death he told Thomas Jefferson that "the Constitution as agreed to for a fortnight before the Conventii)n rose was such a one as he would have set his hand and heart to. . . . With respect to the importation of slaves, it was left to Con gress. This disturbed the two southernmost States who knew that Congress would imme diately suppress the importation of slaves. Those two States, therefore, struck up a bargain with the three New England States, that if they would join to admit slaves for some years, the two southernmost States would join in changing the clause which required two-thirds of the Legislature in any vote. It was done.
. . . Under the coalition, the great prin ciples of the Constitution were changed in the last days of the Convention' Such was Ma son's own explanation of his refusal to sign the instrument in Philadelphia and for his stalwart opposition to its ratification in the Virginia Convention, which met at Richmond in 1788. Two years later he declined an appointment to a vacancy in the United States Senate. He died at "Gunston Hall," where he lies buried. Mason's statue forms one of the circle of the Revolutionary fathers surrounding the eques trian monument of Washington at Richmond.
Thomas Jefferson described George Mason as °a man of the first order of wisdom among those who acted on the theatre of the Revolu tion, of expansive mind, profound judgment, cogent in argument, learned in the lore of our former Constitution, and earnest for the Re publican change on Democratic principles. His elocution was neither flowing nor smooth, but his language was strong, his manner most im pressive and strengthened by a dash of biting cynicism when provocation made it seasonable?) Consult Rowland, 'Life and Writings of George Mason' (2 vols., New York 1892).