 Hello from the National Archives Public Programs and Education staff. My name is Sarah Lyons Davis and I'm an education specialist at the National Archives. Welcome to the National Archives Comes Alive Young Learners Program. This morning we meet George Mason who drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights and was one of our nation's founding fathers. He believed that all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights. It was his belief in his actions that gave him the name Father of the Bill of Rights. Mr. Mason will reflect on why he refused to sign the U.S. Constitution without securing individual rights for the people, his friendship with George Washington, and his home life at Gunston Hall, Virginia. George Mason is portrayed today by Don McAndrews, actor and historian. Today's program is in partnership with Gunston Hall, the 18th century Georgian mansion near the Potomac River and Mason Neck, Virginia. Gunston Hall was the home of George Mason and it's also known as the home of American rights. It's currently open to the public so if you ever get a chance you should go by and visit. Thank you to our partners at Gunston Hall for sharing this modern day image with us. As you can see it's quite different from this next slide. This is an airscape image of the mansion and one of the many records we have in the holdings of the National Archives. This image is part of an educational activity found on docsteach.org. George Mason influenced the founders of our country to draft a Bill of Rights to protect American individual rights. The Bill of Rights includes the first ten amendments to the Constitution. It guarantees civil rights and liberties such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. It sets rules for the process of law, due process of law, and reserves all powers not delegated to the federal government, to the people or the states. The original joint resolution proposing the Bill of Rights is on permanent display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. While we celebrate the Bill of Rights every day as Americans, we also have a special day in its honor, December 15th. Also in the National Archives are our two other founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. In this image you can see the documents in the rotunda of the National Archives. On the walls above these documents we have two murals created by the artist Barry Faulkner. The mural on the left is the artist's interpretation of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Oh, and if you look closely, you can see George Mason next to his close friend George Washington. Just in case you can't tell which one he is, we circled him on the slide. Mason's influence is seen throughout the records of the National Archives. You can even read letters he wrote or were written to him on our site Founders Online. If you have a question for George Mason, please send it to us via the YouTube chat box and we'll try and answer it at the end of the program. National Archives staff monitors the chat box. Let us know where you're watching from today. Our programs are brought to you from the National Archives Public Programs and Education Team and the National Archives Foundation. You can find information for teacher and student programs on the National Archives website archives.gov under Educator Resources or learn about upcoming programs under Attendant Event and on the National Archives Facebook page. Let us now give a warm welcome to George Mason. Good morning everybody. It's a pleasure to be able to speak with you today. I know there are a lot of children involved and I would like to start with my early life. My father, George Mason III by that name, he died when I was 10 years old and that not only left me without fatherly guidance but it left my mother in charge of all of the farms that we had. She stepped up and did an incredible job and actually increased our wealth during the time she managed everything. At 10 years old I was not quite well educated enough to be able to take over the family business but my mother saw very well to my education. My uncle, who was my mother's sister's husband, John Mercer, he opened up his library. He had the largest library I think in all of Virginia but he opened his library to me anytime I wanted to read or research and that started my independent education. I did have tutors when I was young but uncle Mercer did not particularly like the tutors that well so he really saw it to my education and later in life I had to study and he was a lawyer and I had to study in his library issues of land ownership because we had a lot of land and I became so well read on the laws about land ownership that I had lawyers coming and consulting with me because my knowledge was more expensive than theirs. I never had the formal higher education but I educated myself very well on those things that I needed to know to run the business and I'm very grateful for uncle Mercer's involvement because he played a very large part in that. Growing up with how to father, I had Trimo Genitor, I was the eldest and would inherit everything and be required to manage everything. My younger brother, we decided to send him off to England to study law and he became quite a prominent lawyer here in Virginia. As I grew up I really, when my father died we were at a farm down at Champawamsik which is the southern border between Prince William County and Stafford County and I really loved the land up here in Fairfax County which is where Gunston Hall is located and I particularly chose this site because of its prospect. Prospect meaning the views that we had here are just stunning and we're close to the Potomac River which was necessary for transportation and we own land over in Maryland as well so that's the quickest way to get yourself to Maryland. As we grew older, we expanded the land ownership quite extensively. We had farms, we had workers, we did very well for ourselves. I was not one to get involved in government per se. Now I was a justice of the peace here in Fairfax County and did sit behind the bar but I really did not want to get into politics any greater than the local scene. I felt I had being educated and being somewhat wealthy I had a duty to serve my neighbors here and so that was about the extent of what I wanted to do. When my wife died, it was very difficult time for me and I pretty much withdrew from all society at that point in time and it was right before the convention that produced the Declaration of Independence up in Philadelphia right before that George Washington, my neighbor and very close friend came to me and basically told me to stop living in the past and to move on. He needed me to take his place when he went to the convention in the House of Burgesses which I did not really want to do that but with his insistence I did and it was at that time when the Declaration of Independence came along and our governor, Dunmore, a royal governor packed up and left by the shade of night emptied out the armory with all the gunpowder and left by ship. And so here we were, we were left without a government at all the only government we had was the royal governor and the House of Burgesses and the governor's council so we knew we had to figure out what kind of government do we want and I was very deeply involved in all of that we met at Raleigh Tavern down in Williamsburg, the capital and we knew we had a very difficult task ahead of us and once the governor left we set hard to work at forming a government, constituting a government here in Virginia my concern was, I'm very methodical in my business and in all aspects of my life but I knew that we needed to have an outline an outline of what is a government supposed to be what it should not be and what our rights are as citizens and formed a committee and met in the capital building in Williamsburg and worked very hard on these 14 articles that became known as the Virginia Declaration of Rights this is the outline by which we formed a government everything that we did in constituting a government had to be in agreement with those 14 articles and we had had a long period of time being governed by people that were not quite competent many titles and stations and government were hereditary that is not the best way to choose the best person to do the job so that was one of the key articles and our freedoms were enumerated in the Virginia Declaration of Rights but to this day if you get a copy of our Virginia Constitution the very first page is the Virginia Declaration of Rights and I'm really proud of the work that we did with that and that led at a later time when we were meeting to constitute a federal government while we were at war with the British it was pretty easy for the various colonies to cooperate with each other when you have muskets pointed at your head you take any help you can get and this is what we did but we formed the Articles of Confederation it was the treaty agreement between the various colonies as to how we would work together but after we defeated the British and won our independence then it became extremely difficult the cooperation stopped greed raised its ugly head we had an agreement the Potomac River is actually owned by Maryland Maryland was trying to prevent our Virginians from using the water for transportation for fishing for anything and they wanted the taxes we had prosperity at the tips of our fingers and that is not the way to promote prosperity by not cooperating so we knew the lack of cooperation we needed the Constitution for a federal government a federal government that Congress before we formed the Constitution had no power to tax they could ask the states for funds but they could not enforce it so we needed a strong federal government but a strong federal government is a scary thing indeed I was frightened that we might be creating a monster that would be even worse than the British that we had just overthrown so how do you protect yourself from that so when they called the convention in Philadelphia to write a Constitution we were sent there to correct the errors of the Articles of Confederation it was not known as a Constitutional Convention at that time but as we had discussions it became obvious that we could not fix the Articles of Confederation we had to form a federal government and we did that in secret this was a very controversial thing and we were all given an oath of secrecy that we were not able to write anything about the proceedings we were not able to tell anybody other than the members of the convention about the proceedings and we could not even communicate this with our own families and the most amazing thing I think about the Constitutional Convention was that we actually kept it a secret they nailed the windows shut up in the hall in Philadelphia and it was a stinking hot summer oh my goodness it was terrible to have all the windows shut with the heat that was going on but that did encourage us to not linger look at the convention, he would record that there were assignments given to certain committees and then he would record that the committee reported but any of the details were lacking so it's pretty amazing that many men together could maintain the secrecy that we did toward the end of the convention I became extremely concerned about creating a government again it might be more despicable than what we had with the British it could be tyrannical and the only way we could protect ourselves if you're going to create a monster you should build a sufficient pen to keep it contained and that is what we had to do and to me that was a bill of rights now it was toward the end of the convention in September and again it was hot everyone was anxious to get home and I brought up this issue of having a bill of rights and it was largely dismissed as unnecessary many of the states have their own bill of rights but that does not help control the federal government so since I wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights I volunteered to overnight come up with a bill of rights that could be part of our constitution it was totally dismissed as unnecessary and it was at that point that I realized if we finish this constitution I cannot put my hand to that I cannot sign it unless we have our rights protected specifically the Virginia Declaration of Rights was 14 articles 10 of which are now our bill of rights in the U.S. Constitution but there were Elbridge Jerry from Massachusetts refused to sign and our own governor here in Virginia refused to sign so three of us refused to sign if you don't count the clerk but he couldn't vote anyway and that was my only resort and when we had ratification conventions once the constitution was circulated and the ratification conventions were scheduled here in Virginia I spoke very adamantly against ratification hoping we could force another convention to remedy a lot of things that were missing in the constitution but particularly the bill of rights and with over 200 delegates here in Virginia it only passed by 11 votes so you can see what a contentious issue this whole idea of a federal constitution was well I felt later on I was justified in my position young James Madison who was actually on my committee to write the Declaration of Rights he made a vow that if he were elected to Congress he would be the floor manager and get the bill of rights attached to our constitution it would be an amendment and he was such a federalist in nature I wasn't all that trusting that he might do this but he was a man of his word and he did to it and I felt very much justified and felt much safer as a citizen that this was done I know many of you may have some questions so Sarah if you want to take over we can address any questions or any questions folks may have Thank you so much Mr. Mason that was so interesting I know I learned quite a lot from all the great information you shared we do have several questions in fact so the first one I think this is based upon your description of the meetings it asks if the founders were meeting in secret it could be and certainly the English would think so but no as a matter of fact it was the only way it was even possible to do this and once we finished the work on that constitution it was widely distributed immediately so there was nothing secret beyond that point and we refer to that as a constitutional convention but it was not originally that it was a convention it was an old convention very interesting and a question I think based on one of the stories you started with question was how old was Mr. Mason when his first wife died we had I'm trying to think we had 12 children which lived but the last was the birth of twins and my wife was not quite right after that she had issues that continued until her death and so I feel that that was the difficulty she had with that birth eventually led to her death it wasn't immediate but eventually led to that so here I am a businessman engaged almost entirely in operating my business with no one to watch the children and my eldest daughter stepped up and she took over running the household and not an easy task for the children I really can't remember my age it would have been probably around 40 something very interesting so adding upon that and kind of throughout your life and the course of your life was there anyone who helped you learn all of the things that helped you write the Virginia Declaration of Rights we shared a lot of interesting things with the French many of the French philosophers had a big influence even some Englishmen had a big influence on their thoughts certainly knowing the history of the Magna Carta that was where it all started really in these things we borrowed from each other there was never any concern about plagiarism if you found something that I had written useful please use it this was the prevailing thought of the day in later times I think we got more protective about our intellectual property and it certainly was not the case then so in terms of being inspired by the French you mentioned being your education being largely private tutors and reading in your uncle's library my uncle had an extensive library with many of the philosophers and even back into ancient Greece that's where democracy originated did you speak and read French? no I did not but my sons did because I actually sent them over to be my agents in France when we were battling with the British we could no longer trade with the British and so our trade became French and good wine we had a lot of good wine coming back from France it sounds like your family really helped you and supported you through your career in lots of interesting ways another question we have from the audience how did you find out the Bill of Rights was going to be added you spoke a little about this just in discussion with James Madison Thomas Jefferson he and I were on extremely good terms and we we kept up on all the things following the gratification convention at that point in time I really extracted myself from public life largely interesting and in a home body and did you ever get to sign the Constitution? no absolutely refused to do that and George Washington is younger than I when he inherited Mount Vernon he knew absolutely nothing about farming he was a surveyor very successful surveyor but he knew nothing about farming so being the closest neighbor I assisted him with farming we traded seed, we traded cuttings he had a beautiful greenhouse but we were on intimate terms and had dinner on a regular basis with each other he was so taken that I refused to sign the Constitution he considered that a personal affront and never spoke to me after that really? we had a couple of very polite letters but never dined never spoke to each other after that and I feel that was a heavy loss but again I could do nothing else I could not put my name on that Constitution so interesting so you had met George Washington through him being a neighbor of yours yes we were young men and grew into old age together very interesting we have another question too are there any confederations today? I would not know for sure about that and I'm not sure exactly what they may mean by a confederation many businesses are more likely to have confederations than governments I guess I'll have to leave it at that makes sense another question were you and your fellow neighbors and friends working on these were you aware of the significance while you were drafting these documents? we were aware of the significance and we knew we could not make a mistake and to me the biggest mistake was a lack of a bill of rights it was a very heavy heavy thing that we had to deal with we had to get this right we made some really horrible compromises slavery was actually one of the big things the Articles of Confederation counted slaves as a three-fifths of a human it was a horrible compromise but three-fifths of a human to be counted for the number of people to select a representative for our Congress and the deep southern states were absolutely insistent that the slaves be counted for our representatives and they had a lot of slaves they had a lot more slaves than Europeans but that was a nasty compromise that was distasteful I inherited quite a number of slaves but if you free the slaves in Virginia the law is they have to leave Virginia immediately they have to go somewhere else even if you could hire them back and pay them a wage the cost of goods I would produce would be so much more than everyone else I would lose my farm and they would lose their job but no win situation it was horrible and the only way we could eliminate slavery would be to do it by law immediately across the board for everyone and that would be the only way it would work so it was a nasty situation and that was one of the oh it looks like you're back wonderful so with that I'll let you know we have folks watching from all over the place watching from Washington Territory where Washington was born and cities names like Mount Vernon so really all over our country we have folks listening to you speak and learning all about these wonderful things that you have to say the final question we'd like to ask all of our guests what advice would you and you as George Mason have for young people today? education in the one simple word education I had to seek out and educate myself in most of the things that I have become accomplished at you cannot underestimate the value of education so early on work hard educate yourself if you have certain interests go to the library get the books read that is one of the most important things that you can do prepare yourself for your life and then hopefully have an attitude of giving back to your community to your state to your nation give back share your knowledge that's great advice thank you so much and now one last look at that Docs Teach educational activity related to George Mason again this is the activity for today's program and that's docsteach.org is that website and I hope you can join us on January 19th with the winning author Carol Boston Weatherford as she discusses her new book a song for the unsung Bayard Rustin the man behind the 1963 March on Washington and that program will start as well at 11 a.m. eastern time so thank you for participating in our program today my pleasure