George Mason- You should know who I am.
I was born in Virginia on a plantation on the Potomac in 1725. My father died when I was a young boy, so I was raised by my uncle, John Mercer. I owned Gunston Hall, which was the largest plantation in Virginia, and was a wealthy and influential man. When I became interested in western land speculation I bought an interest in the Ohio Company and was very upset when the British Crown took the company's rights of the land. Before 1759 and taking a seat on the Virginia House of Burgesses, I served as a justice of the Peace. In 1776 I wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights and then retired to my home in Gunston Hall. I was a leader at the Philadelphia convention; however, I disliked the direction the meeting was going and I refused to sign the Constitution because of its lack of the Bill of Rights.