George Mason, Forgotten Founder

George Mason, Forgotten Founder PDF Author: Jeff Broadwater
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807877395
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
George Mason (1725-92) is often omitted from the small circle of founding fathers celebrated today, but in his service to America he was, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "of the first order of greatness." Jeff Broadwater provides a comprehensive account of Mason's life at the center of the momentous events of eighteenth-century America. Mason played a key role in the Stamp Act Crisis, the American Revolution, and the drafting of Virginia's first state constitution. He is perhaps best known as author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a document often hailed as the model for the Bill of Rights. As a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Mason influenced the emerging Constitution on point after point. Yet when he was rebuffed in his efforts to add a bill of rights and concluded the document did too little to protect the interests of the South, he refused to sign the final draft. Broadwater argues that Mason's recalcitrance was not the act of an isolated dissenter; rather, it emerged from the ideology of the American Revolution. Mason's concerns about the abuse of political power, Broadwater shows, went to the essence of the American experience.

George Mason, Forgotten Founder

George Mason, Forgotten Founder PDF Author: Jeff Broadwater
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807877395
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book

Book Description
George Mason (1725-92) is often omitted from the small circle of founding fathers celebrated today, but in his service to America he was, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, "of the first order of greatness." Jeff Broadwater provides a comprehensive account of Mason's life at the center of the momentous events of eighteenth-century America. Mason played a key role in the Stamp Act Crisis, the American Revolution, and the drafting of Virginia's first state constitution. He is perhaps best known as author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a document often hailed as the model for the Bill of Rights. As a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Mason influenced the emerging Constitution on point after point. Yet when he was rebuffed in his efforts to add a bill of rights and concluded the document did too little to protect the interests of the South, he refused to sign the final draft. Broadwater argues that Mason's recalcitrance was not the act of an isolated dissenter; rather, it emerged from the ideology of the American Revolution. Mason's concerns about the abuse of political power, Broadwater shows, went to the essence of the American experience.

George Mason, Forgotten Founder

George Mason, Forgotten Founder PDF Author: Jeff Broadwater
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807830534
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In this first full biography of George Mason (1725-92) in a quarter-century, Jeff Broadwater shows that Mason was often driven by concerns about the abuse of political power, which went to the essence of the American experience. Illustrations.

George Mason, Forgotten Founder

George Mason, Forgotten Founder PDF Author: Jeff Broadwater
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781469642512
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this first full biography of George Mason (1725-92) in a quarter-century, Jeff Broadwater shows that Mason was often driven by concerns about the abuse of political power, which went to the essence of the American experience. Illustrations.

George Mason

George Mason PDF Author: William G. Hyland
Publisher: Regnery History
ISBN: 1621579263
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 527

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Book Description
George Mason was a short, bookish man who was a friend and neighbor of athletic, broad-shouldered George Washington. Unlike Washington, Mason has been virtually forgotton by history. But this new biography of forgotten patriot George Mason makes a convincing case that Mason belongs in the pantheon of honored Founding Fathers. Trained in the law, Mason was also a farmer, philosopher, botanist, and musician. He was one of the architects of the Declaration of Independence, an author of the Bill of Rights, and one of the strongest proponents of religious liberty in American history. In fact, both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison may have been given undue credit for George Mason's own contributions to American democracy.

Forgotten Founder

Forgotten Founder PDF Author: Marty D. Matthews
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 9781570035470
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Chronicles the life of Charles Pinckney, discussing his childhood on his family's Charleston plantation, service in the state militia during the Revolution, involvement in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and influence on the country's development.

James Madison

James Madison PDF Author: Jeff Broadwater
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807869910
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
James Madison is remembered primarily as a systematic political theorist, but this bookish and unassuming man was also a practical politician who strove for balance in an age of revolution. In this biography, Jeff Broadwater focuses on Madison's role in the battle for religious freedom in Virginia, his contributions to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, his place in the evolution of the party system, his relationship with Dolley Madison, his performance as a wartime commander in chief, and his views on slavery. From Broadwater's perspective, no single figure can tell us more about the origins of the American republic than our fourth president. In these pages, Madison emerges as a remarkably resilient politician, an unlikely wartime leader who survived repeated setbacks in the War of 1812 with his popularity intact. Yet Broadwater shows that despite his keen intelligence, the more Madison thought about one issue, race, the more muddled his thinking became, and his conviction that white prejudices were intractable prevented him from fully grappling with the dilemma of American slavery.

George Mason

George Mason PDF Author: Robert A. Rutland
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807153435
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
George Mason of Gunston Hall was a scholarly craftsman of government during America's crucial formative years. His Virginia Declaration of Rights provided a sense of purpose and direction to the rebellious colonies, and his vigorous insistence on the protection of personal liberties in the Constitution is reflected in the document's first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights. Fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson said of Mason that he "was of the first order of greatness." Few Americans who have served their country, however, have met with as little recognition. Essentially a private person who cared nothing for political prestige, Mason had been overshadowed by the other founders of the Republic -- although most of them had turned to him for advice and direction. In a concise, cogently written biography, a distinguished historian restores the "reluctant statesman" to his proper place in the pantheon of America's greatest citizens.

George Mason and George Washington

George Mason and George Washington PDF Author: Gerard W. Gawalt
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781479387403
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
George Mason and George Washington: The Power of Principle is a unique book combining narrative and primary documents to reveal the complex intertwined lives of George Mason and George Washington. Neighboring planters in northern Virginia, Mason and Washington could not have been more dissimilar in appearance and personality. Yet they forged a firm friendship and powerful political partnership. Principle, pride, friendship and courage carried them through the firestorms of the American Revolution. When it became clear in the aftermath of the revolutionary war that the United States needed a new constitution, both men led the way. Their partnership divided on the selection and application of principles to the writing of the new federal constitution and the formation of the new federal government. Ultimately, Mason refused to sign the new constitution or join and support the new federal government. Washington refused to accept his actions. And so their friendship and political partnership floundered on the rocks of principle and pride. All of the personal correspondence and collaborative documents of the two men are also in this book.

Irreconcilable Founders

Irreconcilable Founders PDF Author: David Johnson
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807175307
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Virginians dominate the early history of the United States, with Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Patrick Henry, George Mason, George Wythe, and John Marshall figuring prominently in that narrative. Fellow Virginian Spencer Roane (1762–1822), an influential jurist and political thinker, was in many ways their equal. Roane is nonetheless mostly absent in accounts of early America. The lack of interest in Roane is remarkable since he was the philosophical leader of the Jeffersonians, architect of states’ rights doctrine, a legislator, essayist, and, for twenty-seven years, justice of the Virginia Supreme Court. He was the son-in-law of Henry, a confidant of Jefferson, founder of the influential Richmond Enquirer, and head of the “Richmond Junto.” Roane’s opinions established judicial review of legislative acts ten years before Supreme Court Chief Justice Marshall did the same in Marbury v. Madison. Roane also brought down Virginia’s state-sponsored church. His descent into historical twilight is even more curious given his fierce criticism—both from the bench and in the Richmond Enquirer—of Marshall’s nationalistic decisions. Indeed, the debate between these two judges is perhaps the most comprehensive discussion of federalism outside of the arguments that raged over the ratification of the United States Constitution. In Irreconcilable Founders, David Johnson uses Roane’s long-lasting conflict with Marshall as ballast for the first-ever biography of this highly influential but largely forgotten justice and political theorist. Because Roane’s legal opinions gave way to those of Marshall, historians have tended to either dismiss him or cast him as little more than an annoying gadfly. Equally to blame for his obscurity is the comparative inaccessibility of Roane’s life: no single archive houses his papers, no scholars have systematically reviewed his legal opinions, and no one has methodically examined his essays. Bringing these and other disparate sources together for the first time, Johnson precisely limns Roane’s career, personality, and philosophy. He also synthesizes the judge’s wide-ranging jurisprudence and analyzes his predictions about the dangers of unchecked federal power and an activist Supreme Court. Although contemporary jurists and politicians disregarded Roane’s opinions, many in today’s political and legal arenas are unknowingly echoing his views with increasing frequency, making this reappraisal of his life and reassessment of his opinions timely and relevant.

Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello

Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello PDF Author: Cynthia A. Kierner
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 080788250X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
As the oldest and favorite daughter of Thomas Jefferson, Martha "Patsy" Jefferson Randolph (1772-1836) was extremely well educated, traveled in the circles of presidents and aristocrats, and was known on two continents for her particular grace and sincerity. Yet, as mistress of a large household, she was not spared the tedium, frustration, and great sorrow that most women of her time faced. Though Patsy's name is familiar because of her famous father, Cynthia Kierner is the first historian to place Patsy at the center of her own story, taking readers into the largely ignored private spaces of the founding era. Randolph's life story reveals the privileges and limits of celebrity and shows that women were able to venture beyond their domestic roles in surprising ways. Following her mother's death, Patsy lived in Paris with her father and later served as hostess at the President's House and at Monticello. Her marriage to Thomas Mann Randolph, a member of Congress and governor of Virginia, was often troubled. She and her eleven children lived mostly at Monticello, greeting famous guests and debating issues ranging from a woman's place to slavery, religion, and democracy. And later, after her family's financial ruin, Patsy became a fixture in Washington society during Andrew Jackson's presidency. In this extraordinary biography, Kierner offers a unique look at American history from the perspective of this intelligent, tactfully assertive woman.