George Mason: Trending quotes

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George Mason: 108 quotes0 likes

“Government is, or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration and […] when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.”

Article 3
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

“I thank God, I have been able, by adopting Principles of strict Economy and Frugality, to keep my principal, I mean my Country-Estate, unimpaired.”

Letter to his son, George Mason V. (8 January 1783)

“We owe to our Mother-Country the Duty of Subjects but will not pay her the Submission of Slaves.”

Letter to a member of the Brent family (6 December 1770)

“This cold weather has set all the young Folks to providing Bedfellows. I have signed two or three Licences every Day [as a Fairfax Justice of the Peace] since I have been at Home. I wish I knew where to get a good one myself; for I find cold Sheets extremely disagreeable.”

Letter to his cousin, James Mercer (5 February 2780)

“Attend with Diligence and strict Integrity to the Interest of your Correspondents and enter into no Engagements which you have not the almost certain Means of performing.”

Letter to his son, John Mason (12 June 1788)

“I retired from public Business from a thorough Conviction that it was not in my power to do any Good, and very much disgusted with Measures, which appeared to me inconsistent with common Policy and Justice.”

Letter to Arthur Campbell (7 May 1783)

“I quitted my seat in the House of Delegates, from a Conviction that I was no longer able to do any essential Service.”

Letter to Edmund Randolph (19 October 1782)

“Whatever power may be necessary for the National Government a certain portion must necessarily be left in the States. It is impossible for one power to pervade the extreme parts of the U. S. so as to carry equal justice to them.”

June 7
Debates in the Federal Convention (1787)

“That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State; that sstanding armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”

Article 13
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

“That the legislative and executive powers of the State should be separate and distinct from the judiciary; and that the members of the two first may be restrained from oppression, by feeling and participating the burdens of the people, they should, at fixed periods, be reduced to a private station, return into that body from which they were originally taken, and the vacancies be supplied by frequent, certain, and regular elections, in which all, or any part of the former members, to be again eligible, or ineligible, as the laws shall direct.”

Article 5
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

“Every society, all government, and every kind of civil compact therefore, is or ought to be, calculated for the general good and safety of the community.”

Remarks on Annual Elections (1775)

“That no free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

Article 15
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

“In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of this fundamental maxim — that all power was originally lodged in, and consequently is derived from, the people.”

Remarks on Annual Elections (1775)

“Every gentleman here is born a petty tyrant. Practised in acts of despotism and cruelty, we become callous to the dictates of humanity and all the finer feelings of the soul. Taught to regard a part of our own Species in the most abject and contemptible Degree below us, we lose that Idea of the dignity of Man which the Hand of Nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes. Habituated from our Infancy to trample upon the Rights of Human Nature, every generous, every liberal Sentiment, if not extinguished, is enfeebled in our Minds; and in such an infernal school are to be educated our future legislators and rulers. The laws of impartial Providence may even by such means as these avenge upon our posterity the injury done to a set of wretches whom our injustice hath debased to a level with the brute creation. These remarks were extorted by a kind of irresistible, perhaps an enthusiastic impulse; and the author of them, conscious of his own good intentions, cares not whom they please or offend.”

Source: Virginia Charters (1773)