Editorial: Remembering George Mason

Tuesday, March 28, 2006 | 6:51 a.m.

With its thrilling two-point win in overtime Saturday over No. 1 seeded Connecticut, the 11th-seeded George Mason University men's basketball team made the NCAA Tournament's Final Four. That accomplishment has brought the Fairfax, Va., school into national prominence.

But how about George Mason himself? It is time publicity came his way, too.

Mason, a wealthy plantation owner in Fairfax County, Va., lived from 1725 to 1792. Although not generally well remembered today, he was a Founding Father who succeeded in one great endeavor and who, to our history's shame, failed in another.

Because he was regarded as one of the most astute thinkers of his day, Mason was asked by his neighbor, George Washington, to replace him in the Virginia House of Delegates when he left that post to become commander in chief of the Continental Army. In 1776 Mason wrote the state constitution and a "Declaration of Rights" that was emulated by the other colonies.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Mason argued passionately for a federal Declaration of Rights. Although the states ratified a version of the Constitution without the declaration, the first session of Congress approved it in the form of the first 10 Amendments. Mason truly is the "father of the Bill of Rights."

He failed, however, in pressing another passionate belief, that the new Constitution should abolish slavery.

George Mason University's basketball team is owed two kudos, for how well it is playing, and for reminding us of this important Founding Father.