[thenightwriterblog] The Night Writer: Picking up the Bill

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Posted by The Night Writer:
Picking up the Bill
http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1197911465.shtml


   An interesting, behind-the-scenes tidbit from [1]The Writer's Almanac
   about the Bill of Rights:

     It was on this day (December 15) in 1791 that the Bill of Rights
     was adopted by the United States, thanks in part to a man who
     hasn't gotten a lot of credit, George Mason. He was a lifelong
     friend of George Washington's who wasn't interested in politics,
     but when Washington was named Commander of the Continental Army,
     George Mason reluctantly took over his friend's seat on the
     Virginia legislature. And then Mason was assigned by chance to the
     committee to write the new state constitution.
     Mason had read the philosopher John Locke, and he liked Locke's
     idea that all people are born with certain rights, and that
     government's purpose should be to protect those rights. George
     Mason believed that the best way to protect those rights would be
     to list them in the constitution itself. And so he put together
     Virginia's "Declaration of Rights," the first government document
     in history that specified the absolute rights of individuals.
     Mason's ideas about rights and freedom influenced a 25-year-old
     legislator named James Madison, who passed them along to his friend
     Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson would go on to use Mason's ideas in his
     own draft of the Declaration of Independence.
     Mason was asked to participate in the Constitutional Convention
     after the war, but he disagreed with the other delegates on
     numerous issues, especially slavery, which he thought should be
     outlawed in the new constitution. He fought for the inclusion of a
     list of rights, like the "Declaration of Rights" in the Virginia
     Constitution, but his idea for a bill of rights failed by a wide
     margin.
     And so, when it came time to sign to the new U.S. Constitution,
     George Mason was one of the only men there who refused. He said, "I
     would sooner chop off [my] right hand than put it to the
     Constitution as it now stands." His decision ruined his friendship
     with George Washington. The two men never called on each other
     again. But he hoped that his protest would encourage an eventual
     passage of a bill of rights, and it did. His former protege, James
     Madison, introduced the Bill of Rights into the first session of
     Congress in 1789, and Madison used Virginia's Declaration of Rights
     as the model.
     Even with the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution didn't provide
     full citizenship to blacks or women, among others, and it has had
     to be amended again and again over the years. But when we think of
     what it means to have a free country, most of our ideas about the
     meaning of freedom come from those first 10 amendments, adopted on
     this day in 1791, which include the freedom of religion, freedom of
     speech, freedom of the press, freedom from unreasonable searches
     and seizures, and the right to a fair trial. George Mason died in
     1792, a year after those freedoms and rights became law.

   I've heard this story -- or parts of it, anyway -- before, and I've
   [2]posted about this as well, but the history stirs me. There are
   well-known heroes from the founding of our country such as Washington,
   Jefferson, Franklin, et al who capture the imagination and even
   inspire some of us to think about what it would have been like to be
   so-and-so, or to aspire to that kind of historical significance for
   ourselves in our own time.
   My own aspiration, however, would be to be more like a George Mason,
   where the Cause or the Idea lives on even if one's name fades from the
   knowledge of all but the most scholarly. I imagine Mason, inspired by
   the Vision of what could be and the unique opportunity at-hand,
   devoting his time, energy and treasure to the pursuit of creating not
   just a new kind of government but a new kind of human existence. I see
   him working with the great minds and characters of the day to bring
   the concept to fruition, only at the last, to see the vision defaced
   and even crippled.
   How long, I wonder, did he pray and agonize over his decision to sign
   or not sign the Constitution? Or was it a simple decision of honor and
   conviction that hardly required a moment's hesitation? Think of the
   pressures put on him by the other delegates, many who may have shared
   his views, but urged him to be "practical" or to be satisfied with
   what was already a remarkable achievement, or tried to discourage him
   from his "meaningless" protest that couldn't stop what was already
   decided! What would I have done in that circumstance? What would you
   have done?
   What difference would his signature then have made in our lives today?
   What our lives would be like if so much of what we now take for
   granted had not been enumerated, and what would happen should these
   ever cease to be defended. Let us think of what is at stake if we are
   encouraged to be "practical" or urged to refrain from our meaningless
   protests.

References

   1. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/programs/2007/12/10/index.html
   2. http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1134658334.shtml