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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.

George Mason

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George Mason
Age: 66 †
Born: 1725
Born: December 11
Died: 1792
Died: October 7
Lawyer
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesman
Fairfax
Virginia
George Mason IV
Almost
Engagements
Interest
Diligence
Attend
Means
Engagement
Certain
Strict
Mean
Enter
Performing
Integrity
Correspondents

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The epithets of parent and child have been long applied to Great Britain and her colonies, [but] we rarely see anything from your side of the water except the authoritative style of a master to a school-boy.
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Every selfish motive therefore, every family attachment, ought to recommend such a system of policy as would provide no less carefully for the rights and happiness of the lowest than of the highest orders of Citizens.
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We owe to our Mother-Country the Duty of Subjects but will not pay her the Submission of Slaves.
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All power is lodged in, and consequently derived from, the people. We should wear it as a breastplate, and buckle it on as our armour.
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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.
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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.
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A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings.
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We are now to rank among the nations of the world but whether our Independence shall prove a blessing or a curse must depend upon our own wisdom or folly, virtue or wickedness.... Justice and virtue are the vital principles of republican government.
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That no man, or set of men, are entitled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services which, not being descendible, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator, or judge to be hereditary.
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The [President's] Nomination, of Course, brings the Subject fully under the Consideration of the Senate who have then a Right to decide upon its Propriety or Impropriety.
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The Laws of Nature are the Laws of God, Whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to Him from whose punishment they cannot protect us. All human constitutions which contradict His laws, we are in conscience bound to disobey.
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All men are created equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing the obtaining of happiness and safety.
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To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
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I charge [my sons] never to let the motives of private interest or ambition to influence them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace, or the fear of danger or of death deter them from asserting the liberty of their country, and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born
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Is it to be expected that the Southern States will deliver themselves bound hand and foot to the Eastern States? A few rich merchants in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York could thereby monopolise the staples of the Southern States and reduce their value.
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As much as I value an union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade, because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union.
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All men are by nature born equally free and independent.
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Slavery discourages arts and manufactures.
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That slow poison [slavery] is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people. Every gentlemen here is born a petty tyrant, practiced in acts of despotism and cruelty.
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Happiness and Prosperity are now within our Reach but to attain and preserve them must depend upon our own Wisdom and Virtue.
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