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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.

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
Moral
Gentleman
Tyrant
Born
Cruelty
Despotism
Every
Acts
Gentlemen
Mind
Slow
Practiced
People
Slavery
Morals
Daily
Petty
Minds
Tyrants
Revolution
Poison
Contaminating

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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.
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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 standing 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.
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Slavery discourages arts and manufactures.
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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.
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I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.
George Mason
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That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.
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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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The Laws of Nature are the Laws of God, Whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth.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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The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.
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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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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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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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Considering the natural lust for power so inherent in man, I fear the thirst of power will prevail to oppress the people.
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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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To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
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That all power of suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised.
George Mason
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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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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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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.
George Mason
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Don't wait around for your life to happen to you. Find something that makes you happy, and do it. Because everything else is all just background noise.
George Mason