George Mason drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted in June 1776.
Mason wrote the declaration for Virginia’s revolutionary convention, which adopted it on June 12, 1776. The document asserted that people possess inherent rights and that government exists to protect them. Its language influenced later American declarations and constitutional protections.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights was not the same document as the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson drew on several rights ideas while drafting the national declaration, but Mason’s text was a state document focused on Virginia’s government and political principles.
Mason later attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia but refused to sign the Constitution because he believed it lacked a bill of rights and gave the federal government excessive power. His objections helped build support for the first ten amendments, ratified in 1791.