George Mason was the principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights.
Mason drafted the document in May 1776 while serving on a committee appointed by the Fifth Virginia Convention. The convention adopted the declaration at Williamsburg on June 12, 1776. Its sixteen articles described inherent rights and established principles about government, representation, separation of powers, religious liberty, and freedom of the press.
The declaration was written before the United States Declaration of Independence and strongly influenced it. Thomas Jefferson, who was drafting the national Declaration in Philadelphia, used ideas and language resembling Mason’s statements about natural rights and the purpose of government.
James Madison later drew on Virginia’s declaration while developing the United States Bill of Rights. Mason’s role is sometimes confused with Jefferson’s because both men shaped the language of American liberty in 1776. Mason, however, was the principal author of Virginia’s document, while Jefferson was the principal drafter of the national Declaration of Independence.