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266
Connecticut replied, “It is unnecessary. The power of Congress does not extend to
the Press,” and the motion was voted down. 119
Despite his role in its creation, Mason was one of three delegates who
refused to sign the Constitution, regardless of pleas for unanimity. 120 Mason had
seconded a motion by Elbridge Gerry that a bill of rights be considered as part of
the Constitution, but that proposition was soundly defeated. The lack of a bill of
rights, and many other flaws perceived by Mason, led him to refuse to sign the
Constitution. In a letter to George Washington, which was later published widely,
Mason repeated his argument: “There is no Declaration of any kind for preserving
the Liberty of the Press.” Although these objections began with the complaint that
there was no “Declaration of Rights,” Mason noted many other flaws, including the
lack of a council (cabinet) to advise the president, the supremacy of the federal
courts over the states, the fact that only a simple majority was needed for navigation
laws that could subjugate the Southern states to the majority of the Northern and
Eastern states, and the prohibition on the federal legislature from banning the slave
trade for at least some twenty years. Mason believed that the government could
develop into a monarchy or a “corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy.” 121 It is thought that
Mason also was the author of a widely published article arguing against ratification
119 Schwartz, Bill of Rights, 438-439, and Leonard Levy, “Bill of Rights,” in Levy, Essays on
the Making of the Constitution, 2 nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 259.
120 Of those still attending, Mason, Elbridge Gerry, and Edmund Randolph refused to sign
the new Constitution. John P. Roche, “The Convention as a Case Study in Democratic Politics,”
in Levy, Essays on the Making of the Constitution, 205-207.
121 George Mason, “Objections to the Constitution of Government formed by the
Convention,” to George Washington, Gunston Hall, Oct. 7, 1787, quoted in Jensen, Documentary
History, 8: 45. Washington’s private secretary sent a copy to The Virginia Journal, and Alexandria
Advertiser where it was published. It was widely reprinted from there. Wallenstein, “Flawed
Keepers of the Flame,” 257-259. Brent Tarter, “George Mason and the Conservation of Liberty,”
The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 99, no. 3 (July 1991): 286-288.