Virginia Declaration of Rights

George Mason made this copy of the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1778, labeling it a “Copy of the first D[r]aught by G.M.” In fact, the four-page annotated transcript is a composite of the earliest surviving copy of his first draft, the amended draft debated by the Fifth Virginia Convention of 1776, and the final published declaration. The opening line: “that all men are created equally free,” seems to have been adapted from the Declaration of Independence, as that precise wording does not appear in any other version of the Declaration of Rights. Article four, as it appears in this copy, includes an amendment that was added by the convention, so it seems likely the Mason misremembered this as his first draft.

Mason’s annotations provide an interesting insight into his thoughts on the final declaration. He added a note at the end of this copy that states that his original draft “received few alterations or additions in the Virginia Convention (some of them not for the better.)” He failed to include two articles in the copy which he wrote off as “not of a fundamental nature.”

The sixteen-part Declaration of Rights, adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention on June 12, 1776, provided protection for freedom of religion, various safeguards for criminal defendants, and other fundamental liberties. As the first bill of rights appended to a written constitution, the Virginia declaration became a model for similar documents, including other state constitutions and the U.S. Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson would get much of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence from the first article of Mason’s Declaration of Rights.