Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Virginia Constitution of 1776: A Discourse Delivered Before the Virginia Historical Society, at Their Annual Meeting, January 17th, 1852
Gentlemen, we commonly speak of George Mason as the author of that Charter. In a certain sense, he was its author. The Bill of Rights and Constitution of 76, with the exception of the preamble, were prepared by him, and laid before the Convention. In this sense that truly great man was their author. But if it be imagined that that instrument was the conception of George Mason, or any other man - that it was the mere coinage of his or any other brain - that it was framed with reference to any mere abstract theory of government existing in his, or any other mind, no greater error could possibly be committed. My own conviction is, that no Constitution or frame of government, the product of mere theory and speculation, ever has existed, or ever can exist the quarter of a cen tury. Locke framed such a Constitution for South Caro lina. Seyes gave birth to a litter of such Constitutions for Republican France. We know their fate. They per iehed, each and all of them, in the very effort to reduce them into practice. And such will and must be the fate of every Constitution, which, taking no account of the peculiar hab its, customs, manners, opinions and prejudices of a people, proceeds upon the hypothesis that society, like parchment, may be cut into whatever fantastic shape the whim, or caprice, or fancy of philosopher, or legislator, or theorist may choose to dictate.
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