Thomson Mason – The Revolutionary Founder You Never heard Of

On today’s show I introduced you to Thomson Mason, George Mason’s brother. Thomson was heavily involved in the writing of Revolutionary War tracts asserting the rights of the Colonists living in their sovereign “states”. Mason is the author of the letter I read on today’s show which read in part. “It is objected that this measure strikes at the Navigation Acts, which we have long submitted to.

The very objection evinces the folly of trusting the decision of this dispute to posterity, who, familiarized to oppression, will never resist it, and who, by long use, will be accustomed to look upon every badge of slavery with as little horror as we do upon the Navigaion Acts, which ought certainly to be considered as impositions of the strong upon the weak, and as such ought to be resisted as much as any of the other Acts we complain of ; nor will the dispute ever be ended till, by refusing submission to them, we remove so dangerous a precedent.

“You must draw your swords in a just cause, and rely upon that God, who assists the righteous, to support your endeavors to preserve the liberty he gave, and the love of which he hath implanted i n your hearts as essential to your nature.”

And now, my friends, fellow-citizens, and countrymen, to convince you that I am in earnest in the advice I have given you, notwithstanding the personal danger I expose myself to in so doing ; notwithstanding the threats thrown out by the British aristocracy of punishing in England those who shall dare to oppose them in America ; yet because I do not wish to survive the liberty of my country one single moment ; because I am determined to risk my all in supporting that liberty, and because I think it in some measure dishonest to skulk under a borrowed name upon such an occasion as this, I am neither afraid or ashamed to avow that the letters signed ‘ A British American’ were written by the hand and flowed from the heart of ”

-THOMSON MASON

Read the entire chapter describing the Masons’ involvement in the Fairfax Resolves here

See George Mason in “The Spirit of ’76-Final Edition DVD

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