Ink, watercolor, laid paper; 32 in. x 16 1/4 in. (81.28 cm x 41.28 cm). Mount Vernon Ladies Association, Mount Vernon Estate, Museum & Gardens, VA.
Samuel Vaughan, who had immigrated to America from England, visited Mount Vernon in August 1787. He made a sketch of the grounds in his journal and later mailed a more detailed and finished plan of the estate (above) to George Washington.
[George] Mason’s obvious legacy is in his contribution to America’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence through the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the Constitution through his role at the Philadelphia Convention, and the Bill of Rights through his dogged opposition to a Constitution without one. Mason may have taken a circumscribed view of the rights he advocated — limiting the right of representation to white men or restricting freedom of the press to a ban on prior restraint — but he put words on paper that could be given more expansive meanings by later generations.