Reply to New Names for George Mason HS are Sad (FCCPS)

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[quote=Anonymous]His views on slavery were  mixed just like Jefferson. He signed some bills that were anti-slavery but had a hard time reconciling the money that came to him and Virginia and was fearful of blacks and whites living together. This was not an uncommon stance at the time at all. You can't just rewrite history as if these people lived today. There's nothing to say that he acted to expand slavery during his life. He was adamant against new slaves coming to America and more mixed on the slaves currently here which was the majority thought of the time. To say he was evil because of this is just inaccurate. He was ignorant although not knowing everything about that era there are likely things he knew that we today aren't taking into consideration on the matter. Again, it's wrong and I'm glad there was a war that ended it, but I just don't think it's fair to credit Mason as an evil person for owning slaves at the time when it was legal.

"According to Wallenstein, historians and other writers "have had great difficulty coming to grips with Mason in his historical context, and they have jumbled the story in related ways, misleading each other and following each other's errors".[146] Some of this is due to conflation of Mason's views on slavery with that of his desire to ban the African slave trade, which he unquestionably opposed and fought against. His record otherwise is mixed: Virginia banned the importation of slaves from abroad in 1778, while Mason was in the House of Delegates. In 1782, after he had returned to Gunston Hall, it enacted legislation that allowed manumission of adult slaves young enough to support themselves (not older than 45), but a proposal, supported by Mason, to require freed slaves to leave Virginia within a year or be sold at auction, was defeated.[147] Broadwater asserted, "Mason must have shared the fears of Jefferson and countless other whites that whites and free blacks could not live together".[138]

The contradiction between wanting protection for slave property, while opposing the slave trade, was pointed out by delegates to the Richmond convention such as George Nicholas, a supporter of ratification.[148] Mason stated of slavery, "it is far from being a desirable property. But it will involve us in great difficulties and infelicity to be now deprived of them."[149][/quote]

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