The George Mason Memorial is a memorial to George Mason in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States.
It commemorates the contributions of George Mason, an important American Founder who wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights and served as a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Mason is often thought of as the "forgotten Founder."
Mason, an Anti-Federalist did not sign the United States Constitution because it did not abolish the slave trade and because he did not think it had necessary protection for the individual from the federal government. He was sometimes known as the "reluctant statesman," which was also the title of a biography written about him by Robert A. Rutland.
The memorial was authorized by Public Law 101-358 on August 10, 1990, to be developed by the board of regents of Gunston Hall.
The site selected was close to the Jefferson Memorial. The design features a 72-foot (22 m) long stone wall with a one-third larger than life-sized statue of a sitting Mason, his legs crossed, and a circular pool. The architect was Faye B. Harwell and the sculptor was Wendy M. Ross. The groundbreaking was October 18, 2000, and the completed memorial was dedicated on April 9, 2002.
The George Mason Memorial is administered as part of the National Park Service as part of National Mall and Memorial Parks.
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