Question: Why did George Mason decline to sign the Constitution?
Answer: George Mason, one of Virginia's delegates to the Constitutional Convention, objected to the lack of a Bill of Rights. For that reason he fought Virginia's ratification of the Constitution. When Mason lost a motion to add a Bill of Rights, he told the delegates that he would rather "chop off [his] right hand than put it to the constitution as it now stands." His opposition persuaded James Madison to pledge to amend the Constitution during the First Congress, and the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. 
(Pictures from our first trip to George Mason University-the main campus in Fairfax)
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