{{short description|American politician (1798–1871)}} {{Use American English|date=March 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2021}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = James M. Mason | image = JMMason.jpg | caption = Portrait by [[Mathew Brady]] | office = [[President pro tempore of the United States Senate]] | term_start = January 6, 1857 | term_end = March 3, 1857 | predecessor = [[Jesse D. Bright]] | successor = [[Thomas J. Rusk]] | jr/sr1 = United States Senator | state1 = [[Virginia]] | term_start1 = January 21, 1847 | term_end1 = March 28, 1861 | predecessor1 = [[Isaac S. Pennybacker]] | successor1 = [[Waitman T. Willey]] | state2 = [[Virginia]] | district2 = {{ushr|VA|15|15th}} | term_start2 = March 4, 1837 | term_end2 = March 3, 1839 | predecessor2 = [[Edward Lucas (congressman)|Edward Lucas]] | successor2 = [[William Lucas (Virginia politician)|William Lucas]] | office3 = Member of the [[Virginia House of Delegates]]<br>from [[Frederick County, Virginia|Frederick County]] | alongside3 = William Castleman Jr. and [[William Wood (Virginia politician)|William Wood]] | term_start3 = December 1, 1828 | term_end3 = December 4, 1831 | predecessor3 = William Barton | successor3 = ''Constituency reestablished'' | alongside4 = James Ship | term_start4 = December 4, 1826 | term_end4 = December 2, 1827 | predecessor4 = George Kiger | successor4 = William Barton | birth_name = James Murray Mason | birth_date = {{birth date|1798|11|3}} | birth_place = [[Analostan Island, D.C.]], U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1871|4|28|1798|11|3}} | death_place = [[Alexandria, Virginia]], U.S. | resting_place = [[Christ Church (Alexandria, Virginia)|Christ Church]]<br />Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. | party = [[Jacksonian democracy|Jacksonian Democratic]] | spouse = Eliza Chew | relations = [[George Mason V]] (uncle)<br />[[George Mason]] (grandfather)<br />[[Thomson Mason]] (granduncle) | education = [[University of Pennsylvania]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br>[[College of William & Mary]] ([[Bachelor of Laws|LLB]]) | signature = Signature of James Murray Mason (1798–1871).png }}
'''James Murray Mason''' (November 3, 1798{{spaced ndash}}April 28, 1871) was an American lawyer and politician who became a [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] diplomat. He served as [[U.S. Senator]] from [[Virginia]] for fourteen years, having previously represented [[Virginia's 15th congressional district]] in the [[U.S. House of Representatives]], and [[Frederick County, Virginia|Frederick County]] in the [[Virginia House of Delegates]].<ref name=GH>{{cite web |url=http://www.gunstonhall.org/library/masonweb/p6.htm#i256 |title=James Murray Mason |last=Lee |first=Michele |date=May 18, 2011 |website=Gunston Hall |access-date=2009-03-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090926055445/http://www.gunstonhall.org/library/masonweb/p6.htm#i256 |archive-date=September 26, 2009 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=PG>{{cite web |url=http://politicalgraveyard.com/families/10001-020.html |title=Mason family of Virginia |date=June 16, 2008 |website=The Political Graveyard |access-date=2009-03-07 |archive-date=April 4, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130404073816/http://politicalgraveyard.com/families/10001-020.html |url-status=live}}</ref>
A grandson of [[George Mason]], Mason strongly supported slavery as well as Virginia's secession as the [[American Civil War]] began. He was chairman of the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]] from 1851 until his expulsion in 1861 for supporting the [[Confederate States of America]], and he took great interest in protecting American cotton exporters. As the Confederacy's leading diplomat, he traveled to Europe seeking support, but proved unable to get the United Kingdom to recognize the Confederacy as a country. As Mason sailed to England in November 1861, the U.S. Navy captured the British ship on which he was sailing and detained him, in what became known as the [[Trent Affair]]. Released after two months, Mason continued his voyage and assisted Confederate purchases from Britain and Europe, but he failed to achieve their diplomatic involvement. As the war ended, Mason went into exile in Canada, but later returned to [[Alexandria, Virginia]], where he died in 1871.<ref>Young, 1998.</ref>
==Early life== Mason was born on Analostan Island, now [[Theodore Roosevelt Island]], in the [[District of Columbia]]. He graduated from the [[University of Pennsylvania]] (1818), then studied law in [[Williamsburg, Virginia]], and earned a law degree from the [[College of William & Mary]]'s [[William & Mary Law School|Law School]] (1820).
==Political career== Following admission to the Virginia bar, Mason practiced law in Virginia, and also operated a plantation in Frederick County. A partially illegible census record shows that he may have owned five slaves in 1830.<ref>1830 U.S. Federal Census for Western District, Frederick County, Virginia, p. 101 of 116</ref> In the 1850 federal census, Mason owned ten enslaved people, half of them children under ten years of age.<ref>1850 U.S. Federal Census for District 16, Frederick County, Virginia, Slave Schedule p. 16 of 28</ref> In that year, he (or another man of similar name) also owned a 25-year-old Black woman and her four children in nearby [[Rappahannock County, Virginia|Rappahannock County]].<ref>1850 U.S. Federal Census for Rappahannock County, Virginia, Slave Schedule p. 6 of 47.</ref> In the 1860 census, Mason owned a 49-year-old Black man, a 35-year-old Black woman, and children aged 14, 13, 12, 10 and 3 years old.<ref>1860 U.S. Federal Census for District 4, Frederick County, Virginia, Slave Schedule p. 4 of 4</ref> and he or another James M. Mason owned seven enslaved children (the eldest a 13-year-old girl) in southern Culpeper County.<ref>1860 U.S. Federal Census for Southern Division, Culpeper County, Virginia, Slave Schedule p. 3 of 38</ref>
Mason soon began his political career, well before his father's death, winning election several times as one of [[Frederick County, Virginia|Frederick County]]'s (part-time) representatives in the [[Virginia House of Delegates]]. His first term began on December 4, 1826, alongside one-term veteran James Ship, but only Ship won re-election the following year. In 1828, Ship failed to win re-election and Mason won the election to represent the gateway to the [[Shenandoah Valley]] together with William Castleman, Jr., and both won re-election the following year. After veteran legislator Hierome L. Opie, one of the four joint delegates of Frederick and neighboring Jefferson County to the [[Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829-1830]], resigned, Mason took his place alongside [[John R. Cooke]], congressman [[Alfred H. Powell]] and fellow delegate Thomas Griggs Jr.
Although some had hoped that convention would limit slaveholder power, the resulting constitution only gave additional votes to western Virginians (including those in Frederick County and those counties which would secede and become [[West Virginia]] during the American Civil War), so Mason and Castleman were re-elected and joined by [[William Wood (Virginia politician)|William Wood]] for the 1830–1831 legislative session.<ref>Cynthia Miller Leonard, ''The Virginia General Assembly 1619–1978'' (Virginia State Library, Richmond 1978) pp. 334, 344, 349, 353, 355</ref>
In 1836, Congressman [[Edward Lucas (congressman)|Edward Lucas]] of [[Shepherdstown, West Virginia|Shepherdstown]] (in what would become [[West Virginia]] decades later) announced his retirement. Voters in [[Virginia's 15th congressional district]] elected Mason as his successor in the [[Twenty-fifth United States Congress]]. The [[Jackson Democrat]] only served a single term, and was succeeded by Lucas' brother [[William Lucas (Virginia politician)|William Lucas]].<ref>Leonard, p. xxvi</ref>
In 1847, Virginia legislators elected Mason to the Senate after incumbent [[Isaac S. Pennybacker]] died in office, and Mason won re-election in 1850 and 1856. Mason famously read aloud the dying Senator [[John C. Calhoun]]'s final speech to the Senate, on March 4, 1850, which warned of the likely breakup of the country if the [[Union (American Civil War)|North]] did not permanently accept the existence of slavery in the [[Southern United States|South]], as well as its expansion into the Western territories. Mason also complained of Northern [[personal liberty laws]], intended to help [[fugitive slaves]]: "Although the loss of property is felt, the loss of [[honor]] is felt still more."<ref>[[James M. McPherson]], ''[[Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era]]'' (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), pg. 79.</ref>
Mason was [[President pro tempore of the United States Senate|President pro tempore of the Senate]] for two months in early 1857 (January 6 to March 3).
===Champion of slavery=== Mason "championed the Southern political platform", "and slavery, another of the three themes that most affected his life, lay at the core of that political ideology."<ref name=Young>{{cite book |last=Young |first=Robert W. |author-link=Robert W. Young |title=James Murray Mason: defender of the old South |publisher=[[University of Tennessee Press]] |location=Knoxville, TN |year=1998 |page=46 |isbn=9780870499982}}</ref> (The other two themes were the secession of Virginia and the establishment of the Confederacy.)
Mason was not only a [[white supremacist]], he believed that negroes were "the great curse of the country". Giving Blacks the vote particularly offended him; it was, he thought, the rule of the mob and the "end of the republic".<ref name=Thomas/><ref name=Gawalt/>{{rp|260}}
He so believed in the beneficence of slavery that, unlike many others in Frederick County, Mason refused to support the [[American Colonization Society|colonization project]] that led to the founding of [[History of Liberia|Liberia]]. Mason's solution to the "problem" of free blacks was returning them to slavery, stating they were better off enslaved in the United States than they could possibly be in Africa. Mason believed that slavery did not need to be established or require a law to make it legal; it had already been established by God, as recorded in the Bible. It already existed in Africa: "The negro is as much property in Africa as the bullock or the ox". His position was that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery anywhere, and certainly not in [[Kansas Territory|Kansas]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Property in Territories. Speech of Hon. J.M. Mason, of Virginia, delivered in the Senate of the United States, May 18, 1860 |url=https://archive.org/details/propertyinterrit00maso/page/n3/mode/2up?q=Slavery |publisher=[Washington] Printed by L. Towers |year=1860 |others=The quote on p. 14}}</ref> Slavery was a condition, not an institution, by which he meant that Americans were not enslaving Africans, they were merely purchasing them from other Africans that had already enslaved them.
Mason wrote the [[Fugitive Slave Law of 1850]], arguably the most hated and openly-evaded Federal legislation in U.S. history. The whole idea of using "[[Popular sovereignty in the United States|popular sovereignty]]" as a means to expand slavery into the Western territories, starting with [[Territorial Kansas|Kansas]], leading to the [[Kansas-Nebraska Act]] and the violence of the [[Bleeding Kansas]] period, was hatched in Mason's Washington boarding house.<ref name=Gawalt>{{cite book |title=Clashing dynasties : Charles Francis Adams and James Murray Mason in the fiery cauldron of civil war |first=Gerard W |last=Gawalt |location=[[North Charleston, South Carolina]] |publisher=[[CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform]] |year=2015 |isbn=978-1519347916}}</ref>{{rp|65}} Mason a was also the chair of the ad-hoc Senate committee that investigated [[John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry]], and wrote its report, informally known as the Mason Report.<ref>{{cite book |title=Report [of] the Select committee of the Senate appointed to inquire into the late invasion and seizure of the public property at Harper's Ferry |first1=James M. |last1=Mason |author-link1=James M. Mason |first2=Jacob |last2=Collamer |author-link2=Jacob Collamer |url=https://archive.org/details/reportselectcommi00unit/page/n1/mode/2up |date=June 15, 1860}}</ref>
===Secession advocate=== Continuing the tradition of his mentor [[John C. Calhoun]], whose last speech (1850) Mason read to the Senate when Calhoun was too sick to do so himself, Mason strongly believed states had the right to secede. Furthermore, the North's intolerance of their "[[peculiar institution]]", their "property rights" (the right to own human beings), left them no other choice than secession. He said he didn't need reasons to leave the Union, he needed a reason to stay in the Union.<ref name=Young/>{{rp|101}}
Mason strongly favored the South's "immediate, absolute, and eternal separation" if anti-slavery, Republican candidate [[John C. Frémont]] were [[U.S. Presidential election of 1856|elected president in 1856]].<ref name=Young/>{{rp|83}}
In 1861 Mason worked behind the scenes to enable Virginia's secession, remaining in the Senate because he could get information useful for the seceding states, a type of spy behind enemy lines.<ref name=Young/>{{rp|100}} He and Virginia's other Senator, [[Robert M. T. Hunter|Robert Hunter]], told the commissioners of the new Confederate states that Virginia would join the secession if [[Jefferson Davis]] was elected president of a Southern confederacy, but not if it was radical Alabama "[[Fire-Eaters|fire-rater]]" [[William L. Yancey]], seen in Virginia as too extreme. Davis was chosen as president three days later.<ref name=Young/>{{rp|103}}
Mason disappears from Senate activities in March 1861. He and other Southern senators were [[Expulsion from the United States Congress|expelled]] from the Senate on July 11 by a vote of 32 to 10, because "they were engaged in a conspiracy for the destruction of the Union and Government, or, with full knowledge of said conspiracy, had failed to advise the Government of its progress or aid in its suppression."<ref name=Public>{{cite book |title=The public life and diplomatic correspondence of James M. Mason, with some personal history |last=Mason |first=Virginia |location=New York and Washington |publisher=Neale Publishing Company |year=1906 |page=191 |url=https://archive.org/details/publifediplomatic00masorich/page/n5/mode/2up}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=The senators who were expelled after refusing to accept Lincoln's election |first=Gillian |last=Brockell |date=January 5, 2021 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/05/senators-expelled-lincoln-election-trump/ |newspaper=[[Washington Post]] |access-date=January 8, 2021 |archive-date=January 7, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210107135812/https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/05/senators-expelled-lincoln-election-trump/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Confederate diplomat== Mason became one of Virginia's representatives to the Provisional Confederate Congress from February 1861 through February 1862.<ref>Leonard, pg. xxix</ref> However, his legislative duties were interrupted by a diplomatic assignment. While Mason sailed toward England as a Confederate envoy to Britain on the British mail steamer [[RMS Trent|RMS ''Trent'']], the ship was stopped by the [[USS San Jacinto (1850)|USS ''San Jacinto'']] on November 8, 1861. Mason and fellow Confederate diplomat [[John Slidell]] were taken off the ship and confined in [[Fort Warren (Massachusetts)|Fort Warren]] in [[Boston Harbor]].
The [[Trent Affair|''Trent'' Affair]] threatened to bring Britain into open war with the United States, despite triumphant rhetoric in the north. Even the cool-headed Lincoln was swept along in the celebratory spirit, but enthusiasm waned when he and his cabinet studied the likely consequences of a war with Britain. After careful diplomatic exchanges, they admitted that the capture was contrary to maritime law and that private citizens could not be classified as "enemy despatches". Slidell and Mason were released, and war was averted. The two diplomats set sail for England again, via the British colony of St. Thomas, on January 1, 1862.
Mason represented the Confederacy in England, attempting to convince the British that the [[Union blockade|Union's blockade of the South]] was just a "paper blockade", too ineffective to qualify for recognition under the terms of the 1856 [[Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law|Declaration of Paris]], but his primary mission was to seek British [[diplomatic recognition]] of the Confederacy. After Britain issued its refusal in 1863, he moved to Paris, continuing his search for a nation that would recognize or assist the Confederacy, but the French were unwilling to do so alone, without the support of the British. He remained in France until April 1865.<ref>{{cite book|title=Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862|year=1863|publisher=D. Appleton & Company|location=New York|page=193|url=https://archive.org/stream/1862appletonsan02newyuoft#page/n200/mode/1up}}</ref>
==Later life== [[File:The first Selma, Winchester, Virginia.jpg|thumb|First Selma mansion, Winchester, Virginia, destroyed in 1863]]
In 1862, when the Union army occupied [[Winchester, Virginia]], where Mason made his home, his house, "Selma",{{efn|Other Virginia houses named "Selma" are in [[Selma (Eastville, Virginia)|Eastville]] and [[Selma (Leesburg, Virginia)|Leesburg, Virginia]].}} was requisitioned for regimental offices.<ref>{{cite book |last=Phipps |first=Sheila R. |title=Genteel Rebel: The Life of Mary Greenhow Lee |year=2003 |publisher=[[Louisiana State University Press]] |isbn=0807128856 |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/book/65995 |via=[[Project MUSE]] |access-date=February 26, 2021 |archive-date=June 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210604000130/https://muse.jhu.edu/book/65995 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|67–68}} The lower officers probably did not know who Mason was, but the commanding officer, General [[Nathaniel P. Banks]], formerly a Congressman and then Governor of Massachusetts, certainly must have.
Learning of Mason's pro-slavery activism and his authorship of the hated Fugitive Slave Act, the soldiers, on their own initiative, set about destroying the house . The roof came off first. Sometime later the walls were pulled down and everything burnable was chopped into firewood. They were so thorough that "from turret to foundation stone, not one stone remains upon another; the negro houses, the out-buildings [there was an [[Ice house (building)|ice house]]], the fences are all gone, and even the trees are many of them girdled".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/military-clipping-mar-25-1863-2012096/ |via=[[newspaperarchive.com]] |title=Letter from an army surgeon |first=George M. |last=Beakes |author-link=George M. Beakes |newspaper=[[Times Herald-Record|Middletown Whig Press]] ([[Middletown, Orange County, New York]]) |date=March 25, 1863 |page=1 |access-date=October 12, 2020 |archive-date=June 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210604000531/https://newspaperarchive.com/military-clipping-mar-25-1863-2012096/ |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Mason, the house was "obliterated".<ref name=Thomas>{{cite web |title=Sen. James Murday Mason, black labor, and the aftermath of the Civil War |author-link=William G. Thomas III |first=William G. |last=Thomas III |date=July 15, 2009 |url=http://railroads.unl.edu/blog/?p=57 |access-date=October 20, 2020 |archive-date=October 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201025085444/http://railroads.unl.edu/blog/?p=57 |url-status=live }}</ref> He never lived in Winchester again.
From 1865 until 1868 Mason was in exile in [[Canada]]. After sanctions on Confederate officials were lifted, he returned to the United States, and bought the [[Clarens (Alexandria, Virginia)|Clarens Estate]], on {{Convert|26|acres}},{{efn|In 2008 the house alone sold for over $8,000,000, {{inflation|US|8000000|2008|fmt=eq}}.}} today in [[Alexandria, Virginia]].<ref name=Gawalt/>{{rp|258–259}} He brought white servants from Canada, and went to some trouble to find others, as he did not want to hire any blacks; he believed free blacks to be "worse than worthless".<ref name=Gawalt/>{{rp|260}} He died at Clarens in 1871, and was interred in the churchyard of [[Christ Church (Alexandria, Virginia)|Christ Church]] in Alexandria.<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/> His death was not noted by anyone outside his family.<ref name=Gawalt/>{{rp|264}} [[File:Hon. James M. Mason, Va - NARA - 528732.jpg|right|thumb|James M. Mason, photograph by [[Mathew Brady]]]]
==Family== ===Marriage and children=== Mason married Eliza Margaretta Chew (1798–1874) on 25 July 1822 at [[Cliveden (Benjamin Chew House)|Cliveden]] in [[Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|Germantown]], [[Pennsylvania]].<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/> The couple had eight children:<ref name=GH/>
*Anna Maria Mason Ambler (31 January 1825 – 17 August 1863)<ref name=GH/> *Benjamin Chew Mason (1826–1847)<ref name=GH/> *Catharine Chew Mason Dorsey (24 March 1828 – 28 April 1893)<ref name=GH/> *George Mason (16 April 1830 – 3 February 1895)<ref name=GH/> *Virginia Mason (12 December 1833 – 11 October 1920)<ref name=GH/> *Eliza Ida Oswald Mason (10 August 1836 – 16 December 1885)<ref name=GH/> *James Murray Mason, Jr. (24 August 1839 – 10 January 1923)<ref name=GH/> *John A. Mason (17 November 1841 – 6 June 1925)<ref name=GH/>
He was a grandson of [[George Mason]] (1725–1792); nephew of [[George Mason V]] (1753–1796);<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/> grandnephew of [[Thomson Mason]] (1733–1785);<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/> first cousin once removed of [[Stevens Thomson Mason (Virginia)|Stevens Thomson Mason]] (1760–1803) and [[John Thomson Mason]] (1765–1824);<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/> son of John Mason (1766–1849) and Anna Maria Murray Mason (1776–1857);<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/> first cousin of [[Thomson Francis Mason]] (1785–1838), [[George Mason VI]] (1786–1834), and [[Richard Barnes Mason]] (1797–1850);<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/> second cousin of [[Armistead Thomson Mason]] (1787–1819), [[John Thomson Mason (1787–1850)|John Thomson Mason]] (1787–1850), and [[John Thomson Mason, Jr.]] (1815–1873);<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/> second cousin once removed of [[Stevens T. Mason|Stevens Thomson Mason]] (1811–1843);<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/> and first cousin thrice removed of [[C. O'Conor Goolrick|Charles O'Conor Goolrick]].<ref name=GH/><ref name=PG/>
*Sister Sarah Maria was the wife of [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] [[General officer|general]] [[Adjutant]] [[Samuel Cooper (general)]]. *Sister Anna Maria was the wife of [[Sydney Smith Lee]]-son of [[Henry Lee III|Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee]]; they were the parents of [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] [[Major general (United States)|Major General]] and Virginia [[Governor]] [[Fitzhugh Lee]]. *Brother John T. married Catherine Macomb, daughter of Gen. [[Alexander Macomb, Jr.]], Commanding General of the army (1828–1841).
{{ahnentafel |collapsed=yes |align=center |boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc; |boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9; |boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc; |boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc; |boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe; |1= 1. '''James Murray Mason''' |2= 2. [[John Mason (1766–1849)|John Mason]] |3= 3. Anna Maria Murray |4= 4. [[George Mason|George Mason IV]] |5= 5. Ann Eilbeck |6= 6. James Murray |7= 7. Sarah Ennalls Maynadier |8= 8. [[George Mason III]] |9= 9. Ann Stevens Thomson |10= 10. William Eilbeck |11= 11. Sarah Edgar |12= 12. William Murray |13= 13. Ann Smith |14= 14. Daniel Maynadier |15= 15. Mary Murray |16= 16. [[George Mason II]] |17= 17. Mary Fowke |18= 18. Stevens Thomson |19= 19. Dorothea Taunton |20= 20. William Eilbeck |21= 21. Margaret Dixon |22= 22. John Edgar |23= 23. Johanna |24= 24. James Murray |25= 25. Sarah Thomas |26= 26. James Smith |27= 27. Sarah Hynson |28= 28. Daniel Maynadier |29= 29. Hannah Haskins |30= 30. William Vans Murray |31= 31. Sarah Ennalls }}
==Assessments by political opponents == One perspective comes from Republican politician [[Carl Schurz]]. His visit to Washington coincided with debate over the [[Kansas-Nebraska Act]].
{{blockquote|Still another type was represented to me by Senator Mason of Virginia, a thick-set, heavily built man with a decided expression of dullness in his face. What he had to say appeared to me to come from a sluggish intellect spurred into activity by an overweening self-conceit. He, too, would constantly assert in manner, even more than in language, the superiority of the Southern slave-holder over the Northern people. But it was not the prancing pride of Senator [[Andrew Butler|Butler]] nor the cheery buoyancy of the fighting spirit of [[Robert Toombs|Toombs]] that animated him. It appeared rather to be the surly pretension of a naturally stupid person to be something better than other people, and the insistence that they must bow to his assumed aristocracy and all its claims. When I heard Senator Mason speak, I felt that if I were a member of the Senate, his supercilious attitude and his pompous utterances of dull commonplace, sometimes very offensive by their overbearing tone, would have been particularly exasperating to me.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz |first=Carl |last=Schurz |author-link=Carl Schurz |location=London |volume=2 |pages=35–36 |publisher=[[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]] |chapter=First Years in America—Visit to Washington |year=1909 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/reminisccarlschurz02schurich/page/36/mode/2up}}</ref>}}
A leading Republican Senator [[Charles Sumner]] commented: {{blockquote|Among these hostile senators, there is yet another, with all the prejudices of the senator from South Carolina, but without his generous impulses, who, on account of his character. before the country, and the rancor of his opposition, deserves to be named. I mean the senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason], who, as the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill, has associated himself with a special act of inhumanity and tyranny. Of him I shall say little, for he has said little in this debate, though within that little was compressed the bitterness of a life absorbed in the support of Slavery. He holds the commission of Virginia; but he does not represent that early Virginia, so clear to our hearts, which gave to us the pen of Jefferson, by which the equality of men was declared, and the sword of Washington, by which Independence was secured; but he represents that other Virginia, from which Washington and Jefferson now avert their faces, where human beings are bred as cattle for the shambles, and where a dungeon rewards the pious matron who teaches little children to relieve their bondage by reading the Book of Life. It is proper that such a senator, representing such a State, should rail against Free Kansas.<ref>{{cite book |title=Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, in the Senate of the United States 19th and 20th May, 1856. |publisher=[[John P. Jewett|John P. Jewett & Company]] |chapter=The crime against Kansas. The apolgies for the crime. The true remedy |last=Sumner |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Sumner |date=1856 |location=Boston |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/crimeagainstkan01sumngoog/page/n94/mode/2up |pages=88–89}}</ref>}}
==See also== * [[List of United States senators expelled or censured]]
==References== '''Informational notes''' {{notelist}}
'''Citations''' {{reflist}}
'''Further reading''' * {{cite book |title=Clashing Dynasties Charles Francis Adams and James Murray Mason in the Fiery Cauldron of the Civil War |first=Gerard W. |last=Gewalt |isbn=9781519347916 |location=[[North Charleston, South Carolina]] |publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform |year=2015}}
* Owsley, Frank Lawrence. ''King Cotton Diplomacy, Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America'' (University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1931). *{{cite book |title=Senator James Murray Mason : defender of the old South |last=Young |first=Robert W. |publisher=[[University of Tennessee Press]] |year=1998 |isbn=087049998X}}
==External links== {{commons category}} *{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Mason, James Murray |short=x}} *{{Cite NSRW|wstitle=Mason, James Murray |short=x}}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|us-hs}} {{s-bef|before=[[Edward Lucas (congressman)|Edward Lucas]]}} {{s-ttl|title=Member of the [[List of United States representatives from Virginia|U.S. House of Representatives]]<br>from [[Virginia's 15th congressional district]]|years=1837–1839}} {{s-aft|after=[[William Lucas (Virginia politician)|William Lucas]]}} |- {{s-par|us-sen}} {{s-bef|rows=2|before=[[Isaac S. Pennybacker]]}} {{s-ttl|title=[[List of United States senators from Virginia|U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Virginia]]|years=1847–1861|alongside=[[William S. Archer]], [[Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter|Robert Hunter]]}} {{s-aft|after=[[Waitman T. Willey]]}} |- {{s-ttl|title=Chair of the [[United States Senate Committee on Claims|Senate Claims Committee]]|years=1847–1849}} {{s-aft|after=[[Moses Norris Jr.]]}} |- {{s-bef|before=[[Herschel Vespasian Johnson|Herschel Johnson]]}} {{s-ttl|title=Chair of the [[United States Senate Committee on the District of Columbia|Senate District of Columbia Committee]]|years=1849–1851}} {{s-aft|after=[[James Shields (politician, born 1806)|James Shields]]}} |- {{s-bef|before=[[David Levy Yulee]]}} {{s-ttl|title=Chair of the [[United States Senate Committee on Armed Services|Senate Naval Affairs Committee]]|years=1851–1852}} {{s-aft|after=[[William M. Gwin]]}} |- {{s-bef|before=[[Henry S. Foote]]}} {{s-ttl|title=Chair of the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|Senate Foreign Relations Committee]]|years=1852–1861}} {{s-aft|after=[[Charles Sumner]]}} |- {{s-off}} {{s-bef|before=[[Jesse D. Bright]]}} {{s-ttl|title=[[President pro tempore of the United States Senate]]|years=1857}} {{s-aft|after=[[Thomas Jefferson Rusk|Thomas Rusk]]}} {{s-end}}
{{USSenVA}} {{SenForeignRelationsCommitteeChairmen}} {{USSenPresProTemp}} {{VirginiaRepresentatives15}} {{Virginia Masons}} {{Slavery in Virginia}} {{John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mason, James M.}} [[Category:1798 births]] [[Category:1871 deaths]] [[Category:19th-century American Episcopalians]] [[Category:American Civil War prisoners of war]] [[Category:American expatriates in Canada]] [[Category:American proslavery activists]] [[Category:Burials at Old Christ Church Episcopal Cemetery (Alexandria, Virginia)]] [[Category:Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]] [[Category:Confederate expatriates]] [[Category:Confederate States of America diplomats]] [[Category:Democratic Party United States representatives from Virginia]] [[Category:Democratic Party United States senators from Virginia]] [[Category:Expelled United States senators]] [[Category:Foreign relations during the American Civil War]] [[Category:John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry]] [[Category:Lawyers from Alexandria, Virginia]] [[Category:Mason family|James M.]] [[Category:Democratic Party members of the Virginia House of Delegates]] [[Category:Politicians from Alexandria, Virginia]] [[Category:Politicians from Washington, D.C.]] [[Category:People of Virginia in the American Civil War]] [[Category:Politicians from Winchester, Virginia]] [[Category:Presidents pro tempore of the United States Senate]] [[Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni]] [[Category:William & Mary Law School alumni]] [[Category:United States senators who owned slaves]] [[Category:United States representatives who owned slaves]] [[Category:19th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly]] [[Category:19th-century United States senators]] [[Category:19th-century United States representatives]]