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James Murray Mason

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JAMES MURRAY MASON (1798-1871), American political leader, was born in Fairfax county, Virginia, on the 3rd of November 1798, the grandson of George Mason (1725-1792). Educated at the university of Pennsylvania and the college of William and Mary, he was admitted to the bar in 1820. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in1826-1827and 1828-1831, of the state Constitutional Convention of 1829, of the National House of Representatives (1837-1839), of the United States Senate from 1847 until July 1861 (when, with other Southern senators he was formally expelled - he had previously withdrawn), and of the Virginia Secession Convention in April 1861. Entering politics as a Jacksonian Democrat, Mason was throughout his career a consistent strict constructionist, opposing protective tariffs, internal improvements by the national government, and all attempts to restrict or control the spread of slavery, which he sincerely believed to be essential to the social and political welfare of the South. He was the author of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and in 1860 was chairman of the Senate committee which investigated the John Brown raid. After Lincoln's election as President he was one of the strongest advocates of secession in Virginia. He was appointed in August 1861 commissioner of the Confederate States to Great Britain. The British ship "Trent," upon which he and John Slidell, the commissioner to France, sailed, was intercepted (Nov. 8, 1861) by a United States ship-of-war (the "San Jacinto," Captain Charles Wilkes), and the two commissioners were seized and carried as prisoners to Boston. Great Britain immediately demanded their release, and war for a time seemed imminent; but owing mainly to the tactful diplomacy of the prince consort, Lincoln acknowledged that the seizure of Mason and Slidell was a violation of the rights of Great Britain as a neutral, and on the 1st of January 1862 released the commissioners. The incident has become known in history as the "Trent Affair." Mason at once proceeded to London, where, however, he was unable to secure official recognition, and his commission to Great Britain was withdrawn late in 1863. He remained in Europe, spending most of his time at Paris and holding blank commissions which he was authorized to fill in at his discretion in case the presence of a Confederate commissioner should seem desirable at any particular European court. These commissions, however, he did not use. After the war he lived for several years in Canada, but returned in 1869 to Virginia, and on the 28th of April 1871 died at Alexandria.

See The Public Life and Diplomatic Correspondence of James M. Mason, with some Personal History (Roanoke, Va., 1903), by his daughter, Virginia Mason; Sir Theodore Martin, Life of the Prince Consort.