biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1725–92)
|
| biography:
| Public official and planter, born in Fairfax Co, Virginia, USA. He wrote Virginia's first constitution and declaration of rights (1776) which were later used as models for both the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. He was a member and the treasurer of the Ohio Company (1752–73) and was interested in Western settlement. Although he considered himself to be a private citizen rather than a politician, he served in the Virginia House of Delegates (1776–88), the House of Burgesses (1759–76), and was a member of the July Convention (1775) and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention (1787). He opposed the new Constitution because it presented such a strong federal government. |
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