biography
| name: |
Mason, James (Murray)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1798–1871)
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| biography:
| US senator and diplomat, born in Georgetown, District of Columbia, USA, the grandson of George Mason. As US senator from Virginia (1847–61), he supported Southern rights and drafted the Fugitive Slave Act (1850). In 1861, en route to England on a mission to seek English diplomatic recognition for the Confederacy, he and John Slidell were taken by Union forces from the British ship Trent, and held briefly in what threatened an international crisis; they were released and Mason spent the next four years in England. Although he had considerable success in purchasing naval and military supplies, he never gained diplomatic recognition. After the war, he lived in Canada until 1868, when he returned to Virginia. |
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