George Mason, "Father of the Bill of Rights"

Among the Constitution's Founding Fathers, George Mason (1725-1792) is considered the driving force behind the Bill of Rights. The author of The Virginia Declaration of Rights, he was an active participant in the Federal Convention of 1787, but as it came to its conclusion he he was alarmed at weaknesses he saw in the Constitution as it stood, and which he described in Objections to This Constitution of Government.

His strongest objections were addressed with the addition of the Bill of Rights, but some of his concerns remained, and proved horrifyingly prescient.

Almost exactly 220 years ago, George Mason seems to have anticipated Dick Cheney's arrogant argument:

"that unnecessary officer the Vice-President, who for want of other employment is made president of the Senate, thereby dangerously blending the executive and legislative powers"

and George W. Bush's abuse of the presidential pardon:

"The President of the United States has the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be sometimes exercised to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt."

No wonder Thomas Jefferson called Mason "the wisest man of his generation."