George Mason must rank with John Adams and James Madison as one of the three Founding Fathers who left their personal imprint (印记) on the fundamental law of the United States. He was the principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which, because of its early formation, greatly influenced other state constitutions framed during the Revolution and, through them, the Federal Bill of Rights of 1791.
Yet Mason was essentially a private person with very little inclination for public office or the ordinary operation of politics beyond the country level. His appearances in the Virginia colonial and state legislatures were relatively brief, and not until 1787 did he consent to represent his state at a continental or national congress or convention. Politics was never more than a means for Masson. He was at all times a man of public spirit, hut politics was never a way of life, never for long his central concern. It took a revolution to pry him away from home and family at Gunston Hall, mobilize his skill and energy for constitutional constrnction, and transform him, in one brief moment of brilliant leadership, into a statesman whose work would endure to influence the lives and fortunes of those "millions yet unborn" of whom he and his generation of Americans spoke so frequently and thought so constantly.

The author indicated that Mason’s brilliant leadership ability ()

George Mason must rank with John Adams and James Madison as one of the three Founding Fathers who left their personal imprint (印记) on the fundamental law of the United States. He was the principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which, because of its early formation, greatly influenced other state constitutions framed during the Revolution and, through them, the Federal Bill of Rights of 1791.
Yet Mason was essentially a private person with very little inclination for public office or the ordinary operation of politics beyond the country level. His appearances in the Virginia colonial and state legislatures were relatively brief, and not until 1787 did he consent to represent his state at a continental or national congress or convention. Politics was never more than a means for Masson. He was at all times a man of public spirit, hut politics was never a way of life, never for long his central concern. It took a revolution to pry him away from home and family at Gunston Hall, mobilize his skill and energy for constitutional constrnction, and transform him, in one brief moment of brilliant leadership, into a statesman whose work would endure to influence the lives and fortunes of those "millions yet unborn" of whom he and his generation of Americans spoke so frequently and thought so constantly.

A. was exercised throughout his life
B. had been recognized only by the generations that followed him
C. was less important historically than his brilliance as lawyer
D. emerged powerfully, but for a brief time only