James Murray Mason

James Murray Mason (November 3, 1798April 28, 1871) was an American lawyer and politician. He served as senator from Virginia, having previously represented Frederick County, Virginia, in the Virginia House of Delegates. A grandson of George Mason, Mason strongly supported slavery as well as Virginia's secession as the American Civil War began. As chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1851 until his expulsion in 1861 for supporting the Confederate States of America, Mason took great interest in protecting American cotton exporters. As the Confederacy's leading diplomat, he traveled to Europe seeking support, but proved unable to get the United Kingdom to recognize the Confederacy as a country. As Mason sailed to England in November 1861, the U.S. Navy captured his ship and detained him, in what became known as the Trent Affair. Released after two months, Mason continued his voyage, and assisted Confederate purchases from Britain and Europe but failed to achieve their diplomatic involvement. As the war ended, Mason went into exile in Canada, but later returned to Alexandria, Virginia, where he died in 1871. Early life Mason was born on Analostan Island, now Theodore Roosevelt Island, in the District of Columbia. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (1818), then studied law in Williamsburg, Virginia and earned a law degree from the College of William & Mary (1820). Political career Following admission to the Virginia bar, Mason practiced law in Virginia, and also operated a plantation in Frederick County. Despite a sloppy and damaged census record, he may have owned 5 slaves in the 1830 census. In the 1850 federal census, Mason owned ten enslaved people, half of them children under ten years of age. In that year, he (or another man of similar name) also owned a 25 year old Black woman and her four children in nearby Rappahannock County. In the 1860 census, Mason owned a 49 year old Black man, 35 year old Black woman, and children aged 14, 13, 12, 10 and 3 years old. and he or another James M. Mason owned seven enslaved children (the oldest a 13-year-old girl) in southern Culpeper County. Mason soon began his political career, well before his father's death, winning election several times as one of Frederick County's (part-time) representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates.