This was a unique performance...giving a newsman a government salary to attack the administration...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. The phrase also appears in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason.

I post about George Mason every year. I thought I had posted about the Virginia Declaration of Rights too, but I can't dig up any such post right now.

Virginia Declaration of Rights

Created: May 1776
Ratified: June 12, 1776

The Virginia Declaration of Rights was drafted in 1776 to proclaim the inherent rights of men, including the right to reform or abolish "inadequate" government. It influenced a number of later documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the United States Bill of Rights (1789).

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Contents

Articles 1–3 address the subject of rights and the relationship between government and the governed. Article 1 states that "all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights of which ... they cannot deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety," a statement later made internationally famous in the second paragraph of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, as "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

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