Grayson was born in 1736 to Benjamin and Susannah Grayson at Belle Aire Plantation, in what is now Woodbridge, Virginia. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, and received his degree in Law from the University of Oxford and was knowledgeable in Latin, Greek, and English history
Career
Grayson practiced law, principally in Prince William County, Virginia. The county seat was at Dumfries, Virginia, not far from Grayson's home as well as Belle Aire Plantation, which his brother Spence Monroe Grayson inherited in 1757. On the other side of the Occoquan River lay Fairfax County, Virginia, and Grayson was also familiar with leaders of that county, especially George Mason and George Washington. Spence Grayson was ordained an Anglican priest in England in 1771, and served as rector of Cameron and Dettingen parishes in Prince William County and both brothers socialized with Rev. Scott of Pohick Church as well as Mason and Washington who were members of that church's vestry. When the American Revolutionary War began, Grayson volunteered, and became an aide-de-camp to George Washington, Grayson rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1777, William Grayson recruited a regiment for the Continental Army known as Grayson's Regiment, and served as its colonel through the Philadelphia campaign. In 1778, William Grayson served on a commission dealing with war prisoners, and in 1779 he resigned his military commission to serve on the Congressional Board of War. In 1781 he returned to Dumfries to practice law. Like many Continental Army officers, he was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati.
Post-War career
Grayson was a delegate to the Confederation Congress from 1785 to 1787. He helped to pass the Northwest Ordinance, including a provision that forbade slavery in the Northwest Territory. As an Anti-Federalist, he joined George Mason, James Monroe, and Patrick Henry in opposing ratification of the proposed new United States Constitution at the Virginia Ratification Convention in 1788. In that Convention, Grayson argued that the proposed constitution was neither fish nor fowl—neither strong enough for a national government nor decentralized enough for a federal one — and thus eventually would either degenerate into a despotism or result in the dissolution of the Union. Although the Anti-Federalists lost that battle, Patrick Henry, Virginia's leading Anti-Federalist, rewarded Grayson by arranging his election to the first United States Senate. Grayson served from March 4, 1789 until his death on March 12, 1790. He and Richard Henry Lee were the only members of the first Senate who had opposed ratification, and so they were unhappy when the Bill of Rights omitted any provisions making serious corrections to the division of powers between the central government and the states. Grayson continued to believe that the Philadelphia Convention had struck precisely the wrong balance. Grayson experienced the inflation caused by Virginia and other states issuing paper fiat currency during the Revolutionary War. He later wrote to James Madison that:
