USA > North Carolina > The history of North Carolina from the earliest period, Volume I > Part 28
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67. For terms, there shall be quarterly such a cer- tain number of days, not exceeding one and twenty at any one time, as the several respective courts shall appoint. The time for the beginning of the
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term, in the precinct-court, shall be the first Mon- day in January, April, July, and October; in the county-court, the first Monday in February, May,. August, and November; and in the proprietors courts, the first Monday in March, June, September, and December.
68. In the precinct-court no man shall be a jury- man under fifty acres of freehold. In the county- court, or at the assizes, no man shall be a grand jury-man under three hundred acres of freehold; and no man shall be a petty jury-man under two hundred acres of freehold. In the proprietors courts no man shall be a jury-man under five hundred acres of freehold.
69. Every jury shall consist of twelve men; and it shall not be necessary they should all agree, but the verdict shall be according to the consent of the ma- jority.
70. It shall be a base and vile thing to plead for money or reward; nor shall any one (except he be a near kinsman, not farther off than cousin-german to the party concerned) be permitted to plead an- other man's cause, till, before the judge in open court, he hath taken an oath, that he doth not plead for money or reward, nor hath nor will receive, nor directly nor indirectly bargained with the party, whose cause he is going to plead, for money or any other reward for pleading his cause.
71. There shall be a parliament, consisting of the proprietors or their deputies, the landgraves
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and cassiques, and one freeholder out of every pre- cinct, to be chosen by the frecholders of the said precinct respectively. They shall sit all together in one room, and have every member one vote.
72. No man shall be chosen a member of parlia- ment, who hath less than five hundred acres of free- hold within the precinct for which he is chosen; nor shall any have a vote in choosing the said mem- ber that hath less than fifty acres of freehold within the said precinct.
73. A new parliament shall be assembled the first Monday of the month of November every se- cond year, and shall meet and sit in the town they last sit in, without any summons. unless by the pal- atine's court they be summoned to meet at any oth- er place. And if there shall be any occasion of a parliament in these intervals, it shall be in the pow- er of the palatine's court to assemble them in forty days notice, and at such time and place as the said court shall think fit; and the palatine's court shall have power to dissolve the said parliament when they shall think fit. 1
74. At the opening of every parliament, the first thing that shall be done, shall be the reading of these fundamental constitutions, which the palatine and proprietors, and the rest of the members then present, shall subscribe. Nor shall any person what- soever sit or vote in the parliament, till he hath that session subscribed these fundamental constitu- tions, in a book kept for that purpose by the clerk of the parliament.
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75. In order to the due election of members for the biennial parliament, it shall be lawful for the freeholders of the respective precincts to meet the first Tuesday in September every two years, in the same town or place that they last met in, to choose parliament-men; and there choose those members that are to sit the next November following, unless the stewart of the precinct shall, by sufficient notice thirty days before, appoint some other place for their meeting, in order to the election.
76. No act or order of parliament shall be of any force, unless it be ratified in open parliament during the same session, by the palatine or his deputy, and three more of the lords proprietors or their de- puties ; and then not to continue longer in force but until the next biennial parliament, unless in the mean time it be ratified under the hands and seals of the palatine himself, and three more of the lords proprietors themselves, and by their order publish- ed at the next biennial parliament.
77. Any proprietor or his deputy may enter his protestation against any act of the parliament, be- fore the palatine or his deputy's consent be given as aforesaid ; if he shall conceive the said act to be contrary to this establishment, or any of these fun- damental constitutions of the government. And in such case, after full and free debate, the several es- tates shall retire into four several chambers; the palatine and proprietors into one; the landgraves into another; the cassiques into another; and those chosen by the precincts into a fourth: and if the
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major part of any of the four estates shall vote that the law is not agreeable to this establishment, and these fundamental constitutions of the government, then it shall pass no farther, but be as if it had never been proposed.
78. The quorum of the parliament shall be one half of those who are members, and capable of sit- ting in the house that present session of parliament. The quorum of each of the chambers of parliament shall be one half of the members of that chamber.
79. To avoid multiplicity of laws, which by de- grees always change the right foundations of the original government, all acts of parliament what- soever, in whatsoever form passed or enacted, shall, at the end of an hundred years after their enacting, respectively cease and determine of themselves, and without any repeal become null and void, as if no such acts of laws had ever been made.
80. Since multiplicity of comments, as well as of laws, have great inconveniences, and serve only to obscure and perplex; all manner of comments and expositions on any part of these fundamental con- stitutions, or any part of the common or statute law of Carolina, are absolutely prohibited.
81. There shall be a registry in every precinct, wherein shall be enrolled all deeds, leases, judg- ments, mortgages, and other conveyances, which may concern any of the land within the said pre- cinct; and all such conveyances not so entered or
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registered, shall not be of force against any person nor party to the said contract or conveyance.
82. No man shall be register of any precinct, who hath not at least three hundred acres of freehold within the said precinct.
83. The freeholders of every precinct shall nomi- nate three men; out of which three. the chief jus- tice's court shall choose and commission one to be register of the said precinct, whilst he shall well behave himself.
84. There shall be a registry in every signiory, barony and colony, wherein shall be recorded all the births, marriages and deaths, that shall happen within the respective signiories, baronies and col- onies.
85. No man shall be register of a colony, that hath not above fifty acres of freehold within the said colony.
86. The time of every one's age, that is born in Carolina, shall be reckoned from the day that his birth is entered in the registry, and not before.
87. No marriage shall be lawful, whatever con- tract and ceremony they have used, till both parties mutually owu it before the register of the place where they were married, and he register it, with the names of the father and mother of each party.
88. No man shall administer to the goods, or have right to them, or enter upon the estate of any per- son deceased, till his death be registered in the re spective registry.
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89, He that doth not enter in the respective re- gistry the birth or death of any person that is born or dies in his house or ground. shall pay to the said register one shilling per week for each such neglect, reckoning from the time of each birth or death re- spectively, to the time of registering it.
90. In like manner the births, marriages and deaths of the lords proprietors, landgraves and cas- siques, shall be registered in the chamberlain's court.
91. There shall be in every colony one constable, to be chosen annually, by the frecholders of the colo- ny; his estate shall be above a hundred acres of free- hold within the said colonv, and such subordinate offi- cers appointed for his assistance as the county court shall find requisite, and shall be established by the said county court. The election of the subordinate annual officers shall be also in the freeholders of the colony.
92. All towns incorporate shall be governed by a mayor, twelve aldermen and twenty-four of the com- mon council. The said common council shall be chosen by the present householders of the said town; the aldermen shall be chosen out of the common coun- cil; and the mavor out of the aldermen, by the pala- tine's court.
93. It being of great consequence to the planta- tion, that port towns should be built and preserved; therefore, whosoever shall lade or unlade any commo- dity at any other place but a port town, shall forfeit to the lords proprietors, for each ton so laden or unla- den, the sum of ten pounds sterling; except only such
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goods as the palatine's court shall license to be laden or unladen elsewhere.
94. The first port town upon every river shall be. in a colony, and be a port town forever.
95. No man shall be permitted to be a freeman of Carolina, or to have any estate or habitation within it, that doth not acknowledge a God; and that God is publicly and solemnly to be worshipped.
96. [As the country comes to be sufficiently plant- ed and distributed into fit divisions, it shall belong to the parliament to take care for the building of church- es, and the public maintenance of divines, to be em- ployed in the exercise of religion, according to the church of England; which being the only true and orthodox, and the national religion of all the king's dominions, is so also of Carolina; and, there- fore, it alone shall be allowed to receive public main- tenance, by grant of parliament,*]
97. But since the natives of that place, who will be concerned in our plantation, are utterly strangers to Christianity, whose idolatry, ignorance, or mistake, gives us no right to expel, or use them ill; and those who remove from other parts to plant there, will una- voidably be of different opinions concerning matters of religion, the liberty whereof they will expect to have allowed them, and it will not be reasonable for us, on this account, to keep them out; that civil peace may be maintained amidst the diversity of opinions,
*This article was not drawn up by Mr. Locke; but inserted by some of the chief of the proprietors, against his judgment; as Mr. Locke himself informed one of his friends, to whom he presented a copy of these constitutions.
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and our agreement and compact with all men may be duly and faithfully observed; the violation whereof, upon what pretence soever, cannot be without great offence to almighty God, and great scandal to the true religion, which we profess; and also that Jews, Heathens, and other dissenters from the purity of Christian religion, may not be scared and kept at a distance from it, but, by having an opportunity of ac- quainting themselves with the truth and reasonable- ness of its doctrines, and the peaceableness and inof- fensiveness of its professors, may, by good usage and persuasion, and all those convincing methods of gen- tleness and meekness, suitable to the rules and design of the gospel, be won over to embrace and unfeign- edly receive the truth; therefore any seven or more persons agreeing in any religion, shall constitute a church or profession, to which they shall give some name, to distinguish it from others.
98. The terms of admittance and communion with any church or profession, shall be written in a book, and therein be subscribed by all the members of the said church or profession; which book shall be kept by the public register of the precinct wherein they reside.
99. The time of every one's subscription and ad- mittance shall be dated in the said book of religious record.
100. In the terms of communion of every church or profession, these following shall be three; without which no agreement or assembly of men, upon prc- tence of religion, shall be accounted a church or pro- fession within these rules:
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I. "That there is a God."
II. " That God is publicly to be worshipped."
III. "That it is lawful and the duty of every man, being thereunto called by those that govern, to bear witness to truth; and that every church or profes- sion shall, in their terms of communion, set down the external way whereby they witness a truth as in the presence of God, whether it be by laying hands on or kissing the bible, as in the church of England, or by holding up the ,hand, or in any other sensible way."
101. No person above seventeen years of age shall have any benefit or protection of the law, or be capa- ble of any place of profit or honor, who is not a member of some church or profession, having his name recorded in some one, and but one religious re- cord at once.
102. No person of any other church or profession shall disturb or molest any religious assembly.
103. No person whatsoever shall speak any thing in their religious assembly irreverently or seditiously of the government or governors, or state matters.
101. Any person subscribing the terms of commu- nion, in the record of the said church or profession, before the precinct register, and any five members of the said church or profession, shall be thereby made a member of the said church or profession.
105. Any person striking out his own name out of any religious record, or his name being struck out by any officer thereunto authorised by each church or profession respectively. shall cease to be a member of that church or profession.
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106. No man shall use any reproachful, reviling or abusive language, against the religion of any church or profession ; that being the certain way of disturbing the peace, and hindering the conversion of any to the truth, by engaging them in quarrels and animosities, to the hatred of the professors and that profession. which otherwise they might be brought to assent to.
107. Since charity obliges us to wish well to the souls of all men, and religion ought to alter nothing in any man's civil estate or right, it shall be lawful for slaves, as well as others, to enter themselves, and be of what church or profession any of them shall think best, and therefore be as fully members as any free- man. But yet no slave shall hereby be exempted from that civil dominion his master hath over him, but be in all other things in the same state and condition he was in before.
10S. Assemblies, upon what pretence soever of re- ligion, not observing and performing the above said rules, shall not be esteemed as churches, but unlawful meetings, and be punished as other riots.
109. No person whatsoever, shall disturb, molest or persecute another for his speculative opinions in re- ligion, or his way of worship.
110. Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and anthority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever.
111. No cause, whether civil or criminal, of any freeman, shall be tried in any court of judicature, with- out a jury of his peers.
112. No person whatsoever, shall hold or claim any land in Carolina by purchase or gift, or otherwise, from
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the natives, or any other whatsoever; but merely from and under the lords proprietors ; upon pain of forfeit- ure of all his estate, moveable or immoveable, and perpetual banishment.
113. Whosoever shall possess any freehold in Ca- rolina, upon what title or grant soever, shall, at the farthest, from and after the year one thousand six hun- dred and eighty-nine, pay yearly unto the lords pro- prietors, for each acre of land, English measure, as much fine silver as is at this present in one English penny, or the value thereof, to be as a chief rent and acknowledgment to the lords proprietors, their heirs and successors, forever. And it shall be lawful for the palatine's court, by their officers at any time, to take a new survey of any man's land, not to out him of any part of his possession, but that by such a sur- vey, the just number of acres he possessoth may be known, and the rent thereupon due may be paid by him.
114. All wrecks, mines, minerals, quarries of gems, and precious stones, and with pearl-fishing, whale- fishing, and one half of all ambergris, by whom- soever found, shall wholly belong to the lords propri- etors.
115. All revenues and profits belonging to the lords proprietors in common, shall be divided into ten parts, whereof the palatine shall have three, and cach pro- prietor one; but if the palatine shall govern by a de- puty, his deputy shall have one of those three tenths, and the palatine the other two tenths.
116. All inhabitants and freemen of Carolina. above seventeen years of age, and under sixty, shall
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be bound to bear arms, and serve as soldiers, whenever the grand council shall find it necessary.
112. A true copy of these Fundamental Constitu- tions shall be kept in a great book, by the register of every precinct, to be subscribed before the said regis- ter. Nor shall any person, of what condition or de- gree soever, above seventeen years old, have any es- tate or possession in Carolina, or protection or benefit of the law there, who hath not, before a precinct regis- ter, subscribed these Fundamental Constitutions in this form:
"I, A. B. do promise to bear faith and true allegi- ance to our sovereign lord king, Charles 11., his heirs and successors; and will be true and faithful to the palatine and lords proprietors of Carolina, their heirs and successors; and with my utmost power will defend them, and maintain the government according to this establishment in these Fundamental Constitu- tions."
118. Whatsoever alien, shall, in this form, before any precinct register, subscribe these Fundamental Constitutions, shall be thereby naturalized.
119. In the same manner shall every person, at his admittance into any office, subscribe these Fundamen- tal Constitutions.
120. These Fundamental Constitutions, in num- ber a hundred and twenty, and every part thereof, shall be and remain the sacred and unalterable form and rule of government of Carolina forever. Wit- ness our hands and seals, the first day of March, six - feen hundred and sixty-nine.
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