USA > South Carolina > The history of South Carolina under the proprietary government, 1670-1719, V.1 > Part 9
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plant themselves in the new colony would unavoidably be of different opinions concerning religious matters, the next article went on to provide that " any seven or more persons agreeing in any religion should constitute a profession to which they should give some name." The terms of admittance and communion with any such church or pro- fession were to be written in a book. and subscribed by all the members, and the book be kept by the public Register. These terms were to comprise three, with- out which no agreement or assembly of men should be accounted a church or profession within the rules.
These were : -
" 1st. That there is a God.
2d. That God is publickly to be worshiped.
3d. That it is lawful and the duty of every man being thereunto called to bear witness to the truth, and that every church or profession shall in these terms of communion set down the eternal 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 hold- ing up the hand, or any other sensible way."
In the copy of these constitutions to be found in the Statutes of South Carolina there appears the following : -
"96' (As the country comes to be sufficiently planted. and distrib- uted into fit divisions, it shall belong to the Parliament to take care for the building of churches and the public maintenance of divines. to be employed 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 therefore it alone shall be allowed to receive public maintenance by grant of Parliament)."
In a note to these constitutions appended to Locke's works, it is said that this article was not drawn up by him, but inserted by some of the chief of the Proprietors against his judgment, as Locke himself informed his friends to whom he presented a copy of them. But 1 Locke's works (4th ed., MDCCLIX), vol. III. 376.
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Anderson. in his history of the colonial church, observes that it is difficult to understand the grounds on which such an objection, if made, could have been rested. For if it be true. it was nothing else than objecting to a corollary inevitably deduced from the terms of the only instrument which gave to the Proprietors or to any one interested in the welfare of Carolina the right to legislate therefor. He points out also that the statement does not altogether agree with another made in a history of Locke's life prefixed to his works, i.e. that it was inserted not by the influence of any of the Proprietors, but because some of the clergy, jealous of the other liberal provisions in regard to religion contained in the other clauses of the constitution. expressed their disapprobation and procured the insertion of this article. The point of this argument is that when Locke undertook to draw this body of laws. he necessarily consented and undertook to draw them so as to conform to the requirements of the Royal charter, - the authority upon which they must ultimately rest, and by which they must be controlled. - and that as that charter of itself established the church. the constitution to be pre- pared by him must necessarily have provided for carrying out that purpose.1
A manuscript copy of the constitution, still to be found in the Charleston Library, which tradition asserts to be in the handwriting of the celebrated draftsman. Locke himself, bearing date the 21st of July. 1609, does not contain this clause. The historian Rivers does not, how- ever, believe this manuscript to be Locke's. but considers it a transcript sent out with Sayle.2 However interesting
1 Anderson's History of the Colonial Church, vol. I, 321-323.
2 In this Mr. Rivers is corroborated by Mr. W. Noel Sainsbury, assist- ant keeper of the public records in the State paper office, London, the best authority upon the subject, who writes, December, 1875: " After
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this question may be historically, involving as it does the existence of the very paper upon which the province of Carolina was founded. and its preservation upon the spot on which it was first read and attempted to be put in force, now two hundred and twenty-seven years ago. the presence or absence of this clause in the constitution was not a matter affecting the government of the colony. inas- much as its purpose was already carried out in the Royal charter itself by which the Church of England was estab- lished as the church of the province. It is curious to ob- serve, however. as illustrating the early disregard by the Proprietors of the terms of their charter which became habitual. that the reason they allege for the establishment of the church is not that it is so already prescribed in that instrument as one of the conditions of their title, but because it is the only true and orthodox and national religion, and is. therefore, alone to receive public main- tenance. The fact is that the liberality of the constitutions themselves, for which Locke has been praised, was en- joined by the Royal charter which prohibited the inter- ference with or punishment of any for difference in opinion or practice in matters of religious concurment which did not disturb the civil peace of the province.
Passing from these provisions to secure liberty of con- science, and others to protect the native Indian and to give him an opportunity to learn for himself the reason- ableness of the Christian religion and the peaceableness and unoffensiveness of its professors by their good usage and persuasion, - precepts which all European colonists habitually disregarded and atrociously violated. - these
comparing very carefully the Charleston fac-simile herewith returned, with Shaftesbury MS. and with many other papers in Locke's handwrit- ing, I am of opinion that it is not in Locke's handwriting, but that it is a cotemporary copy." MS. letter, Charleston Library.
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constitutions drawn by him who, in a subsequent treatise on government, approves the doctrine that slavery was but a state of warfare continued,1 proceed to enjoin that "every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slave of what opinion or religion soever." The full significance of this provision we shall have occasion hereafter to disclose when we come to treat of the institution of African slavery in the colony.2 For the present it is enough to observe that the existence of the institution as a rightful and legal one was thus recog- nized, and provision made in advance for its introduction into the province.
In order firmly to establish and maintain these Funda- mental Constitutions, it was provided that a true copy of them should be kept in a great book, by the register of every precinct. and that no person of what degree or condition soever above seventeen years old should have any estate or possession in Carolina, or protection or benefit of the law, who did not subscribe a pledge with his utmost power to defend and maintain them.
It is remarkable that in preparing and adopting these Fundamental Constitutions. the Proprietors were oblivi- ous of the essential fact that under the Royal charter, by which alone they could prescribe constitutions and laws for the province which had been granted them, it had been expressly prescribed that such laws could only be enacted " by and with the advice assent and approbation of the Freemen of the said Province or of their delegates or deputies." Was it likely that such freemen would ever consent to the establishment of a form of government
1 Locke's works, vol. II, 173.
2 See "Slavery in the Province of South Carolina, 1670-1770." by Edward MeCrady, Annual Report of the American Historical Associa- tion, 1896, 652-654.
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the chief scope and object of which was to transfer the rights which had been secured them by the Royal charter to an aristocracy over whom they could have no control ? Such a doubt seems never to have occurred to the Proprietors. Still more strange does this appear when we consider that these Proprietors were seeking to induce emigrants to settle in their new province rather than in the older colonies, which were guaranteeing to all such liberty and equality. We must remember. however, that it was about this time that Sir William Berkeley, one of their body, then in America, as Governor of Virginia. on the eve of Bacon's Rebellion, concluded a report upon that colony with the famous declaration : "I thank God that there are no free schools, no printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience into the world. and printing has divulged them and libels against the best governments. "1
These constitutions doubtless expressed the reactionary sentiment of the Restoration. It will be made to appear in the course of this work that South Carolina was fore- most in her efforts to establish free schools and to provide for the education of her children. the poor as well as the rich, yet in this the first body of laws proposed for her government by absentee Lords, though devised and framed by a student and a philosopher, there was no mention. even, of a school. Public schools were not in accordance with the spirit of the times in England or elsewhere, and it is evident from his essay on education written twenty- four years after that Locke was even then opposed to the gathering together of youths in schools, holding that this manner of education was more productive of forwardness. mischief. and vice than of learning and the graces."
1 Virginio. American Commonwealth Series (Cooke), 226.
2 Locke's works, vol. III, Thoughts concerning Education, TO.
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The whole scheme of the Fundamental Constitutions was visionary. crude, incomplete, and impracticable. For a province yet to be settled, in which society must build itself up from its very foundation. at first at least, beginning in its simplest and rudest forms. an elaborate and intricate system of government was provided, among the regulations for which it was deemed opportune to establish a court of heraldry with power to regulate fashions. games, and sports. It is difficult to use the language of moderation in discussing the provision prohibiting comments or ex- positions of the law, upon the ground that such would tend to obscure and perplex its text. No less preposterous was that declaring that one's age should be reckoned only from the day on which his birth was registered, and not from that on which he was born. It is hard to realize that the author of the Two Treatises on Government of 1689 could have been the designer and framer of the Fun- damental Constitutions of Carolina in 1669. But there was twenty years' difference between the times in which they were composed, and though in that time the philoso- pher had not risen to the conception of a school system for the new country, he had experienced the frowns of restored royalty and had followed his patron to Holland : for thither the Earl of Shaftesbury had only escaped with his life from the tower and there, like his co-proprietor Clarendon, with whom he had quarrelled and against whom he had intrigued. Shaftesbury was to die in exile.
In the dedication of a collection of several of Locke's pieces published under the direction of Anthony Collins. the writer discussing the relative advantages which are possessed by a philosopher over a courtier or politician in the preparation of such a work, it is said that though some may be of opinion that in the matters of state the politician ought to have the preference, this will not in the least
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diminish the value of the Fundamental Constitutions, since not only a philosopher, but a politician of the first rank, was concerned in them.1 It is well that Shaftesbury's reputation, we will not say as a politician but as a states- man, and Locke's as a philosopher, rest upon other works than this extraordinary product of their joint labors.
Regarding the Fundamental Constitutions as fully es- tablished, - though the consent of the freemen had not been obtained, -- the Proprietors then resident in England proceeded to establish a government under them. On the 21st of October, 1669, they met at the Cockpitt to or- ganize the Palatine's Court, whereupon as the Earl of Clarendon was in exile, deserted by his Royal master, Monk, the Duke of Albemarle, was elected the first Pala- tine; the Earl of Craven, the first High Constable; the Lord Berkeley, the first Chancellor ; the Lord Ashley, the first Chief Justice; Sir George Carteret, the first Admiral. Sir John Colleton had died in 1666, leaving Sir Peter. his son, his heir, so the latter was chosen the first High Steward.2 Sir William Berkeley, as has been mentioned, was in America as Governor of Virginia. In this in the outset there was constituted an anomaly. The scheme of the constitution was that of a government of different parts, but of one system - a system of government for the province, and presumably to be carried on in the province. But the Palatine's Court was thus in the initiation of the government established in London.
This body of laws never received the necessary assent and approbation of the freemen of the province, and so was never constitutionally of force; but though not hav- ing the formal sanction of the charter, it is undoubtedly true that its provisions had a marked effect upon the
1 Locke's works, vol. III, 652. 2 Colonial Records of No. Ca., vol. I, 179.
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institutions of the colony and impressed upon the peo- ple, and upon their customs and habits, much of the tone and temper of its spirit. Seigniories, baronies, colonies, and manors were actually laid out, and Landgraves and Caciques appointed, some of whom took possession of their baronies. Some tracts of land in the lower part of South Carolina still. in part at least. bear the names then given them; such, for instance. as the Colleton Barony, the Wadboo Barony, the Broughton Barony, etc. The power to confer titles of honor under the charter. it will be observed, restricted the bestowal of them upon " such of the inhabitants of the said Province " as the Proprietors should think merited the honor; but the Proprietors dis- regarded the restriction, and bestowed them upon persons who had never been in the colony. Thus. for instance. John Locke himself was the first Landgrave made. There is no record that Landgraves James Carteret, Thomas Amy. John Price, Abel Kettleby, or Edward Jauks (or Jenks) or Thomas Lowndes were ever in Carolina. By the constitutions the eldest of the Lords Proprietors, who should be personally present in Carolina, was thereby in fact the deputy of the Palatine, and if no Proprietor nor heir apparent of a Proprietor should be here. then the Palatine should choose for deputy any one of the Landgraves of the Grand Council who should be in the colony. It was probably to meet the provision of the constitutions that all or nearly all the Governors under the Proprietors were made Landgraves, and thus became deputies of the Palatine. Besides the Governors, but three or four Carolinians. i.e. inhabitants of the province, were deemed worthy of being appointed Landgraves.1 By the constitution Landgraves and Caciques were not
1 See Appendix for Devolutions of Proprietary shares and list of Pala- tines, Landgraves, Caciques, and also of Governors.
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allowed after the year 1701 to alienate or assign their dignities, and yet Thomas Lowndes in 1728 procured a patent as assignee of John Price, neither having ever been in the province.1
The Proprietors were sensible, however, that such an elaborate scheme of government could not be put into immediate operation, and though for thirty years they persisted in their efforts to impose its provisions upon the province. they found it necessary in sending out their first colony to provide some temporary laws for the gov- ernment of the adventurers who composed it. These rules were embodied in the commission and instruction of the Governor.
1 Coll. Hist. of So. Ca., vol. I, 174.
CHAPTER V
1669-70
THE failure of the colony at Cape Fear and the glowing account which Sandford had given of the country at Port Royal turned the attention of the Pro- prietors to the latter point, and induced them to devote their efforts to the establishment of a settlement there. In 1667 they fitted out a ship, gave the command of it to Captain William Sayle, and sent him out to bring them some further account of the coast. In his passage Captain Sayle was driven by a storm among the Bahama Islands, which accident he improved to the purpose of acquiring some knowledge of them, particularly of the Island of Providence, which he judged might be of service to the intended settlement of Carolina ; for in case of an invasion from the Spaniards, this island fortified might be made to serve as a check to the progress of their arms or a place of retreat to unfortunate colonists. Leaving Providence, he sailed along the coast of Carolina. where he observed several large navigable rivers emptying them- selves into the ocean, and a flat country covered with woods. He attempted to go ashore in his boat, but ob- serving some Indians on the banks of the river he was deterred; and having explored the coast and mouths of the rivers, he took his departure and returned to England. Why he was so easily frightened by the Indians does not more particularly appear ; but though he did not land.
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he made a most favorable report to his employers, praised their possessions, and encouraged them to engage with vigor in the execution of their project. His report respecting the Bahama Islands induced the Proprietors to apply to the King for a grant of them also, and his Majesty added those between the twenty-second and twenty-seventh degrees to their former dominion.1
No longer depending upon the attempts at colonization from Barbadoes alone, arrangements were now made to send out an expedition to Port Royal which was to be composed of emigrants from England, reinforced by others from Ireland. Barbadoes, and Bermuda. Bv articles of agreement signed by all the Proprietors. each undertook to contribute £500, equal at that time probably to about £2000 or £2500 of present money,2 to be laid out in ship-
1 Hewatt's Hist. of So. Co., 47, 48.
2 It must be borne in mind that the purchasing power of money, i.e. its value, while constantly fluctuating, was formerly much greater than at present. Adam Smith states that during the sixteenth and the first haif of the seventeenth century it fell to about a fourth of what it had been previously, so that the heirs of one who had bought a perpetual annuity in 1490 of € 100 a year were not receiving in reality, in 1650, more than €25 in comparison with that of 1490. "Wealth of Nations, vol. IV. 213. Froude estimated for the same time, i.e. the time of Henry VIII. that for a penny a laborer could buy as much beef, beer. and wine as the laborer of the nineteenth century could for a shilling ; that is, that the purchas- ing power of a penny was in the time of Henry VIII twelve times of the value it maintained when he wrote. History of England, vol. I, 34. These estimates do not exactly coincide, but they agree in the fact of the great depreciation of money value. Mr. Alexander Brown. in his Genesis of the United States. 310, estimates the subscriptions to the Virginia Com- pany, 1610-20, at from four to five times the present value of the pound sterling, making the pound at that time equal to $20 to $25 of our present currency. This estimate has been adopted by Mr. Bruce in his Economical Ilistory of Virginia, vol. 1. 28, vol. II, 172, 247, 249, etr., as a rough measure of the value of the pound in the seventeenth century. This may be accepted as approximately correct, but it must be rettem- bered that the value of money, while generally depreciating, was subject
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ping, arms, ammunition, tools, and provisions for the settle- ment of Port Royal, and a further sum of £200 per annum for the next four years. It was further agreed that any Proprietor neglecting or refusing to pay in any of the said sums should relinquish and convey his share to the rest of the Proprietors. A fleet of three ships was pur- chased at a cost of £3200 168. 6d .; viz. the Carolina. Captain Henry Braine master,1- the same who had accompanied Sandford in his voyage to Port Royal, the Port Royal, John Russell master, and the Albemarle, Edward Baxter master. These vessels were laden with stores, merchandise, munitions of war, and all equipments necessary for planting a colony of two hundred people ; a number which was believed would be strong enough for self-protection and to make a permanent settlement.2
On the 27th of July, 1669, Mr. Joseph West was appointed Governor and Commander-in-chief of the fleet and of the persons embarked in it bound for Carolina until its arrival in Barbadoes, or until another Governor was appointed. Mr. West's instructions accompanying his commission as Governor directed him with all possible speed to sail for Kinsale in Ireland, where he was to pro- cure twenty or twenty-five servants, and then to sail directly to Barbadoes. God sending the fleet safe to Barbadoes, Mr. West was there to furnish himself with
to continuous fluctuation as it is to-day. In this instance we think the value of the money agreed to be contributed by the Proprietors may with some certainty be accepted as stated in the text as from four to five of the present value of the pound.
1 Calendar State Papers, Colonial (Sainsbury, London. 1859), Preface and 54, 55, 99.
In Sandford's account of his voyage the name is spelled Brayne, as in the third chapter of this work.
Shaftesbury Papers; Year Book City of Charleston (Courtenay), 1843, 365 ; Oldmixon, Carolina.
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cotton seed, indigo seed, ginger roots, which roots he was to carry planted in a tub of earth so that they might not die before their arrival at Port Royal ; also, in another tub, he was to carry canes, planted for trial, also the several sorts of vines of that island, and olives, all of which would be procured by Mr. Thomas Colleton, to whom the fleet was consigned. The most minute instructions were also given for his conduct at Port Royal, - the clearing of the lands, building of houses, planting the seeds, and the care of cattle which were to be procured from Vir- ginia. He was to take from Barbadoes half a dozen young sows and a boar, which were to be furnished by Mr. Thomas Colleton if his own funds were not sufficient. Mr. John Rivers, who was to go out as the agent of Lord Ashley, was to take charge of the storehouse containing the materials of war. and to give them out only as directed by the Governor and Council. Captain Henry Braine was placed under the command of West until the arrival of the fleet at Barbadoes, when he was to obey the Governor to be appointed, and to return from Port Royal to Barba- does, or to go to Virginia. as he should be directed by Sir John Yeamans, Mr. Thomas Colleton, and Major Kingsland. If he was sent to Virginia, he was then to take in passengers and other freight for Port Royal.1
Sir John Yeamans, though actively engaged in the political affairs of Barbadoes, still bore the commission of Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Carolina, but his ill success with his colony at Cape Fear had cooled the fervor of the Proprietors, and. though they recommended the expedition to his care and assistance, did not directly reappoint him its Governor, but sent a blank commission to be filled by him according to circumstances.2 With the
1 Hist Sketches of So. Ca. (Rivers), 92, and Appendix, 342-345.
2 Year Book City of Charleston, 1883 (Courtenay), 368.
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commission in blank were also sent deputations from the Proprietors respectively. also in blank, to be filled as was the Governor's. The deputies to be thus appointed were to form the Governor's Council, and for their guidance instructions were annexed to the commissions and deputations.
These instructions1 began with the observation that as the number of people to be set down at Port Royal would be so small, and as there were as yet no Landgraves and Caciques, it would not be possible to put the grand model of government at once into practice. Notwithstanding this, however, in order that they might come as nigh as possible thereto the Governor and Council were instructed :
1. As soon as they arrived at Port Royal they were to summon all the freemen in the colony and require them to elect five persons, who, being joined to the five deputed by the respective Proprietors, were to be the Council, with whose advice and consent, or of at least six of them. all being summoned. they were to govern according to the instructions, and to put in practice what they could of their Fundamental Constitutions.
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