They completed their labor in the spring of 1669,March after exercising great care. The instrument was composed of one hundred and twenty articles, and was called the Fundamental Constitutions. These were in the highest degree monarchical in character and design. Indeed, the proprietors avowed their design to "avoid making too numerous a Democracy." Two orders of nobility were to be instituted; the higher to consist of landgraves or earls, the lower of caciques or barons. The territory **** was to be divided into counties, each county containing four hundred and eighty thousand acres, with one landgrave and two caciques, a number never to be increased or diminished. There were also to be lords of manors, who like the nobles were entitled to hold courts and exercise judicial functions. Persons holding fifty acres were to be freeholders; the tenants held no political franchise, and could never attain any higher rank. The four Estates of Proprietors, Earls, Barons, and Commons were to sit in one legislative chamber. The proprietors were always to be eight in number; to possess the whole judicial power, and have the supreme direction of all tribunals. None but large property holders were eligible for a seat in the Legislature, where the commons were to have four members for every three of the nobility. An aristocratic majority was thus always secured. In trials by jury, the oppressed had but little hope, for the majority were to decide. Every religion was professedly tolerated, (v) yet the Church of England only was declared to be orthodox, and the national religion of Carolina. (vi) Such is an outline of the principal features of the Constitution by which the proprietaries proposed to govern free colonists in America. It seems very strange that minds like those of Locke and Shaftesbury should have committed such an egregious blunder;
* Anthony Ashley Cooper was born at Winborne in Dorsetshire, in 1621. He was educated at Oxford, studied law, and when in his nineteenth year, he was chosen representative for Tewksbury. He was hostile to Cromwell, and took an aetive part in the restoration of Charles the Second. For his services Charles made him Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord of the Treasury, and created him Lord Ashley. In 1672 he was made Earl of Shaftesbury, and appointed Lord Chancellor. He resigned his office within a year, but held it again in 1679. During that year he conferred on his country the benefit of the Habeas Corpus Act. He afterward opposed the unconstitutional measures of the king, and was twice committed to the Tower. He finally withdrew to Holland, where he died, January 22, 1683.
** John Locke was born at Wrington, near Bristol, England, in 1632. He was educated at Westminster school. He studied the science of medicine and became eminent, but he was more noted for his proficiency in polite literature. His health would not allow him to practice the medical art, and in 1664 he accepted the secretaryship to Sir William Swan, who was sent envoy to the Elector of Brandenburg. He turned his attention to politics and jurisprudence, and because of his skill and knowledge on sueh subjects, Shaftesbury employed him to assist him in drawing up a charter for North Carolina. While at Montpelier, for the benefit of his health, he commenced his celebrated Essay on the Human Understanding. When Shaftesbury went to Holland, Locke accompanied him. There, on the death of the earl, envy and malice persecuted him. He was accused of treason, and for twelve months he kept himself concealed. He returned to England after the Revolution in 1688, and was honored by government appointments. He was a Commissioner of Trade and Plantations for five years, when declining health made him resign the office in 1700. He died on the twenty-eighth of October, 1704, in the seventy-third year of his age.
*** This document is supposed to be chiefly the work of Shaftesbury.
**** The territory comprising more than seven degrees of latitude from the Nansemond, south, included the whole of the present North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, a good portion of Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, a large portion of Mexico, and the whole of Upper and Lower California.
* (v) There were some Quakers in the Albemarle colony, and when, in 1672, William Edmunson and George Fox visited that settlement, many were added to that persuasion. Near the Roanoke, in that region, and in the counties of Orange, Guilford, and Randolph, are the only settlements of that sect in North Carolina The Quakers were the first to organize a religious government in that state.
* (vi) Bancroft, ii., 136-150. Chalmers, 517-526. Locke's Works, x., 194. Martin, i., 148-150. This instrument is published at length in the Appendix to the first volume of Martin's History of North Carolina
Abrogation of the Constitutions.—Government Officers imprisoned.—Governor Sothel banished.—John Archdale.
that men so wise and sagacious should have attempted such a solemn farce. Albemarle, the chief settlement, had only about fourteen hundred "working hands," and the habitations in Carolina were chiefly log huts. The whole population was hardly four thousand in number. Where were the landgraves, and caciquies, and lords of manors to be found among them? and where were mansions for the nobility and aristocracy? The error was soon perceived, yet the proprietaries insisted upon commencing the system with a view to its further accomplishment. But the spirit of the whole thing was adverse to the feelings of the people; and, after a contest of twenty years, these Constitutions were abrogated, and the people were allowed to be governed by their earlier and more simple and appropriate code under Stevens, the successor of Drummond—a governor with his council of twelve, six appointed by the proprietaries, and six chosen by the Assembly; and a House of Delegates chosen by the freeholders.