The infant settlement of Albemarle continued to receive accessions from Virginia and New England; and from Bermuda, already famous for the building of fast-sailing ships, came a colony of ship-builders. In 1669, the first laws were enacted by an assembly composed of the governor Stevens, who had succeeded Drummond, a council of six, and twelve delegates chosen by the people. According to the laws of Virginia, land was offered to all new-comers, and immigrant debtors were protected for five years, against any suit for debt contracted beyond the colony. The governor and court constituted a court of justice, and were entitled to a fee of thirty pounds of tobacco on every suit; and the colony, being without any minister of religion, marriage became a civil rite. Three years afterwards the proprietaries solemnly confirmed the settlers in possession of their lands, and granted to them the right of nominating six councillors in addition to the six nominated by the patentees. The right of self-government was thus established on the soil of North Carolina.
In the meantime the ambition of the proprietaries, extending with the extent of their charter, a magnificent scheme of sovereignty was conceived, which was intended not only to give them the wealth of empires but the fame of legislators. All that philosophic intellect and worldly sagacity could do to frame a model government was now done. The Earl of Shaftesbury was deputed by his fellow-proprietaries to frame for this infant empire a constitution commensurate with its intended greatness; and he employed his friend and protégé John Locke, afterwards so well known for his philosophical writings, as his agent for this purpose.
Locke commenced his labours on the principle that “compact is the true basis of government, and the protection of property its great end.” Cold and calculating, with no generous enthusiasm of soul, no sympathetic and aspiring impulses, guided alone by intellect and conventionality, it is no wonder that the “Grand Model,” as the constitution of Carolina was called, failed of practical application, and was, finally, after the vain attempt of many years to enforce it, abandoned as totally inapplicable to its purpose.
It has been well remarked that “the formation of political institutions in the United States was not effected by giant minds or nobles after the flesh. Their truly great legislators became as little children.”
But, futile as was this Grand Model constitution, we must give some idea of it to our readers, to show how little intellect merely and political wisdom can comprehend the principles of successful government or the basis of a prosperous and happy social state.
“The interests of the proprietaries, a government most agreeable to monarchy, and a careful avoidance of a numerous democracy,” are the avowed threefold objects of the Carolina constitution. The proprietaries, eight in number, were never to be increased or diminished; their dignity was hereditary. The vast extent of territory was to be divided into counties, each containing about seven hundred and fifty square miles; to each county appertained two orders of nobility, a landgrave or earl, and two caciques or barons; the land was to be divided into five equal parts, one of which became the inalienable right of the proprietaries, another equally inalienably the property of the nobility, and the remaining three-fifths were reserved for the people, and might be held by lords of manors who were not hereditary legislators, but, like the nobility, exercised judicial powers in their baronial courts. The number of three nobles for each county was to remain unalterable; after the current century no transfer of lands could take place. Each county being divided into twenty-four parts, called colonies, were to be cultivated by a race of hereditary leetmen, or tenants, attached to the soil, each holding ten acres of land at a fixed rent; these tenants not being possessed of any political franchise, but being “adscripts of the soil under the jurisdiction of their lord, without any appeal;” and it was added that “all the children of leetmen shall be leetmen, and so to all generations.”
The political rights of the great body of the people being thus disposed of, and a legislative barrier placed, as it were, against progressive popular improvement and enlightenment, a very complicated system of government was framed for the benefit of the privileged classes. “Besides the Court of Proprietors, invested with supreme executive authority, the president of which was the oldest proprietor, with the title of Palatine, there were seven other courts, presided over by the remaining seven proprietors, with the titles respectively of Admiral, Chamberlain, Chancellor, Chief Justice, High Steward, and Treasurer; besides the president, each of these courts had six councillors appointed for life, two-thirds, at least, of whom must be nobles.” There is something almost childish and ludicrous in the business of some of these supreme and pompous dignitaries of an infant settlement, the inhabitants of which lived in log cabins scattered through the wilderness. The Court of the Admiral had cognisance of shipping and trade; the Chamberlain’s, of pedigrees, festivals, sports, and ceremonies; the Chancellor’s, of state affairs and license of printing; the Constable’s, of war; the Chief Justice’s, of ordinary judicial questions; the High Steward’s, of public works; the Treasurer’s, of finance.
“All these courts united,” says the excellent historian Hildreth, “were to compose a grand council of fifty members, in whom was vested exclusively the right of proposing laws, which required, however, the approval of a parliament of four estates, proprietors, landgraves, caciques, and commoners, to render them valid.
“The four estates composing the parliament were to sit in one chamber, each landgrave and cacique being entitled to a seat, but the proprietors, if they chose, to sit by deputy. Four commoners for each county were the representatives of the commons; the possession of five hundred acres being, however, requisite to qualify for a seat, and fifty acres of land to give an elective vote. The proprietaries in their separate courts had a veto on all acts.”
The people had thus no share whatever in the executive, judicial, or legislative authority.