150 patrons. CONSTITUTIONS FOR CAROLINA. CHAP. thing to plead for money or reward," could not but XIII. compel the less educated classes to establish between 1669. themselves and the nobility the relation of clients and While every religion was tolerated, the church of England-it is the only clause engrafted upon the constitutions by the proprietaries against the wishes of Locke'-was declared to be the only true and orthodox, the national religion of Carolina, and therefore alone to receive public maintenance by grants from the colonial parliament. 1670. Mar. L. Such were the constitutions devised for Carolina by Shaftesbury and Locke, by the statesman who was the type of the revolution of 1688, and the philosopher who was the antagonist of Descartes and William Penn. Several of our American writers have attempted to exonerate Locke from his share in the work which they condemn; but the constitutions, with the exception I have named, are in harmony with the principles of his philosophy, and with his theories on government. To his late old age he preserved with care the evidence of his legislative labors, as a monument to his fame; and his admirers esteemed him the superior of the contemporary Quaker king, the rival of "the ancient philosophers," to whom the world had "erected statues." The constitutions were signed in March, 1670, and in England became the theme of extravagant applause. "The model," said Blome,3 in 1672, "is esteemed by all judicious persons without compare." Empires," added an admirer of Shaftesbury, "will be ambitious of subjection to the noble government which deep 1 Constitutions, sect. 96. Locke's Works, x. 194. Life, in i. xxv.xxvi. 2 An autograph is said to be in the Charleston library. See Reports of the Historical Committee, &c. 1835, p. 10. 3 Blome's America, 138 1 XIII. wisdom has projected for Carolina ;" and the propri- CHAP. etaries believed they had set their seals to "a sacred and unalterable" instrument, which they fearlessly decreed should endure "forever." As far as depended upon the proprietaries, the government was immediately organized; and Monk, duke of Albemarle, was constituted palatine. But the contrast between the magnificent model of a constitution and the humble settlements of Carolina, rendered the inappropriateness of the forms too ludicrously manifest. Was there room for a palatine and land graves, for barons and lords of manors, for an admiralty court and a court of heraldry, among the scattered cabins between the Chowan and the ocean? Albemarle had been increased by fresh emigrants 1665 from New England, and by a colony of ship-builders from the Bermudas, who lived contentedly with Stevens as chief magistrate, under a very wise and 1667 simple form of government. A few words A few words express its outlines; a council of twelve, six named by the proprietaries, and six chosen by the assembly; an assembly, composed of the governor, the council, and twelve delegates from the freeholders of the incipient settlements,―formed a government worthy of popular confidence. No interference from abroad was anticipated; for freedom of religion, and security against taxation, except by the colonial legislature, were solemnly conceded. The colonists were satisfied; the more so, as their lands were confirmed to them, by a solemn grant, May on the terms which they themselves had proposed.3 1668. 1. The authentic record of the legislative history of 1669. North Carolina, begins with the autumn of 1669,1 1 W. Talbot's Dedication of Lederer's Discoveries. So, too, Wilson, in the Dedication, in 1682, to his tract on Carolina. 2 Martin, i. 142. 3 Williamson, i. 259. Martin, i. 146. 4 Chalmers, 525, 555, from pro 152 EARLY LEGISLATION IN NORTH CAROLINA. CHAP. When the legislators of Albemarle, ignorant of the XIII. scheme which Locke and Shaftesbury were maturing, 1669. framed a few laws, which, however open to objection, were suited to the character, opinions, and manners, of the inhabitants, and which, therefore, endured long after the designs of Locke were abandoned in despair. New settlements invite the adventurer and welcome the needy. The strictest rule for the recovery of debts, so much desired in mercantile communities, where large trusts are necessarily reposed in individuals, and where delay becomes a failure, was not suited to the less anxious lives and the universal hospitality of a purely agricultural community. The planters of Albemarle, giving a five years' security to the emigrant debtor, enacted that none should for five years be sued for any cause of action arising out of the country. Marriage was made a civil contract, requiring for its validity nothing more than the consent of parties before a magistrate with witnesses. New settlers were exempted from taxation for a year. Was it the care for peace, or the instinct of monopoly, which prohibited strangers from trading with the neighboring Indians? As every adventurer who joined the colony received a bounty in land, frauds were checked by withholding a perfect title, till the emigrant should have resided two years in the colony. members of this early legislature probably received no compensation; to meet the expenses of the governor and council, a fee of thirty pounds of tobacco was exacted in every lawsuit. Such was the simple legislation of men, who, being destitute of fortune, had prietary papers, and therefore the The The assembly referred to in the grant of May 1, 1668, must have been an earlier assembly. XIII. roamed in quest of it. The laws were sufficient, were CHAP. confirmed by the proprietaries, were reenacted in 1715, and were valid in North Carolina for more than 1670. half a century.1 1670 to Hardly had these few laws been established, when the new constitution was forwarded to Albemarle, and the governor was doomed to repeated fruitless attempts at its introduction. The nature of the people ren- 1674. dered its introduction impossible; and its promulgation did but favor anarchy by invalidating the existing system, which it could not replace. The proprietaries, contrary to stipulations with the colonists, superseded the existing government; and the colonists resolutely rejected the substitute. Far different was the welcome with which the people of North Carolina met the first messengers of religion. From the commencement of the settlement, 1672 there seems not to have been a minister in the land; there was no public worship but such as burst from the hearts of the people themselves, if at times natural feeling took the form of words, and the planters hailed Heaven as they went forth to the tasks of the morning. But man is by nature prone to religious impressions; and when at last William Edmundson came to visit his Quaker brethren among the groves of Albemarle, "he met with a tender people ;"2 delivered his doctrine "in the authority of truth," and made converts to the society of Friends. A quarterly meeting of discipline was established; and the sect, of which opposition to spiritual authority is the badge, was the first to organize a religious government in Carolina.3 1 Martin, i. 146. VOL. II. 2 Fox's Journal, 453 3 Martin, i. 155, 156. 20 154 GEORGE FOX IN NORTH CAROLINA. XIII. CHAP. In the autumn of the same year, George Fox, the father of the sect, the upright man, who could say of 1672. himself, "What I am in words, I am the same in life," travelled across "the great bogs," of the Dismal Swamp, commonly "laying abroad anights in the woods by a fire," till at last he reached a house in Carolina, and obtained the luxury of a mat by the fireside. Carolina had ever been the refuge of Quakers and "renegadoes "2 from ecclesiastical oppression; and Fox was welcomed to their safe asylum. The people "lived lonely in the woods," with no other guardian to their solitary houses than a watch-dog. There have been religious communities, which, binding themselves by a vow to a life of study and reflection, have planted their monasteries in the solitudes of the desert, on the place where they might best lift up their hearts to contemplative enjoyments. Here was a colony of men from civilized life, scattered among the forests, hermits with wives and children, resting on the bosom of nature, in perfect harmony with the wilderness of their gentle clime. With absolute freedom of conscience, benevolent reason was the simple rule of their conduct. Such was the people to whom George Fox explained the beautiful truth that gives vitality to his sect, "opening many things concerning the light and spirit of God that is in every one," without distinction of education or race. He became the guest of the governor of the province, who, with his wife, "received him lovingly." The plantations of that day were upon the bay, and along the streams that flow into it: the rivers and the inlets were the highways of Carolina; the boat and the lighter birchen skiff the only 1 Fox, 345. 2 Lord Culpepper, in Chalmers, 356. |