wisdom of such a provision, at this day, when even our present systems of naturalization are objected against. There was inserted in the constitutions no power to amend. The Proprietors, we may suppose, reserved this to themselves. But this brings us to the question,-Had they the right to ordain the constitutions at all? Their charter required the consent of freeholders, who were not, certainly, consulted in this instance, much less did they consent.

But let us return to history. In 1670, came over the first colony under the charter. The planting was effected under the direction of the Proprietors. At their expense all the necessaries were furnished.* With the colony came a rough draft of the constitutions. We shall witness their fate. No attempt was made to enforce them. It would have been vain. A government was indeed required, but of quite a different character. One was established. Some historians speak of it as a military government,-but liberty was one of its elements. The government was temporary: a legislature of twenty delegates, elected by the people; a council of ten,-five by the appointment of the legislature, and five by the Proprietors. A Proprietor's Governor was already on the spot. The complete constitutions arrived ;-were they to supersede the present establishment? The Proprietors sent over temporary laws;t-were these to be enforced? Now were the times pregnant with dissension and party strife.

The colony had reached another stage. The Barbadoes planters, with their negro slaves, were settled. The Dutch, from the Hudson, had arrived. The sons of Ireland and Scotia were there too; and France's generous Huguenots sought in Carolina, what the revocation of the Edict of

Horne's "Description of the Province" had been published five years. It painted the country in the most glowing colors, and offered the most favorable terms to settlers. They were to enjoy great privileges: much greater than the Proprietors, in the event, were willing to allow. Large bounties of land to free men and women; also to servants, after their terms of service. "If any Maid or single Woman," said the paper, "have a desire to go over, they will think themselves in the Golden Age, when Men paid a Dowry for their Wives; for if they be but Civil, and under 50 years of Age, some honest Man or other will purchase them for their Wives."-Car. Coll. p. 17. We may speculate as to the effect of this upon the spinsters of that happy period! As to government, the emigrants might present thirteen persons, from whom a council of six, and a governor for three years, would be selected by the Proprietors. An assembly of their own freemen should meet to pass laws. 2 Car. Coll. p. 282.

+ For these see 2 Car. Coll. p. 404.

Nantes denied them at home. Charleston was built, (1680.) "On the spot where opulence now crowds the wharves of the most prosperous mart on our Southern seaboard, among ancient groves that swept down to the rivers' banks, and were covered with the yellow jasmine, which burdened the vernal zephyrs with its perfumes, the cabins of graziers began the city. Long after, the splendid vegetation which environs Charleston, especially the vine and cedar and cypress trees, along the broad road which is now Meetingstreet, delighted the observer by its perpetual verdure." This is Bancroft's language. "In short," says old John Archdale, "out of Charles-Town, for three or four Miles, called the Broadway, is so delightful a Road, and so pleasantly Green, that I believe no Prince in Europe, by all their Art, can make so pleasant a Sight for the whole Year." The Proprietors, too, in their turn, had become restless. Larger drafts had been made upon their purses than they expected or desired. Prospects of any return were hopeless. "We must be silly, indeed, said they, to maintain idle men." The temporary government of the colonists little pleased them. The enforcement of the "grand model" was alone in their hearts. From this the people rebelled.

Thus stood matters. Mutual distrust hastened on the crisis. It came. The efforts of the Proprietors to enforce the collection of foreign debts,-to apportion the representation, of which Charleston enjoyed a monopoly, to apply the navigation laws of England,-were deemed odious. But the Proprietors were innocent, so far as the navigation laws were concerned. These laws existed before the charter, and, of course, were not repealed by it. Such a construction would admit the dispensing power of the king, with all its train of revolutionary consequences, and yet this construction was contended for. "The principles of the Carolinians," says George Chalmers, "and the doctrine so fashionable at the Court of James, which sapped the foundations of his throne, were therefore exactly the same." The contests of the churchmen, etc., which Archdale had struggled so much to heal, were at their height. Every thing was disorder in the colony. A plaint went up to the Crown. The Crown heard it, and issued a "quo warranto" to vacate the charter. But a compromise ensued. Then met the assembly of 1685. A majority of its members stood out against the fundamental constitutions, and were excluded. Scattering themselves

among the people, they added every where fuel to the flame. Another parliament, the elections turned on this contest with the Proprietors. The members met to oppose. Business was out of the question. They would do nothing but pro"One of the protesting members," says the royalist Chalmers, "signed his mark, as he could not write. We may infer the extent of bis political knowledge."

The notorious Seth Sothel, from North-Carolina, appeared in the midst at this time as an evil spirit. He was a Proprietor. To be a usurper was the easiest thing in the world. The people hailed him with applause. The governor and council opposed him to no purpose. But his dominion was of short duration. The hands that elevated were among the first to depose. To appease the general ferment, the Proprietors resolve, in 1693, "the constitutions to be no longer in force."

Thus passed away the labours of Locke. Thus forever pass away those arbitrary systems, which, calculated for the abstract man, would be applied experimentally by philosophy to the living and moving mass. A lesson, here, for all subsequent ages. Let men gather hence where is the true wisdom in establishing government and laws. Let them see that Deity has chosen the lesser things of this world to confound the mighty. Let them see how practical wisdom laughs to scorn abstract philosophy, when it would carry into execution its ideal schemes. Men are too much governed. Society best regulates itself without arbitrary restraints. Philosophers make indifferent legislators. There is a common law of government, and that is derived from the wisdom of all ages. Every attempt to systematize has failed. The world has long laughed at the plans of government which grave and learned heads have devised, the "Oceanicas,' the "Utopias," the "Perfect Governments," of such men as Plato and Bacon and Harrington and Hume. Men have been amused, too, at the absurdities of the French philosophers. They laughed, in this instance, at the "unalterable constitutions" of Locke and Shaftsbury, and trampled them under feet with contempt. In twenty-three years the immortal instrument was dead. How contemptible, then, the claims of human wisdom!

But the Proprietors were not so easy to yield their every claim. Another attempt at a set of constitutions was made in 1698. The iniquitous Capt. Jas. Moore was governor at

the time. He called a parliament,-influenced the sheriff, says an old historian,* "that strangers, servants, aliens, mulattoes and negroes, and all Frenchmen, were polled and returned." The act of 1704 passed against dissenters-"above two-thirds of the people, and the richest and soberest among them." The act required conformity to the Church of England and its sacraments, as the qualification for members of assembly. It passed by a majority of one. The attempt by the same parliament to repeal it failed. The Proprietors countenanced and adopted the law. The matter came before the English House of Lords. They declared that the Proprietors had, in this act, vacated their charter. Queen Anne instructed her attornies to sue out a quo warranto against the charter. Oldmixon, who wrote in 1708, speaks of the cause as still pending.†

The Revolution of 1719. Nothing could prevent the shock. The moment had arrived when freemen should legislate for themselves. The English constitution was broad enough to cover its colony. A government which could inspire neither love nor fear, was already paralytic. Its vitality was gone. Men looked beyond it. In vain the colo

* Oldmixon, 2 Car. Coll., p. 420.

+ In 1712, an act of Assembly was passed for putting in force, in the colo ny, upwards of three hundred English statutes, extending from Magna Charta to 25 Geo. II. Among these acts is that of 1 James I., "against conjuration, witchcraft and dealings with evil and wicked spirits." Dr. Cooper, at the end of his second volume, in a note upon the statute, sums up much of the curious learning that pertains to the subject, and exonerates our ancestors for yielding in this instance to the popular superstitions. He certainly shows that our ancestors were sustained by much learned authority. Even in our own State, Chief Justice Trott once delivered a learned charge, most elaborately maintaining the existence of witchcraft. A case occurred in 1813 or '14, in Lancaster, S. C. Several were indicted for an assault on an old woman. The defence was, that she had practised diabolical acts upon a young girl, and that the persons indicted brought the old woman to touch the girl, and say over her, "God bless you!" With this, of course, the girl recovered! Judge Johnson presided at the trial. The girl being permitted to testify, swore that, "being fatigued one evening at her labors, she lay down to rest; that Barbara Powers, the prosecutrix, came in and sat upon her, and choked her with great violence. After this, Barbara raised her up, converted her into a horse, rode her to Lancaster village, went through the key-hole into several shops, brought out goods of great value, loaded her with them, and rode her into Chesterfield with her booty. With the severity of her almost incessant hardships in the service of the witch, her health and strength greatly declined."

No inconsiderable number of witches are said to have existed in Winnsboro', S. C., in 1792. By a sort of Judge Lynch Court of Witch Doctors, several were tried, found guilty, and punished by stripes, burning their feet at a bark fire, so that the soles came off, etc., ete. 2 Stat. at Large, p. 743.

nists implore aid in their disastrous Indian wars; the "incorporated noblemen" were unwilling or unable to grant it. The crown was not disposed to interfere with the concerns of the Proprietary. The attempt was made in England to reduce all the chartered governments in America to legal ones, but failed. State securities were issued to defray the great expenses of military defence. These depreciated. Foreign merchants protested through the Proprietors on account of their consequent losses. The Proprietors called into being the veto power, and the power of repeal. They declared null and void several offending laws of the colonists. The law extending elections to all the parishes, shared this fate. A few years before they had been earnest for the passage of a similar law, in despite of all opposition. They protested, now, that one of the laws was contrary to the charter. The colonists retorted upon them,-the charter was already a dead letter. They based themselves here on the opinion of the House of Lords. The law "on elections" was opposed virulently by Chief Justice Trott and Mr. Rhett. It was too democratic and too hostile to their immense influence in the then system of elections. The Proprietors' right to repeal laws was also contested; at all events, said the colonists, their deputies have already assented. The act of deputies is their own act. Qui facit per alium, facit per se. Richard Johnson, Esq., arrived at this time, with full power to settle the differences. To the people he soon endeared himself. Trott became every day more infamous; he carried himself so arbitrarily,-was so hostile to popular rights. His power in the many courts over which he presided, was extraordinary. Appeals went up from Justice Trott to Justice Trott. Thirty articles of impeachment were handed in against him. They were disregarded, and the thanks of his masters in England tendered for his zeal. Johnson was commanded to dissolve the parliament, and assemble a new one forthwith on the old election law. A council of twelve was associated with him; the former one of seven was abolished. He was instructed to grant no more lands on any pretence whatever. The cry on every hand was, the charter, the charter. The new council was in violation of it(?)— the land regulation was in violation of it. The charter looked to the settlement of the country; granting lands was one of its conditions; hundreds came over on its faith, and on the faith of acts passed in pursuance of it. "Five hun