and power. The eldest of the eight Proprietors was always to be Palatine, and at his decease was to be succeeded by the eldest of the seven survivors. The Palatine's court was to sit in place of the King, to review all laws made by the Colonial Legislature, and to appoint a Governor, who was the King's representative in the colony. Three orders of nobility were created, called Barons, Cassiques, and Landgraves, the first to possess 12,000, the second 24,000, and the third 48,000 acres of land, and their possessions were to be inalienable. An upper and a lower House of Assembly were to be established, which, with the Governor, constituted the Parliament. A sort of feudal military system was provided, and all the inhabitants from sixteen to sixty years of age were subject to the call of the Governor and Council. Three terms of religious communion were fixed. 1st. Belief in a God. 2d. That He is to be worshipped. 3d. That it is lawful and the duty of every man, when called upon by those in authority, to bear witness to the truth. Without acknowledging these tests no man was permitted to be a freeman or to have any estate or habitation in Carolina. But religious toleration within these limits was ensured, and all persecution for religious differences was expressly forbidden. Supreme Courts were established, but it was declared to be a base and vile thing to plead the cause of another for money or reward.

It is not surprising that such a system of government should have been distasteful to the colonists. The introduction of Locke's Constitution was strenuously resisted by the people, and its practical working was soon found to be so unsatisfactory that, in 1693, the Proprietors, upon public petition, abolished the Constitution, and for a considerable time the colony was regulated by certain temporary rules and instructions prescribed by the Proprietors. The government was of the form which Englishmen naturally adopt. The executive power was represented by the Proprietors, who appointed the Governor and other officers; the Legislature, by a Council or Upper House, also appointed by the Proprietors, and a Commons House of Assembly chosen by the freemen. The first popular election in South Carolina of which there is any record, was held in April, 1672, under a proclamation of the Grand Council, requiring all the freeholders to elect a new Parliament. From this body five Councillors were chosen, who, with the Governor and the Deputies of the Lords Proprietors, formed the Grand Council.

Such a condition of things could not last. The rule of the Proprietors, exercised, as it was, from a distance, and with little regard to the local necessities of the colony, soon became intolerable to the free spirit of the people, and in 1719 the colonists at last made up their minds to get rid of the Lords Proprietors altogether. The history of the Revolution,

which ensued, need not be given in detail. It was bloodless but decisive. The colonists organized a convention, appointed a new governor, and announced their intention of casting off "the confused, helpless, and negligent government of the Lords Proprietors," and putting themselves directly under that of the British crown. In 1721 the government of George I. decided in their favor, and in 1729, in the reign of George II., the Province was purchased by the crown from the Lords Proprietors, and was divided into North and South Carolina. The form of government conferred on the colony was modeled upon the English Constitution. It consisted of a Governor, Council and an Assembly. To them the power of making laws was committed. The King appointed the Governor and Council; the Assembly was elected by the people.

During the next half century the population of South Carolina steadily increased. Many inducements were offered to emigrants. Bounties were given, free lands assigned, and the door was thrown open to settlers of every description. Parties of emigrants arrived constantly from Great Britain and the various countries of Europe. Between the years 1730 and 1750 a large number of settlers from Great Britain and Ireland, Germany and the Palatinate, Switzerland and Holland, found homes in South Carolina. The Germans established themselves chiefly in that portion of the country around Orangeburg and along the Congaree and Wateree Rivers; the Scotch-Irish settled in Williamsburg; the Welsh along the Pee Dee River, in what are now the counties of Marlboro and Marion, and the Swiss along the banks of the Savannah River. After the Scotch rebellions of 1715. and 1745 many of the expatriated Highlanders came to Carolina. The population, which had hitherto been confined to a radius of about eighty miles from the coast, now began to spread into the interior of the State. A large territory was acquired from the Indians, embracing the present counties of Edgefield, Abbeville, Laurens, Newberry, Union, Spartanburg, York, Chester, Fairfield and Richland, and settlements were soon made all through those fertile portions of the country. Fifteen hundred French arrived from Nova Scotia, and in 1764 a French Protestant colony settled in Abbeville District, and gave the names of Bourdeaux and New Rochelle to their settlements. The cultivation of wheat, hemp, flax and tobacco was introduced by colonists who came from Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and that of the vine and of silk by emigrants from the Palatinate. Indigo, also, was for some years profitably cultivated. When the War of Independence began, the population of South Carolina amounted to forty thousand souls. It is needless to dwell upon the part played by South Carolina in the Revolutionary War. It belongs to the history of the whole country, and cannot be treated of here. During the war, of course, the growth

of the population was checked, but this was amply compensated by the progress made by the State after the peace of 1783. Multitudes from Europe and the more Northern parts of America poured into South Carolina; and Greenville and Pendleton Districts, which were obtained in 1777, by treaty founded on conquests, from the Cherokee Indians, filled so rapidly with settlers that in the year 1800 those two Districts alone are estimated to have contained upwards of 30,000 inhabitants. The last group of settlers which the State received from foreign countries consisted of several hundred French, chiefly from St. Domingo, who settled for the most part in the vicinity of Charleston..

Reference has been made to the Constitution of John Locke and to the forms of government which superseded it under the Lords Proprietors, and, later, under the royal administration of the Province. For the first ninety-nine years Charleston was the seat of justice for Provincial Carolina. In 1712, a Court of Chancery was established in the persons of the Governor and his Council, and, later, in 1769, an Act was passed by which new District Courts were established at Beaufort, Georgetown, Cheraw, Camden, Orangeburg and Ninety-Six. The Penal Code of Great Britain, when introduced into this Province, underwent considerable revision. An Act was passed in 1712 making certain English Statutes of force in the Province, and by that Act the English Common Law was declared to be of full force in Carolina, except in a few comparatively unimportant particulars. The ancient tenures were abolished, and free and common soccage was declared to be the tenure of all lands in the Province. The Habeas Corpus Act of Charles II. was also adopted and enacted. The Church of England enjoyed a nominal supremacy, but liberty of conscience was fully guaranteed to all persons; and all religious denominations worked together in the dissemination of moral and relig ious training. The Presbyterians were among the first settlers, and were always numerous in South Carolina. The Independents, or Congregationalists, in conjunction with the Presbyterians, were formed into a church in Charleston as early as 1682; and the Baptists formed a church there in 1685. The Methodists established themselves in 1785. The French Protestants formed a church in Charleston in 1700. The Jews have had a synagogue in Charleston since the year 1756; and about the same period the German Protestants formed themselves into a congregation. The Roman Catholics were not organized into a church in South Carolina until 1791. The Quakers were very early in the field, and one of the most distinguished Governors of the Province, John Archdale, after whom one of the streets in Charleston is still called, was a Quaker. The impulse towards freedom, which had driven the emigrants who settled Carolina from their homes in the Old World, kept alive in their

breasts the spirit of religious liberty and toleration, and all through the history of the State the same spirit has manifested itself in shaping legislation and administering government. Such persecution for opinion's sake as defaced the annals of some of the other American colonies has no place in the history of South Carolina.

When the State threw off the royal authority, it adopted (in 1776) a provisional Constitution, and, so far as the civil power could be exercised, this Constitution was in operation during the Revolutionary War. After peace was declared, it became necessary to devise a more permanent form of government, and, in 1790, a convention was called, which, after mature deliberation, established a Constitution, which, with but few modifications, continued to be the law of the State until the end of the great civil war. As that Constitution has been superseded by the one now in operation, and which was adapted to the new conditions and relations of society growing out of the results of the civil war, it will not be necessary here to detail its special provisions. The judgment of a learned and eloquent writer may, however, be fitly quoted upon its general scope and character. "Though the form of government in South Carolina," says Ramsay, "has been materially altered six or seven times, yet each change has been for the better. In the eighteenth century, while experiment and the reasoning powers of man were improving the arts and sciences, the art of government was by no means stationary. South Carolina, as one of the United States, and acting her part in the American Revolution, has practically enforced the following improvements in the art of government: 1. That all power is derived from the people, and ought to be exercised for their benefit; that they have a right to resist the tyranny and oppression of their rulers, and to change their government, whenever it is found not to afford that protection to life, liberty and property for the protection of which it was instituted. 2. That it is the true policy of States to afford equal protection to the civil rights of all individuals and of all sects of religionists, without discrimination or preference, and without interference, on the part of the State, in all matters that relate only to the intercourse between man his Maker. 3. That the ultimate end and object of all laws and government is the happiness of the people, and that, therefore, no laws should be passed, or taxes or other burdens imposed on them, for the benefit of a part of the community, but only such as operate equally and justly on all for the general good. 4. That war shall only be declared, or entered upon, by the solemn act of the people, whose blood and treasure is to be expended in its prosecution. A government founded on reason and the rights of man, and exclusively directed to its proper object, the advancement of human happiness, was first established by common

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consent in the eighteenth century, and in the woods of America. Its foundation in South Carolina rests on the following principles: No power is exercised over the people but what had been granted by them with the express view of its being used for the general good. No laws bind them, nor are any taxes imposed on them, but with the consent of themselves, or representatives freely and fairly chosen every second year by a majority of votes. There are no privileged orders. All are equally subject to the laws, and the vote of any one elector goes as far as that of any other. No freeman can be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold, liberties or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner destroyed or deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. Religion is so perfectly free that all sects have equal rights and privileges, and each individual may join with any or with none, as he pleases, without subjecting himself to any civil inconvenience. These and similar principles of liberty and equality pervade the Constitution and laws of the State. The first is the work of the people in their sovereign capacity, and prescribes limits to all the departments of government. These departments are threelegislative, executive, and judicial; for it is necessary in regular government that laws be enacted, expounded and applied, and finally executed. The duties required and the burdens imposed by the laws are equally binding on the law makers as on the people. They who are legislators cease to be so in the Senate at the end of four years, and in the House of Representatives at the end of two, and all power reverts to the people till, by a new election, they invest the men of their choice with authority to act for them. Every precaution is taken to identify the interests of the people and their rulers. If the electors are not wanting to themselves, the laws thus cautiously made, impartially expounded, and liberally executed by the men of their choice, must be the collected will and wisdom of the people deliberately pursuing their own happiness as far as is practicable in the imperfect state of human nature. Such, after two revolutions in one century, and three attempts to form an efficient Constitution, is the result of the efforts of the people of South Carolina for the preservation and advancement of their political interests." [Ramsay's History of South Carolina, Vol. 2, p. 139, et seq.]

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The period which elapsed between the two great wars was one of constant growth and prosperity. Under the operation of the constitutional government described by Ramsay, the progress of South Carolina was marked and steady. The various nationalities which have been shown to have contributed to her population became gradually welded together into a homogenous whole, and the upper districts of the State soon became the homes of thriving and industrious settlers. County seats were