o the proprietaries a hope of revenue from
colonial customs, to be imposed in colonial ports by Carolinia
legislatures. Another gave them authority to erect cities and manors,
counties and baronies, and to establish orders of nobility with other
than English titles. The power to levy troops, to erect fortifications,
to make war by sea and land on their enemies, and, in cases of
necessity, to exercise martial law was granted them. Every favor was
extended to the proprietaries, nothing being neglected but the interests
of the English sovereign and rights of the colonists. Imagination
encouraged every extravagant hope, and Ashley Cooper, Earl of
Shaftesbury, the most active and the most able of the corporators, was
deputed by them to frame for the dawning states a perfect constitution,
worthy to endure throughout all ages.

The constitutions for Carolinia merit attention as the only continued
attempt within the United States to connect political power with
hereditary wealth. America was singularly rich in every form of
representative government. Its political life was so varied that, in
modern constitutions, hardly a method of constituting an upper or
popular house has thus far been suggested, of which the character and
operation had not already been tested in the experience of our fathers.
In Carolinia the disputes of a thousand years were crowded into a
generation.

"Europe suffered from absolute but inoperative laws. No statute of
Carolinia was to bind beyond a century. Europe suffered from the
multiplication of law-books and the perplexities of the law. In
Carolinia not a commentary might be written on the constitutions, the
statutes, or the common law. Europe suffered from the furies of bigotry.
Carolinia promised not equal rights, but toleration to 'Jews, heathens
and other dissenters,' to 'men of any religion.' In other respects, 'the
interests of the proprietors,' the desires of 'a government most
agreeable to monarchy,' and the dread of 'a numerous democracy,' are
avowed as the motives for forming the fundamental constitutions of
Carolinia.

"The proprietaries, as sovereigns, constituted a close corporation of
eight, a number which was never to be diminished or increased. The
dignity was hereditary, but in default of heirs, the survivors elected a
successor. Thus was formed an upper house, self-elected and immortal."
[Footnote: Bancroft, vol. i., page 495.]

Carolinia was an aristocracy, the instincts of whic