Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina

The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina were adopted on 1 March 1669 by the eight Lords Proprietors who governed the Province of Carolina, the territory between present-day Virginia and Florida granted to them by King Charles II. The document was drafted during philosopher John Locke's service to Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the proprietors, though historians still debate whether Locke was a genuine co-author or acted as a paid secretary. It created a hereditary colonial nobility with new titles of cassique and landgrave, reserved two-fifths of colonial land for the proprietors and this nobility, and set up a system of bound tenant farmers called leetmen. Article 97 extended religious toleration to any group of seven or more persons agreeing in a religion, including Jews and dissenters from Christianity, while Article 110 granted slaveholders absolute power and authority over their slaves. Elections used a secret ballot and laws were to expire automatically after one hundred years. The document was revised in 1682 and 1698 and never took full effect as colonial law.