The Fundamental Constitutions of the Carolina Company

Six. That the number of eight proprietors may be constantly kept, if, upon the vacancy of any proprietorship, the seven surviving proprietors shall not choose a landgrave to be a proprietor before the second biennial parliament after the vacancy, then the next biennial parliament but one, after such vacancy, shall have power to choose any landgrave to be a proprietor.

Nine. There shall be just as many landgraves as there are counties, and twice as many caziques, and no more. These shall be the hereditary nobility of the province, and by right of their dignity be members of parliament. Each landscape shall have four baronies, and each cazique two baronies, hereditarily and unalterably annexed to and settled upon the said dignity.

Fourteen. Whosoever, by right of inheritance, shall come to be landgrave or cazique, shall take the name and arms of his predecessor in that dignity, to be from thenceforth the name and arms of his family and their posterity.

Fifteen. Since the dignity of proprietor, landgrave, or cazique cannot be divided, and the signiories or baronies thereunto annexed must forever all entirely descend with and accompany that dignity, whensoever, for want of heirs male, it shall descend on the issue female, the eldest daughter and her heirs shall be preferred, and in the inheritance of those dignities, and in the signiories or baronies annexed, there shall be no coheirs.

Eighteen. The lords of signiories and baronies shall have power only of granting estates not exceeding three lives, or twenty-one years, in two-thirds of said signiories or baronies, and the remaining third shall be always demesne.

Twenty-one. Every lord of a manor, within his own manor, shall have all the rights, powers, jurisdictions, and privileges which a landgrave or cazique hath in his baronies.

Twenty-two. In every signiory, barony, and manor, all the leet-men shall be under the jurisdiction of the respective lords of the said signiory, barony, or manor, without appeal from him. Nor shall any leet-man or leet-woman have liberty to go off from the land of their particular lord and live anywhere else, without license obtained from their said lord, under hand and seal.

Twenty-three. All the children of leet-men shall be leet-men, and so to all generations.

Twenty-four. No man shall be capable of having a court-leet or leet-men but a proprietor, landgrave, cazique, or lord of a manor.

Twenty-five. Whoever shall voluntarily enter himself a leet-man in the registry of the county court, shall be a leet-man.

Thirty-two. All elections in the parliament, in the several chambers of the parliament, and in the grand council, shall be passed by balloting.

Fifty-four. The quorum of the grand council shall be thirteen, whereof a proprietor or his deputy shall be always one.

Fifty-seven. No deputy of any proprietor shall have any power whilst the deputator is in any part of Carolina, except the proprietor whose deputy he Is be a minor.

Fifty-eight. During the minority of any proprietor, his guardian shall have power to constitute and appoint his deputy.

Sixty-four. No cause shall be twice tried in any one court, upon any reason or presence whatsoever.

Seventy-one. There shall be a parliament, consisting of the proprietors or their deputies, the landgraves, and caziques, and one freeholder out of every precinct, to be chosen by the freeholders of the said precinct, respectively. They shall sit all together in one room, and have every member one vote.

Seventy-four. At the opening of every parliament, the first thing that shall be done shall be the reading of these fundamental constitutions, which the palatine and proprietors, and the rest of the members then present, shall subscribe. Nor shall any person whatsoever sit or vote in the parliament till he hath that session subscribed these fundamental constitutions, in a book kept for that purpose by the clerk of the parliament.

Seventy-eight. The quorum of the parliament shall be one-half of those who are members and capable of sitting in the house that present session of parliament. The quorum of each of the chambers of parliament shall be one-half of the members of that chamber.

Seventy-nine. To avoid multiplicity of laws, which by degrees always change the right foundations of the original government, all acts of parliament whatsoever, in whatsoever form passed or enacted, shall, at the end of a hundred years after their enacting, respectively cease and determine of themselves, and without any repeal become null and void, as if no such acts or laws had ever been made.

Eighty. Since multiplicity of comments, as well as of laws, have great inconveniencies, and serve only to obscure and perplex, all manner of comments and expositions on any part of these fundamental constitutions, or on any part of the common or statute laws of Carolina, are absolutely prohibited.

Eighty-two. No man shall be register of any precinct who hath not at least three hundred acres of freehold within the said precinct.

Eighty-four. There shall be a registry in every signiory, barony, and colony, wherein shall be recorded all the births, marriages, and deaths that shall happen within the respective signiories, baronies, and colonies.

Eighty-five. No man shall be register of a colony that hath not above fifty acres of freehold within the said colony.

Eighty-seven. No marriage shall be lawful, whatever contract and ceremony they have used, till both the parties mutually own it before the register of the place where they were married, and he register it, with the names of the father and mother of each party.

Eighty-eight. No man shall administer to the goods, or have a right to them, or enter upon the estate of any person deceased, till his death be registered in the respective registry.

Eighty-nine. He that doth not enter in the respective registry the birth or death of any person that is born or dies in his house or ground, shall pay to the said register one shilling per week for each such neglect, reckoning from the time of each birth or death, respectively, to the time of entering it in the register.

Ninety-four. The first port-town upon every river shall be in a colony, and be a port-town forever.

Ninety-five. No man shall be permitted to be a freeman of Carolina, or to have any estate or habitation within it, that doth not acknowledge a (lod, and that God is publicly and solemnly to be worshipped.

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One hundred and one. No person above seventeen years of age shall have any benefit or protection of the law, or be capable of any place of profit or honor, who is not a member of some church or profession, having his name recorded in some one, and but one religious record at once.

One hundred and two. No person of any other church or profession shall disturb or molest any religious assembly.

One hundred and three. No person whatsoever shall speak anything in their religious assembly irreverently or seditiously of the government or governors, or of state matters.

One hundred and four. Any person subscribing the terms of communion, in the record of the said church or profession, before the precinct register, and any five members of the said church or profession, shall be thereby made a member of the said church or profession.

One hundred and eight. Assemblies, upon what presence soever of religion, not observing and performing the above said rules, shall not be esteemed as churches, but unlawful meetings, and be punished as other riots.

One hundred and nine. No person whatsover shall disturb, molest, or persecute another for his speculative opinions in religion, or his way of worship.

One hundred and ten. Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever.

One hundred and eleven. No cause, whether civil or criminal, of any freeman, shall be tried in any court of judicature, without a jury of his peers.

One hundred and twelve. No person whatever shall hold or claim any land in Carolina by purchase or gift, or otherwise, from the natives, or any other whatsoever, but merely from and under the lords proprietors, upon pain of forfeiture of all his estate, movable or immovable, and perpetual banishment.

One hundred and fourteen. All wrecks, mines, minerals, quarries of gems, and precious stones, with pearl-fishing, whale-fishing, and one-half of all ambergris, by whomsoever found, shall wholly belong to the lords proprietors.

One hundred and sixteen. All inhabitants and freemen of ()arolina above seventeen years of age, and under sixty, shall be bound to bear arms and serve as soldiers, whenever the grand council shall find it necessary.

One hundred and seventeen. A true copy of these fundamental constitutions shall be kept in a great book by the register of every precinct, to be subscribed before the said register. Nor shall any person, of what degree or condition soever, above seventeen years old, have any estate or possession in Carolina, or protection or benefit of the law there, who hath not, before a precinct register, subscribed these fundamental constitutions in this form:

One hundred and eighteen. VVhatsoever alien shall, in this form, before any precinct register, subscribe these fundamental constitutions, shall be thereby naturalized.

One hundred and nineteen. In the same manner shall every person, at his admittance into any office, subscribe these flmdamental constitutions.

One hundred and twenty. These fundamental constitutions, in number a hundred and twenty, and every part thereof, shall be and remain the sacred and unalterable form and rule of government of Carolina forever. Witness our hands and seals, the first day of March, sixteen hundred and sixty-nine.