THE HISTORY OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE COLONY OF SOUTH CAROLINA.




CHAP. VII.


[Sidenote] The form of legal governments.

From that period in which the right and title to the lands of Carolina
were sold, and surrendered to the King, and he assumed the immediate care
and government of the province, a new aera commences in the annals of
that country, which may be called the aera of its freedom, security, and
happiness. The Carolineans who had long laboured under innumerable
hardships and troubles, from a weak proprietary establishment, at last
obtained the great object of their desires, a royal government, the
constitution of which depended on commissions issued by the crown to the
Governor, and the instructions which attended those commissions. The form
of all provincial governments was borrowed from that of their mother
country, which was not a plan of systematic rules drawn before-hand by
speculative men, but a constitution which was the result of many ages of
wisdom and experience. Its great object is the public good, in promoting
of which all are equally concerned. It is a constitution which has a
remedy within itself for every political disorder, which, when properly
applied, must ever contribute to its stability and duration. After the
model of this British constitution the government of Carolina now assumed
a form like the other regal ones on the continent, which were composed of
three branches, of a Governor, a Council, and an Assembly. The crown