with less pain to the patient, with more expedition, and with greater success than fifty years ago. The inhabitants who from misfortunes need the performance of the most difficult and uncommon operations in surgery, are at present under no necessity of seeking foreign operators; for what can be done for them in London or Paris can also be done in Charlestown. The improvements made in midwifery since the days of Smellie, are in like manner well known and practiced in the State. These have been so great that instrumental delivery is now rarely necessary and seldom performed. Deaths from pregnancy and parturition are at present more rare in Charlestown, than when its population did not exceed half its present number. But few years have elapsed since there was any established regular dentist in Carolina. There are now three or four who find employment. The diseases of the teeth are not now more common than in former times; but many of them were at that period frequently suffered to progress unmolested from bad to worse, which are now prevented or cured by the dental art, which was one of the last transplanted into the State. Carolina, by her Lining, Chalmers, and Garden, has increased the stock of medical and philosophical knowledge; but cannot, like Pennsylvania, boast that she has produced a Rush, a Barton, and a Physic, eminently raised up for the advancement of the healing art, and of the auxilliary branches of medical science. Her practitioners, though they have not originated improvements in medicine, deserve well of their country; for they have been ever attentive and among the first to enrich it with the medical discoveries both of the old and new world. The Medical Society of South Carolina was constituted in the year 1789, and consisted of the following members: Peter Fayssoux, Alexander Baron, Tucker Harris, David Ramsay, Andrew Turnbull, Isaac Chanler, George Logan, George Carter, Robert Wilson, Elisha Poinsett, James Lynah, George Hahnbaum, John Budd, and Thomas Tudor Tucker. LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, FROM 1670 TO 1808. * CHAPTER III. Ample powers for the government of Carolina were given by the royal charters. These, as far as they were legislative, were to be exercised by the proprietors with the consent of the freemen. Each appears to have had a negative on the other. Anterior to the settlement of the province, the proprietors employed the celebrated John Locke to draught "fundamental constitutions of South Carolina." What was their precise object does not appear. The articles agreed upon were not in the nature of a bill of rights, for they are far short of magna charta, and enumerate few of any consequence and derogate from others. The 101st declares "that no person above seventeen years of age should have any benefit or protection of the law, or be capable of any place of honor or profit, who is not a member of some church or profession." The 96th declares, "that a Church of England being the only true and orthodox, and the national religion of all the King's dominions, is so also of Carolina, and therefore it alone shall be allowed to receive public maintenance by grant of parliament."* These fundamental constitutions were not of the nature of a constitution, in the American sense of the word, for instead of emanating from the people, they were to be unalterable, though agreed upon before a single white person had settled in the province. The object of most of them is, "the establishment of the interest of the lords proprietors with equality and without confusion," as is stated in the preamble. They were wholly unsuitable and even impracticable for the immediate government of an infant colony. From internal evidence they do not appear to be so intended, for they proposed that "there should be eight Supreme Courts," and also "a court in every county," and that "all towns incorporate should be governed by a mayor, twelve aldermen, and twenty-four common councilmen ;" nearly three times the number that now preside over the police of Charlestown though 128 years old. They contemplated three orders of nobility; and appointed a court to take care of all ceremonies, precedency, heraldry, and to regulate fashions, habits, In the folio edition of Locke's works these constitutions are printed as part of the same, but a note subjoined to this article disavows its having been drawn up by Mr. Locke. It was also objected to by John Archdale. badges, games and sports, when as yet there were no commoners. They seemed on the whole to be calculated for a state of society far beyond that to which Carolina has yet attained. They were never accepted by the people, who, adhering to the charter as a constitutional rule, passed such laws in concert with the proprietors as the state of the province required. After twenty-eight years these fundamental constitutions were set aside by the proprietors on the requisition of the people, who in no one instance had acted upon them. The feeble and distracted state of the proprietary government was not, as has been erroneously represented, the effect of the speculative political theories of John Locke, introduced as the Constitution of South Carolina: for neither his fundamental constitutions nor their successive modifications by the proprietors, were at any time the law of the province or the rule of its government. The only part of them which seems to have been perpetuated is the biennial election of members of assembly. The 79th article proposes that all acts of parliament should become null and void at the end of 100 years without a formal repeal. This would have produced both good and evil, but which would have preponderated is questionable. The 70th article declares "that it shall be a base and vile thing to plead for money or reward:" and that no one should be permitted to plead another man's cause, not a relation," till he took an oath that he had not nor would not receive, directly or indirectly, any money or reward for pleading the cause he was going to plead." The proprietors were always friendly to the fundamental constitutions;* but they could not persuade the people to consent to their establishment. The charter which the assembly preferred as the best security of their rights, was silent on many important points. In supplying its defects on principles of analogy and in every act of legis * The proprietors were so desirous of the acceptance of these fundamental constitutions, that they sent out four successive modifications of them to render them more agreeable to the people. The original draughted by John Locke, was dated in 1669-an amended set in 1670-a further amended set in 1681-2. The date of the next amended set is unknown; but that of the last was in 1698. The genuine original 3d set, engrossed on a roll of parchment 18 feet long and 2 wide, is now in possession of Governor Charles Pinckney, and is subscribed in the real hand writing of the proprietors as follows: "Sir Peter Colleton, Albemarle, Bath for Lord Carteret. I subscribe this fundamental constitution except the 96th paragraph," this is quoted above, and authorizes an estalishment of the Church of England, “and what relates to fighting which for conscience sake I refuse and not otherwise. John Archdale, for Thomas Archdale." They who wish to read these much talked of but misrepresented constitutions, will find a copy of them in Mr. Locke's works, and in Dr. Hewat's History of South Carolina. As they were never received nor acted upon by the Carolinians, they were not deemed of sufficient importance to merit republication in this work. lation, the concurrence of the proprietors and of the freemen of the province was necessary; but frequently this concurrence could not be obtained. In several particulars respecting the executive and judicial departments there was a collision of interests. The charter was construed by both in a manner most favorable to their own wishes. Each endeavored to gain upon the other by extending their respective claims. These disseusions continued to increase till, in conjunction with other more serious grounds of discontent which have been already related, the people by their inherent right to resist oppression threw off the proprietary yoke, and sought and obtained the protection of the crown. The king henceforward was the source of honor and office. Under the reigns of George the first and second, government was in general wisely administered and tended to the happiness both of the mother country and the colony. This agreeable state of things contributed not a little to the extension of settlements far to the westward. An evil resulted from this good, which in its turn produced an improvement in the administration of justice. For the first ninety-nine years of provincial Carolina, Charlestown was the source and centre of all judicial proceeding. No courts were held beyond its limits, and one provost marshal was charged with the service of processes over the whole province. For the first seventy or eighty years, when the population rarely extended beyond an equal number of miles, this was patiently borne; but in the course of the next twenty years it became intolerable. The distance and expense of attending courts in Charlestown were so inconvenient, that people in the back country were induced occasionally to inflict punishments in their own way, and by their own authority, on knaves and villains. Associations were formed under the name of regulators, who enforced justice in a summary way. For the accommodation of the remote settlers, and to remove all apology for these irregular proceedings incompatible with orderly government, an act was passed in 1769 called the Circuit Court Act; by which new District Courts were established at Beaufort, Georgetown, Cheraws, Camden, Orangeburgh and Ninety-Six, now Cambridge. One difficulty stood in the way, the removal of which was necessary before the projected reform could go into operation. The important and lucrative office of provost marshal for the whole province was held by patent from the crown by Richard Cumberland, well known in the literary world for his talents and writings. The proposed Circuit Court Act contemplated the abolition of the office of provost marshal of the province, and the appointment of seven sheriffs; one for Charlestown, and one for each of the six new districts. To reconcile private right with public convenience, the province paid £5,000 sterling to Mr. Cumberland as a compensation for his resigning the office of provost marshal. The new arrangement soon afterwards went into operation. In the year 1789 these Circuit Courts were made more beneficial and convenient by being invested with complete original and final jurisdiction. In two years more it became necessary to make two additional Circuit Courts. From the rapidly increasing population, these districts were found too large for public convenience. In 1798 they were subdivided into twenty-four; and three years after a part of one of these districts was formed into a separate one, making in the whole twenty-five districts which are sufficiently small to meet the convenience of the people. Their names are: 1. Abbeville. 2. Edgefield. 3. Newbury. 4. Laurens. 5. Pendleton. 6. Greenville. 7. Spartanburg. 8. Union. 9. York. 10. Chester. 11. Lancaster. 12. Fairfield. 13. Kershaw. 14. Chesterfield. 15. Marlborough. 16. Darlington. 17. Sumpter. 18. Marion. 19. Horry. 20. Georgetown. 21. Charleston. 22. Colleton. 23. Beaufort. 24. Barnwell. 25. Orangeburgh. The multiplication of court districts, proceeded from an honest desire to accommodate the people. The Legislature by successive reforms, each improving on what had been previously done, finally organized in the last years of the 18th century an uniform efficient judiciary system which brought law and justice within a convenient distance of the habitations of all the citizens. To meet the increased labor of attending so many new circuits, provision was made for two additional judges. This new arrangement contemplated six judges for twenty-five districts. To each of these was granted an annual salary of £600 sterling, that they might be enabled to devote themselves to the duties of their office. About thirteen years before the establishment of this enlarged system, an attempt had been made to accommodate the public by the establishment of courts in counties of small dimensions and limited jurisdiction, to be held by such of the inhabitants as were chosen and willing to serve as judges without salaries. This project was introduced and carried through by the talents, address, and perseverance of Henry Pendleton; who had witnessed many of the benefits resulting from the county courts in his native State, Virginia. What had been found beneficial in the oldest State of the Union, did not answer in the junior State of South Carolina, whose sea coast was too thinly peopled to need these courts; and whose back country had been too recently settled to have a sufficient number of men of talents, leisure, weight and respectability, to give dig |