In South Carolina. 21 



them to the first band of emigrants, is still preserved 

 — in the handwriting, it is believed, of Mr. Locke — in 

 the Charleston Library (Rivers). Thus these states- 

 men, who successfully advocated in England the pas- 

 sage of the Act of Uniformity in 16G2, and of the 

 Five-mile Act in 1665, and were enforcing these laws 

 with relentless cruelty in the parent country, gave 

 their signatures in 1669 to a document that pledged 

 to Dissenters perfect freedom of religion and worship, 

 as an inducement to plant a fourth colony in Carolina. 

 While they silenced men like John Owen, and filled 

 the prisons of England with such victims as Baxter, 

 Bunyan, Alleine, and John Wesley of Whitchurch 

 (the grandfather of the founder of Methodism), they 

 offered full liberty of conscience and ample protection 

 to every variety of religious opinion in their province. 

 Thus they impeached the wisdom and good faith of 

 their home administration by the implied avowal that 

 diversities of opinion and worship may peaceably co- 

 exist in the same society, and that freedom of religion 

 is the surest means of making a commonwealth flour- 

 ish and a country appear desirable to its inhabitants. 

 In a subsequent revision of these Constitutions, Arti- 

 cle XCVI. was interpolated (the authorship of which 

 Mr. Locke disavowed), granting toleration to Dissent- 

 ers, and making the Church of England the national 

 religion of Carolina, and alone entitled to receive pub- 

 lic maintenance from the Colonial Assembly. This 

 change was a vital one to Dissenters, and the new Con- 

 stitutions, because they violated original stipulations 

 with the colonists, were promptly and resolutely re- 

 jected throughout the province. Four successive 

 modifications of these Constitutions were made to 

 render them acceptable to the people; but, claiming 



