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TO BE TOLERANT by Patrick Killough [7/28/1997] John Locke (1632-1704), the profound English political thinker and analyst of how humans acquire knowledge, is no stranger to students of American constitutional history. Many founders and guardians of both the American revolution and of the U.S. Constitution warmly embraced Locke’s arguments for popular supremacy, limited government, the link between private property and personal freedom and a handful of other bedrock political ideas. Rare, however, is the politically informed American today who has heard of, or can describe a 1669 work probably in large part from the hand of John Locke. That document is styled FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONS OF CAROLINA. It was produced when Locke was the secretary to Anthony Ashley Cooper (Lord Ashley), Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-1683). Through a charter dated March 24, 1663, Lord Ashley and seven other supporters of King Charles II (1630-1685) were handed CAROLINA: a slice of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific between latitudes 36 and 31. The Locke-Ashley CONSTITUTIONS are widely regarded today as a quixotic political failure. The ultra-complex colonial government envisaged was to be built top down on an hereditary aristocracy, free commoners, bondsmen and slaves. This form of government never really worked and was abolished in 1719 when popular clamor replaced proprietary rule with direct rule by the King. Religious Toleration in Colonial Carolina Buried, nonetheless, in this backward looking political document were some forward looking limitations on the Proprietors' power to regulate religion. So long as an inhabitant worshipped God, he or she was largely free to choose his own manner of doing so. This held for Indians and African slaves and was a far cry from general practice in Europe at the time. An Elderhostel in Charleston, SC In late July [1997] my wife Mary and I spent six days in Charleston, South Carolina as participants in an ELDERHOSTEL. That is a world-wide form of adult education centrally directed from Boston for persons 55 years of age or older. For couples and blood relatives in attendance only one person need be 55. Our event was hosted by the architectural gem which is the College of Charleston (founded 1770, chartered 1785). In that elderhostel there were two mother-daughter combinations; The theme of this elderhostel was South Carolina history and geology in general and that of Charleston in particular, with special attention to 18th century and antebellum architecture and urban preservation. We also learned a good bit about Indians, pirates, coastal erosion, Fort Sumter and a remarkably effective 400-person city police force. Several speakers also touched on John Locke's Fundamental Constitutions and the government it tried to create. One person in particular got our juices bubbling on the subject of John Locke and religious toleration and freedom. The speaker was Ruth Miller, a northern transplant to Charleston. Her thesis was that Locke and Lord Ashley created a climate which made the Carolinas uniquely appealing to religious underdogs from the beginning: most notably Jews and Huguenots, but not excluding Lutherans, Quakers and others. Mrs. Miller told me after her lecture and during a walking tour of older churches that she had been asked during the early 1980s to speak before a large group of visitors on the subject of religious toleration. Her research then led her back to 1669 and the Fundamental Constitutions. She found at that time and has since shared with elderhostel students and others her excitement about a number of striking passages buried in a very long and often tedious 328 year old [in 1997] document focusing on issues of power and property. To Ruth Miller, tolerance began with Locke's notion that a church need have no more than seven members and those members need not be Christians. Native American religions also counted. Some ground was lost at a later date when the Church of England was formally established in the colony. The Fundamental Constitutions were later revised and finally abrogated after the 1719 transfer of power from Proprietors to the King.But the words of religious toleration had been written. Toleration had been made, if only for a while, official public policy. What was once said could never be entirely unsaid. What Locke Wrote Could Never Die More than a hundred years separate Locke's words from the first amendment to our current national constitution, "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Locke's words were not the very first on the subject of toleration as a technique for social peace. But those words came early enough in the history of the Carolinas and of what would become the United States of America to make a difference and to be remembered and pondered. Like any good vision of human nature and its potential to be great, like, for instance the Ten Commandments, Locke's words on religious freedom and tolerance are valuable and true, even if no one pays them heed. We therefore owe a great debt to the John Lockes of this world. For they struggle to fathom reality and to put their thoughts down on paper or otherwise publish them so that the rest of us mortals can see what the seers first saw and, perhaps, in our turn either express them a little bit better or add a caveat or a proviso. That is the way spirit moves through time and societies. That is what Ruth Miller grasped with the passion of discovery years ago, and that is what she made us see during a splendid elderhostel in Charleston, South Carolina. -000- for Asheville TRIBUNE ==================
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