The Constitution of the State of South Carolina is the governing document of the U.S. state of South Carolina. It describes the structure and function of the state's government. The current constitution took effect on December 4, 1895. South Carolina has had six other constitutions, which were adopted in 1669, 1776, 1778, 1790, 1865 and 1868.
Constitutional history
Fundamental Constitutions
The first governmental framework for what is now the State of South Carolina was the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, written in 1669 by the lead colonial proprietor Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury and his secretary John Locke. Influenced by philosophers such as James Harrington, the two men wrote a document which espoused religious toleration (except for Catholics) and establishing a system of government based on ownership of land. The document placed the eight proprietors of the colony at the head of its government, along with a bicameral parliament. The parliament consisted of the proprietors' deputies and the elected Commons House of Assembly. To vote, a man needed fifty acres of land and needed five hundred acres to serve in the Assembly. Additionally, a three-tiered system of nobility was established: barons received 12,000 acres, while those with 24,000 acres became cassiques and those with 48,000 acres became landgraves. Despite the proprietors' wishes, the colonists refused to ratify the document. As a result, the proprietors retained governmental authority over the colony, but they implemented many of the document's provisions despite its non-ratification. In 1729, the British royal government assumed control of the colony, de facto abrogating the Fundamental Constitutions.
Constitution of 1776 In September 1775, royal governor William Campbell fled the colony. The revolutionary Provincial Council quickly drafted a new constitution, which was adopted in March 1776. The preamble of the new constitution listed out several acts by the British considered tyrannical by the colonists in a manner similar to the later Declaration of Independence. The document, designed to be temporary, created a bicameral legislature, with the lower house (General Assembly) electing the upper house (Legislative Council) from out of its own number. The two chambers jointly elected the president and vice president, and each chamber selected three members of the privy council. The legislature also jointly elected judges, sheriffs, and military officers. Despite this republican system, the document retained the preexisting imbalance for legislative apportionment between the Lowcountry and the Upstate.
Constitution of 1778 Two years later, the temporary constitution was replaced by a document which was supposed to be permanent. Written in 1777, the legislature adopted it in March 1778 following consultation with South Carolinians. The new document formally recognized South Carolina's independence from the British. The legislature, whose chambers were renamed the Senate and House of Representatives, retained the power to elect the executive, now called the Governor, along with the Lieutenant Governor and privy council. The executive's power was substantially diminished.
Religion played a much larger role in the 1778 constitution than in the 1776 one. After a significant debate in the legislature, the support of Christopher Gadsden and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney swayed the members of the body to vote to unanimously disestablish the Church of England in South Carolina as it existed at the time. Even so, a form of religious establishment was created, with all of the preexisting Protestant congregations being amalgamated into a single denomination but denied financial support. Additionally, ministers were forbidden from serving in public office, though the constitution asserted that doing so prevented them from being "diverted from the great duties of their function."
Constitution of 1790 South Carolina held a constitutional convention in 1790. The adoption of the Constitution of the United States in 1787 prompted South Carolinians to revise their constitution yet again. Once again, the Lowcountry benefited from imbalanced legislative apportionment, though the state capital was moved to Columbia as a token concession. Provisions also included requiring the ownership of land and slaves to hold public office, and separation of church and state was formally achieved. Similar land ownership requirements limited suffrage in the state, while the legislature retained the power to elect the state's governor, whose enumerated powers mirrored those of the President of the United States under the new federal constitution.
Due to the maintenance of the imbalanced apportionment scheme, many Upstate residents proved dissatisfied with the constitution. In 1794, a number of prominent Upstate residents, including Wade Hampton I and John Kershaw, formed the Representative Reform Association to challenge the system. Initially, the Lowcountry-dominated legislature rejected their appeals. However, the Upcountry residents, aligned with the newly ascendant Democratic-Republican Party, eventually prevailed. In 1808, the constitution was amended to create an apportionment system based on the total white population, substantially alleviating many of the issues. Further amendments to the constitution were later adopted. Most significantly, in 1810, an amendment granted the suffrage to all white men over the age of twenty-one.
Scholar C. Blease Graham argues that, due to South Carolina's secession in 1861, a new constitution should be considered as having been adopted at that time. However, no actual new document was ratified at that date, and the 1790 constitution merely continued to have effect as amended. South Carolina held a constitutional convention in 1861.
Constitution of 1865 South Carolina held a constitutional convention in 1865. A new constitution was adopted in 1865 following the end of the Civil War. The new constitution recognized the abolition of slavery and also further equalized legislative representation. Direct elections for the governor were implemented, and the governor received the power of the veto. This equalization of legislative representation recognized only the white population, however, and only white men could be elected to the legislature. The new constitution also included a bill of rights, which prior constitutions omitted.
Constitution of 1868
In 1867, Radical Republicans took control of the U.S. Congress and ended the period known as Presidential Reconstruction. Under the Reconstruction Acts, the former Confederate states were required to adopt new constitutions and ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result, South Carolina was bidden to call forth a constitutional convention to adopt a new framework of government.
A constitutional convention met in Charleston, January 14, 1868. For the first time, black men participated in the election of delegates to the convention. It is the only constitution in the history of the state submitted directly to the electorate for approval; many whites refused to participate. The United States Congress ratified it on April 16, 1868.
South Carolina was the only state where a majority of the delegates to its constitutional convention were black.
The constitution ignored wealth and based representation in the House strictly on population. It abolished debtors' prison, created counties, gave some rights to women, and provided for public education. The popularly-elected governor could veto and a 2/3 vote of the General Assembly was required to override. Race was abolished as a condition for suffrage. Black codes were overturned, there was no prohibition on interracial marriage, and all public schools were open to all races. It provided a uniform system of free public schools, "although not implemented until decades later."
Violent overthrow of 1876 and 1877
Despite the provisions of the 1868 state constitution, in 1876, whites regained control of the state government. Known as Redeemers or Bourbon Democrats, these men consisted of the former plantation elite and set about undermining the Reconstruction-era document. Violent intimidation was used to prevent African Americans from voting, and, in the early 1890s, the Eight Box Law (which instituted an indirect literacy requirement for voting) aimed at disenfranchising African-American and poor white voters.
Constitution of 1895
Despite the suppression of African American voting rights, many whites still feared African Americans' political power. As a result, in 1894, Governor John Gary Evans, and his mentor, Senator Benjamin Tillman, called for a new constitutional convention to be held in the state. Tillman's base in the Upstate strongly supported the convention, but his Lowcountry rivals resisted. Thus, the convention was only approved by a narrow margin. (Tillman's movement emerged as a reaction to dominance by the Lowcountry elites and their affluent "Bourbon" allies).
Before the 1895 Constitution, voter registration limits were lower; voting was open to all males of 21 years. In the 1895 Constitution, the focus of voter registration became one of "intelligence" instead of "personhood." Individuals would, until January 1, 1898, have to be able to answer questions about any constitutional provision asked in order to qualify as a voter. Thereafter, the registration process included a test of reading and writing; individuals with at least $20 in property were also permitted to vote. The change from the 1868 constitution's "personhood" to the 1895 constitution's "intelligence" was due to the 1895 constitution's framers' desire to disenfranchise African Americans in order to bar them from participation in the political process. Of course, due to variations in the quality of education, many poor whites were also victims of this new law. According to the state's Democratic Party-leaning newspapers, the motivations behind changing the constitution were clear:
Women's suffrage advocates also lobbied the convention to grant them the right to vote. The convention rejected the plea but did grant women property rights. Tillman, however, suffered a minor defeat on women's issues when the convention rejected his proposal to legalize divorce. Divorce had been legal under the 1868 Constitution until 1878, when the Redeemer government repealed the state's divorce laws.
In addition to voting rights and women's rights, several other issues were raised. Due to concerns about overreaches by local governments under the 1868 Constitution, the new constitution substantially limited home rule and required the creation of special-purpose districts for many services. Each county's legislative delegation also acted as its local government, approving the county budget, and the succeeding years saw the creation of multiple new counties, in order to further decrease the power of the Lowcountry. The new document also provided funding for primary education and established a system of liquor control in the state, known as the Dispensary.
Amendments prior to 1968 Between 1895 and 1968, the 1895 Constitution was amended 330 times, making it one of the longest state constitutions in the United States. It had become a somewhat chaotic document, in large part because most of the amendments dealt with matters addressed by statute in most other states. The great majority of these amendments dealt with bonded debt limits for local governments. Originally, changes in the bonded debt limits for counties could only be adopted by a statewide vote. Several attempts were also made to alter the state's divorce law. Those attempts finally succeeded in 1947 when state legislators proposed a constitutional amendment to permit divorce. Following voter approval in 1948, the state legislature ratified the amendment, which took effect in April 1949.
Revisions since 1968