Locating a marker honoring John Locke, the English philosopher who wrote the first constitution for Carolina, is a frustrating assignment. It stands to reason that Charleston's connection with the preeminent political philosopher of the 18th century would be reckoned with in diverse ways. Yet, there was no Lockeville built upon a tidal basin, no Locke River, not even Locke Swamp. The best we could do for the brilliant man who counseled Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper was Locke Lane over in the Windemere subdivision. It's high time that we Carolinians do something on a grander scale to pay homage to author of the Fundamental Orders [Constitutions] of Carolina, the author of religious toleration, the tabula rasa idea, the father of classical liberalism and, among numerous other things, the philosopher most admired by Thomas Jefferson.

John Locke was educated as a physician at Oxford's Christ Church College, the foremost academic institution in England. As an undergraduate there he'd been the top scholar and was made a lecturer in Greek and Rhetoric for a year prior to commencing his medical studies under the mentorship of Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke, two of the leading scientists of the era. Thomas Willis, one of the fathers of neurology as well as a founder of the Royal Society, was another of Locke's medical professors, as was Thomas Sydenham. Christ Church College attracted the creme de la creme of the academic talent in England, and it was noted that only Latin and Greek were heard voiced about the campus. Even the college dining hall staff responded to Latin commands from the students and tutors.

Not to demean the Lords Proprietors in any way, or to take away their claim to the many grand things over here that bear testimony to their namesakes - Albemarle, Berkeley, Colleton, Carteret, Monck, et al, but they were men who by and large inherited their position and their wealth.

Then little prudence on their behalf in the aftermath of Cromwell's death brought about the restoration of Charles II.

A grateful Charles bestowed an enormous land grant upon the proprietors and, since few of them were as well read in political philosophy, they wisely deferred to the well-read Locke to draft the governmental charter for the colony. John Locke was serving as personal physician to Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftsbury, who was the most powerful man in England after the king. Earl Shaftsbury, better known to us as Lord Ashley Cooper, was one of the founders in 1679 of the Whig political movement - the believers in constitutional monarchy.

John Locke, on the other hand, was a commoner, a self-made man from Belluton in Somerset. Belluton, a village in Somerset, was just down the road from such thriving metropolises as Chew Magna and Wokey Hole.

As the son of a modest village lawyer, John Locke was one of the few scholars at Christ Church who did not arrive with servants in tow. His hardworking father did manage to send the boy to Westminster School, however, the most prestigious preparatory school in the land. While at Westminster Locke befriended Richard Lower, a fellow student. Lower, who later pioneered pulmonary medicine, persuaded Locke to go to Oxford and pursue medicine rather than law or theology. Thus, by his wits and his disciplined mind, Locke carved a place for himself in the history of two great nations - England and the United States.

However, it would be in politics and not medicine that John Locke would make his mark.

While at Oxford young Locke became enamored with the study of political philosophy as an adjunct to his scientific studies.

During his Oxford years Locke spoke as enthusiastically about his philosophical readings as he did of his medical studies. In the routine course of his medical training, Locke was asked to accompany a university physician to assist in the treatment of a sick aristocrat who was visiting in the area of Oxford.

That happenstance of a medical student assisting in a rural house call changed the course of history, for the ailing aristocrat was none other than Anthony Ashley Cooper.

Sir Ashley, Baron Cooper took a liking to the politically savvy young doctor and offered him an invitation to join his household as his personal physician and philosophical consultant. Thirty years later Sir Ashley became the 1st Earl of Shaftsbury, a title bestowed by King Charles II on the man known as the "king maker" in the English realm.

The Charleston County Library web site has the best concise explanation of the Carolina land grant to Lords Proprietors, of whom Lord Ashley was the chief: "On March 24, 1663, Charles II granted to the Lords Proprietors a slice of North America running from the Atlantic to the Pacific, lying between 36 degrees latitude on the north and 31 degrees on the south. This huge section of continent was granted absolutely to the following men, to be financed by them, and for them to profit by, and to rule, with the help or interference of such a local government as they might permit.

Above them was only the King. In the order named in Charles' charter they were: the Earl of Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven, Lord Berkeley, Lord Ashley, Sir George Carteret, Sir William Berkeley and Sir John Colleton. The most important of these was Lord Ashley (Anthony Ashley Cooper), who specified the street plan for the new city and whose secretary, the philosopher John Locke, wrote the Fundamental Constitution of Carolina."

In 1669 when John Locke was asked to develop a constitution for the colony Carolina, Exeter House in the center of London was the official residence of Lord Ashely Cooper. It was a mansion with a considerable library and several large drawing rooms where Locke could spread out charts, books, and papers. It was at Exeter House that the Fundamental Orders [or Constitutions] of Carolina was written.

Exeter House was a center of hubbub in 1669 for a number of reasons.

The Great Fire of 1666 which had destroyed much of the city of London was still the topic of discussion as debris was being removed, and Sir Christopher Wren was being commissioned to rebuild many of the landmark Anglican churches.

In 1669 when Locke was working on the first Carolina constitution, King Charles II was downright giddy about the prospects of the new Hudson Bay Company charter that was being worked up at Whitehall. The King's cousin, Prince Rupert of the Palatine, was being honored as the first director of the promising Hudson Bay Company in what is now the Hudson Bay area of Canada. In that time the area was named Prince Rupert Land.

Then too, the Crown had commissioned Captain Henry Morgan of the British Navy to raid the Spanish port of Panama City on the Isthmus of Panama.

In the midst of all of these doings, the royal family was dealing with the death of Henrietta Maria, mother of the King and widow of Charles I. Locke is to be forgiven if he erred a bit on the side of romanticism with his rather feudalistic political model for Carolina, for all around him were indications that Britain was developing into a great empire.

Turning to the archives in Whitehall, Locke pulled a copy of the palatinate that was in use for Durham, England - then a frontier area with minimal oversight from London. In the Durham model, a "palatine," or frontier outpost, owed religious allegiance to the Bishop of London, owed taxes - both ecclesiastical and civil - to the Exchequer in London and swore allegiance to the Crown. In all other matters the palatinate was independent and able to settle its own affairs.

That was Locke's template, and in all fairness, the template had already been used by Lord Baltimore for Maryland's governance.

Locke devised a complex scheme of feudalistic aristocracy based upon royal land grants to English commoners on good terms with church and state.

As a way of preserving order and regularity in affairs, a small number of landgraves owning 48,000 acres, cassiques owning 24,000 acres, and barons owning 12,000 acres were to preside over commoners known as leetmen. The commoners (male and Church of England communicants) possessing land of 150 acres were to be electors of a Commons Assembly. The hereditary nobility sat in the upper chamber and retained most of the power. Locke notably allowed a wide toleration for religious beliefs outside of the Church of England, and for that reason he is credited with being one of the fathers of the idea of religious toleration.

The Carolina colonists did not respect the Locke Constitution, nor did they buckle to the idea of and hereditary aristocracy. The Lords Proprietors lost control of their vast domain largely by entrusting the day-to-day management to appointed agents rather than assuming direct control. John Locke was one of the original landgraves, as were the proprietors and high-born men such as Edmund Bellinger, Thomas Ash, Edmund Andros, Daniel Axtell, Sr. and Joseph Blake. By 1700, however, the Fundamental Orders had been cast aside for a more practical and modern arrangement that anticipated America's growing distrust of oligarchy.

Today, John Locke is relegated to the study of our Declaration of Independence and the influence that his political writings, especially the 1690 Second Treatise on Government, had upon our founding fathers.

Our local history would have been even richer had we incorporated something around here as a namesake for the great English philosopher and physician.

(Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School. He lives in the Old Village of Mount Pleasant. See more columns online at www.moultrienews.com. Visit his Web site at www.historyslostmoments.com).