Grand Model for the Province of Carolina

The Grand Model (or “Grand Modell” as it was spelled at the time) was a utopian plan for the Province of Carolina, founded in 1670. It consisted of a constitution coupled with a settlement and development plan for the colony. The former was titled the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. The word “constitutions” (in the plural) was synonymous with “articles.” The document was composed of 120 constitutions, or articles. The settlement and development plan for the colony consisted of several documents, or “instructions,” for guiding town and regional planning as well as economic development.

Both the Fundamental Constitutions and the development plan were drafted by John Locke while working for the Lords Proprietors of Carolina, the eight noblemen who held the royal charter to settle the colony. Locke was also a personal assistant to Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Proprietor who became the Earl of Shaftesbury soon after the principal elements of the Grand Model were drafted. Ashley Cooper is considered the founder of Carolina, thus the Grand Model may also be called the Ashley Cooper Plan. Today the term Grand Model is used more restrictively in Charleston, South Carolina to refer to the original planned area of the city.

Anthony Ashley Cooper oversaw Locke’s drafting of the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina during the first decade of the Restoration, a time when the failure of the Commonwealth of England was fresh in mind. During the Commonwealth period he had served in the government of Oliver Cromwell and participated in reviewing English laws and drafting the nation’s first formal constitution. Before that, English constitutional law was based on ancient constitutional documents such as the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. The experience led Ashley Cooper to see value in adopting a formal constitution for the Province of Carolina.

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