Maryland’s Patriot

American Cicero

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The Life of Charles Carroll
by Bradley J. Birzer
ISI, 230 pp., $25

Most Americans are unaware of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832). Born to an extremely wealthy family in Annapolis, he was the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, and the last survivor of the 56 patriot-signers.

Carroll’s grandfather Charles “The Settler” (1660-1720) was an Irish Catholic who found himself dispossessed of his land in County Offaly. Fortunately, this lawyer had friends at the Stuart court of James II and in 1688, through the patronage of Lord Baltimore, got himself named attorney general to the colony of Maryland. Unfortunately for him, in the fall of that same year, the Protestant William of Orange deposed the Catholic James II and a coup in Maryland toppled the new attorney general. But Carroll married a wealthy widow, inherited lands, and, over time, built a fortune by way of being an astute planter, lawyer, banker, and merchant.

Though rich, Carroll was always in a precarious position as a Roman Catholic amidst Maryland’s ascendant Protestants. In London, William and Mary instigated new penal laws against Catholics, and Maryland’s general assembly passed similar legislation barring Catholics from voting, holding public office, or performing military service, restricting Catholic education, and forcing Catholics to pay a higher tax rate. The Settler’s son, Charles Carroll of Annapolis (1702-1782), found these laws so oppressive that he considered founding a Catholic colony in the Arkansas territory.