The LuLac Edition #5, 601 March 14th, 2026

 

CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLTON

THE QUIET

MARATHON MAN

Charles Carroll  known as Charles Carroll of Carrollton or Charles Carroll III,  was an American politician, planter, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. He was the only Catholic signatory of the Declaration and the longest surviving, dying 56 years after its signing.

A Founding Father of the United States, Carroll was known contemporaneously as the "First Citizen" of the American colonies, a consequence of signing articles in the Maryland Gazette with that pen name. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and Confederation Congress. Carroll later served as the first United States Senator for Maryland. Of all of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Carroll was one of the wealthiest and most formally educated. A product of his 17-year Jesuit education in France, Carroll spoke five languages fluently.

Though barred from holding office in Maryland because of his religion, Carroll emerged as a leader of the state's movement for independence. He was a delegate to the Annapolis Convention and was selected as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776. He was part of an unsuccessful diplomatic mission, which also included Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Chase, that Congress sent to Quebec in hopes of winning the support of French Canadians.

Carroll was not initially interested in politics, and in any event Catholics had been barred from holding office in Maryland since the 1704 act seeking "to prevent the growth of Popery in this Province". But as the dispute between Great Britain and her American colonies intensified in the early 1770s, Carroll became a powerful voice for independence. In 1772, he engaged in a debate, conducted through anonymous newspaper letters, maintaining the right of the colonies to control their own taxation. Writing in the Maryland Gazette under the pseudonym "First Citizen," he also criticized the royal governor's proclamation that increased special fees paid by colonists to state officials and Protestant clergy. Opposing Carroll in these written debates, using the name "Antillon", was Daniel Dulany the Younger, a noted lawyer and Loyalist politician. In these debates, Carroll argued that the government of Maryland had long been the monopoly of four families, the Ogles, the Taskers, the Bladens and the Dulanys, with Dulany taking the contrary view.   Eventually word spread of the true identity of the two combatants, and Carroll's fame and notoriety began to grow. Dulany soon resorted to highly personal ad hominem attacks on "First Citizen", and Carroll responded, in statesmanlike fashion, with considerable restraint, arguing that when "Antillon" engaged in "virulent invective and illiberal abuse, we may fairly presume, that arguments are either wanting, or that ignorance or incapacity know not how to apply them". Following these written debates, Carroll became a leading opponent of British rule and served on various committees of correspondence.

In the early 1770s, Carroll appears to have embraced the idea that only war could break the impasse with Great Britain. According to legend, Carroll and Samuel Chase (who would also later sign the Declaration of Independence on Maryland's behalf) had the following exchange:

Chase: "We have the better of our opponents; we have completely written them down."

Carroll: "And do you think that writing will settle the question between us?"

Chase: "To be sure, what else can we resort to?"

Carroll: "The bayonet. Our arguments will only raise the feelings of the people to that pitch when open war will be looked to as the arbiter of the dispute."

Continental Congress

Beginning with his election to Maryland's committee of correspondence in 1774, Carroll represented the colony in most of the pre-revolutionary groups. He became a member of Annapolis' first committee of safety, known as the "Annapolis Committee of Correspondence and Council Safety" in 1775.  Carroll was a delegate to the Annapolis Convention, which functioned as Maryland's revolutionary government before the Declaration of Independence. In early 1776, the Congress sent him on a four-man diplomatic mission to the Province of Quebec, in order to seek assistance from French Canadians in the coming confrontation with Great Britain. Carroll was an excellent choice for such a mission, being fluent in French and a Catholic and therefore well suited to negotiations with the French-speaking Catholics of Quebec.He was joined in the commission by Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and his cousin John Carroll. The commission did not accomplish its mission.

Carroll was elected as a Maryland representative the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and remained a delegate until 1778. He arrived at the 2nd Continental Congress too late to vote in favor of the Declaration of Independence but was present to sign the official document that survives today. 

He signed the document in Philadelphia on August 2, 1776. After both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826, Carroll became the last living signatory of the Declaration of Independence. His signature reads "Charles Carroll of Carrollton" to distinguish him from his father, "Charles Carroll of Annapolis," who was still living at that time, and several other Charles Carrolls in Maryland, such as Charles Carroll, Barrister, and his son Charles Carroll Jr., also known as "Charles Carroll of Homewood." He is usually referred to this way by historians. At the time, he was the richest man in America and had much to lose by identifying himself on the document. Throughout his term in the Second Continental Congress, he served on the board of war. Carroll also gave considerable financial support to the American Revolutionary War.

Carroll served in the Maryland Senate from 1781 to 1800. He was elected as one of Maryland's inaugural representatives in the United States Senate but resigned his seat in 1792 after Maryland passed a law barring individuals from simultaneously serving in both state and federal office. 

After retiring from public service, he helped establish the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad by purchasing $40,000 of state-backed securities and serving on its first board of directors.

Carroll retired from public life in 1801. After Thomas Jefferson became president, he had great anxiety about political activity and was not sympathetic to the War of 1812. He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1815. Carroll came out of retirement to help create the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1827.

In May 1832, he was asked to appear at the first Democratic Party Convention but did not attend on account of poor health.Carroll died on November 14, 1832, at age 95, in Baltimore, at the Caton home.

He holds the distinction of being the oldest-lived Founding Father. He had outlived four of the first five U.S. presidents. His funeral took place at the Baltimore Cathedral (now known as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary). Carroll was buried in his Doughoregan Manor Chapel at Ellicott City, Maryland after a national day of mourning. (wikipedia, LuLac)