CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON
Product Description
Subtitle: Faithful Revolutionary.
Author: Scott McDermott. 352 pg. HB
Charles Carroll (1737-1832) spanned three generations of one of the more formative periods of American history, from before the Revolution until the Nullification Crisis of 1832, which marked the beginning of the end of the Union 29 years later. As head of the Congressional Board of War and Ordnance, he worked closely with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin.
He was the wealthiest American by far, with a personal fortune almost unimaginable for the time. He was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, and the last signer to die, at the extraordinary age of 95. Yet at the outbreak of the Revolution he was by law barred from voting or holding public office. Within months, he singlehandedly ended decades of discrimination against Catholics and made himself one of the more important leaders of Maryland's independence movement.
In 1827, he summarized his life by saying that "to obtain religious as well as civil liberty, I entered zealously into the Revolution." The outcome of his work was to have far-reaching effects on future generations of Americans. In showing his fellow citizens that Catholics were no less loyal than their Protestant neighbors, Carroll helped define the American identity as something distinct from its English and Protestant origin.
