Carroll, Charles, 1737-1832

<ul><b>RACES</b>
<li>12/14/1819 MD US Senate - Special Election Lost 21.02% (-6.82%)</li>
<li>12/14/1819 MD US Senate Lost 21.02% (-7.39%)</li>
<li>12/08/1817 MD Governor Lost 1.41% (-84.51%)</li>
<li>11/19/1810 MD Governor Lost 1.61% (-87.10%)</li>
<li>11/13/1809 MD Governor Lost 19.75% (-50.62%)</li>
<li>06/05/1809 MD Governor - Special Election Lost 4.71% (-89.41%)</li>
<li>11/09/1807 MD Governor Lost 9.86% (-70.42%)</li>
<li>11/10/1806 MD Governor Lost 14.86% (-64.86%)</li>
<li>11/26/1790 MD US Senate Won 60.00% (+20.00%)</li>
<li>12/10/1788 MD US Senate Won 51.85% (+3.70%)</li>
<li>12/31/1777 MD Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
<li>12/31/1776 MD Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
<li>12/31/1775 MD Continental Congress Won 100.00% (+100.00%)</li>
</ul>

<p>Charles Carroll was born into a wealthy Roman Catholic family in Annapolis Maryland. He began his rather remarkable formal education at the age of 8, when he was packed off to France to attend a Jesuit College at St. Omer. He graduated the College of Louis the Grande at age Seventeen and continued practical studies in Europe until, at the age of 28, he returned to his home. Into the radical climate produced by the Stamp Act, walked a highly refined gentleman with all of the education and experience that might be expected of an emissary of the finest courts in Europe. Charles Carroll is said to have identified with the radical cause at once, and he proceeded to work in the circles of American patriots. In 1772 he anonymously engaged the secretary of the colony of Maryland in a series of Newspaper articles protesting the right of the British government to tax the colonies without representation.</p>

<p>Carroll was an early advocate for armed resistance with the object of separation from Great Britain. However, his native colony was less certain in this matter and did not even send a representative to the first Continental Congress. He served on the first Committee of Safety, at Annapolis, in 1775, and also in the Provincial Congress. He visited the Continental Congress in 1776, and was enlisted in a diplomatic mission to Canada, along with Franklin and Chase. Shortly after his return, the Maryland Convention decided to join in support for the Revolution. Carroll was elected to represent Maryland on the 4th of July, and though he was too late to vote for the Declaration, he did sign it.</p>

<p>He served in the Continental Congress, on the Board of War, through much of the War of Independence, and simultaneously participated in the framing of a constitution for Maryland. In 1778 he returned to Maryland to participate in the formation of the state government. He was elected to the Maryland Senate in 1781, and to the first Federal Congress in 1788. He returned again to the State Senate in 1790 and served there for 10 years. He retired from that post in 1800.</p>

<p>Charles Carroll was the last surviving member of those who signed the Declaration. He died, the last survivor of the signers of the Declaration, in 1832 at the age of 95.</p>

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<p>Charles Carroll (September 19, 1737 – November 14, 1832), known as Charles Carroll of Carrollton or Charles Carroll III, was an Irish-American politician, planter, slaveholder, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. He was the last surviving person to sign the Declaration of Independence, dying 56 years after signing the document, in addition to being the only Catholic signatory.</p>

<p>Considered one of the Founding Fathers 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 reputed to have attained the highest formal education and wealthiest of the group. A product of his 17-year Jesuit education in France, Carroll spoke five languages fluently.</p>

<p>Born in Annapolis, Maryland, Carroll inherited vast agricultural estates and was regarded as the wealthiest man in the American colonies when the American Revolution commenced in 1775. His personal fortune at this time was reputed to be 2,100,000 pounds sterling; the equivalent to £273,902,687 in 2020 (US$375 million). In addition, Carroll presided over his manor in Maryland; a 10,000 acre estate that included approximately 300 enslaved people. 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.</p>

<p>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 from the United States Senate in 1792 after Maryland passed a law barring individuals from simultaneously serving in state and federal office. After retiring from public office, he helped establish the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.</p>