Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 37: Our Catholic Founding Father, Charles Carroll, a forgotten hero

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Show 37: Our Catholic Founding Father, Charles Carroll, a forgotten hero · The Uncensored Catholic

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Hey, y'all, welcome today's show. I promise yesterday that for the Independence
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Day I would tell you about the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence,
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to whom I am most likely somehow related, although that is not very
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clear because we don't really know when the first Carroll came from Maryland down to
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North Carolina. But by the early eighteen hundreds there were three heads of households
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of unknown age who were named Owen Carroll, William Owen Carroll, or Owen
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Judson Carroll. They all had sons that had the same names. The family
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names is going down through the family tree. Family law has always been that
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they were related. It seems that genetic testing has proven that true for some
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other relatives. But it's kind of tricky because Catholics were not allowed to own
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property or vote in North Carolina. So when the Catholic Carols came into North
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Carolina from Maryland, obviously they were quite prominent. One of them I believe
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was the grandson of John Carroll, who was very influential in Maryland politics.
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I think he was one of the ones that ratified the Constitution. But then
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then our records just get lost. I mean First of all, the courthouse
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was burned three times in War of eighteen twelve Civil War and then again afterwards.
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Not being able to legally purchase property, sales would have been done privately,
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probably among family members. The Carols owned a lot of property. By
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the mid eighteen hundreds, they had become very prominent. One of them,
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the one who has we have the most documentation for, became a very prominent
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businessman and political leader in North Carolina following the Civil War. But it's really
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that time before the war we don't know a lot about because you know,
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there were no Catholic churches in North Carolina, so it's not like we have
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church records to go to. The first Catholic church was built right for the
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Civil War and then Sherman's troops burn it down. There wouldn't have been a
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lot of documentation until the Catholic Carols married enough local Protestant girls that the children
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were raised Protestant and then they could actually have you know, property records and
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voting registration. And you know, thanks to the courthouses being burned down,
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we don't even have birth and death certificates, marriage records, anything like that.
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It's like literally they just appeared in the state. Don't know who was
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father to who, or brother or cousin or came from where or anything.
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And yeah, it's a little confusing. So I'm gonna say I'm like ninety
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percent sure I'm related to Charles Carroll of Carrollton, But that doesn't really matter,
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because we should all be really proud of this man's legacy. He was
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the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, basically the first and only
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United States senator who was Catholic. For a few decades afterwards, we have
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this sort of like myth that America was founded on religious freedom, but really,
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you know, the American Colony center England, you were free to be
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any kind of Protestant you want to, but you didn't want to show up
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in Massachusetts around the Plymouth Colony as a Catholic. You know, in the
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witch trials and such, at least one of the women that was accused of
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being a witch was someone that I believe it was the preacher Cotton Mather.
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Was he the one who wrote Centers in the Hands of an Angry God or
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something? I've seen remember that from high school he saw her praying the Rosary
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and decided she was speaking of demons and had her charged as a witch.
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I mean, it was not the myth that is portrayed. In fact,
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Charles Carroll himself, even though he was third generation in Maryland and actually the
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most wealthy man in the entire United States, he had about his fortune was
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estimated around two million pounds British sterling. If today's dollar was worth anything,
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that would be like around four hundred million dollars in our currency, and actually
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I think with conversion rates it would be more than that. Even though he
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was one of the most prominent political figures and leaders before the American Revolution,
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he was not allowed to hold office because he was Catholic, regardless, and
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perhaps because of that, and really obviously after a few hundred years of Ireland
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being subjugated and genocide actually by the English, he probably wasn't real big on
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the English in the first place. You know, he gave a large part
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funded the American Revolution. He gave a lot of his fortune. He actually
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he actually he sacrificed a great deal for our freedom. And he, like
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I said, with classic pugnacious irishman, ready for a brawl. He signed
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his address to his name when he signed the Decoration Independence. He was a
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very brave man. Other members of his family I think I'm thinking maybe nephews.
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We'll get into that in a minute. I'm not completely clear on the
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landing to see. He and his wife they had I believe seven children,
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but only three of them live Path's infancy, and by the end of the
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war, I believe only two of them were living. One was a woman,
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and of course she married and changed her name. The only Carroll's son
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was apparently just broken by what had happened during the Revolution, and I mean,
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the British were incredibly cruel and he died early, and it appears that
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may have been of alcoholism. Charles Carroll himself, though outlived all the other
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founding fathers. He lived who I think it was ninety five years old.
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He lived like some fifty years fifty six years or so after signing the Decoration
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of Independence. And like I was saying, I don't know that, We'll
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get into it as I read it. There's actually a great entry on him
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on the Catholic Online Catholic Encyclopedia, so I'm just going to skim that.
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It's like my rough outline. Another of his family members founded Georgetown College.
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Another one became a helped ratify the Constitution of United States and was a Congressman
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from Maryland for a very long time. And well, of course the founder
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of Georgetown College also the first Catholic bishop of the United States. Without the
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Carols, it would have essentially been no Catholic presence in America until Louisiana became
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part of our territory. And you know, we think of Louisiana as being
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like this great, big Catholic culture. You know, not only were the
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Puritans up in New England very intolerant of Catholics well into the mid eighteen hundreds
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of late eighteen hundreds, a lot of pushback, you know, when a
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lot of Irish and Italian immigrants started coming in. I mean now we think
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of like, you know, Boston, New York as major centers of Catholicism,
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they really weren't. For a long time Catholics were not welcome, and
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of course in North Carolina and several other states, Catholics were totally not welcome
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until really the industrialization of the nineteen twenties and thirties started bringing some in and
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throughout the South, the clan the Qlux in vehemently opposed the Catholic Church.
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This is where we could get into some controversy. Not only was Charles Carroll
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the only Catholic signer of the decoration, he was probably the only one that
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wasn't a Freemason. The Masonic Order was very influential in America, both North
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and South. All of our presidents had set for I think Kennedy, Obama,
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and Trump have been Freemasons. The Masonic Order is dedicated to destroying the
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Catholic Church. Were it not for Charles Carroll, I don't think Catholics would
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have been welcome at all. And one thing they don't really teach in history
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books is that the Clan wenched and killed more Catholics than blacks or Jews.
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That's not taught at all. We're taught that the clan was totally opposed to
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black people, where they really hated Catholics. In fact, one of the
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greatest massacres of the United States, I think, one of the bloody states
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in our history, and certainly the biggest slaughter of a religious group or an
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immigrant group actually happened in New Orleans. What we think of this, you
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know, great tolerant, a decadent city. A lot of Cicilians were moving
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in and the clan got together and lynched hundreds of people and one day killed
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them. So there was I could really make the argument that without Charles Carroll
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and the Carroll family, we would not have much of a Catholic presence in
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the United States whatsoever, whatsoever, except for, of course, you know,
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California and all the missions that were established with the Spanish and such.
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But you know, who knows how that would have gone had Catholicism not essentially
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been legalized by the time that the Western States became part of the United States.
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Well, anyway, let's get into a little bit of the Carroll family
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and this guy's life. Fascinating. You need to teach if your homeschool or
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if your kids are in a Catholic school, I'm going to encourage you every
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year try to have some history taught on Charles Carroll of Carrollton. You will
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not find him even mentioned along with our founding fathers in most history books.
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He was actually went on a delegation with Benjamin Franklin to try to get the
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French Canadians to support the American independence cause. Not only did he fund in
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large part the Continental Army before the Revolution. He had a series of written
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debates which were absolutely as influential as anything ever written by Jefferson or Madison,
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or Benjamin Franklin or any of those guys. He should be remembered as one
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of America's great heroes, and you will barely find him as anything more than
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a footnote in most history books. By the time he came along, he
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was a third generation Marylander. They had come to Maryland to escape the persecution
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of Catholics by the English. Charles Carroll of Annapolis was his father. He
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was born in seventeen o three seventeen eighty three. He was a wealthy landowner
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and bitterly opposed to the political disabilities under which the Catholics of Maryland suffered.
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The mother of Charles carrollin Charles Carrollton was Elizabeth was Elizabeth Brooke, the daughter
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of Clement Brook and Jane Sewell. Sewell's very prominent family. Anyway, we
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can skip a little bit about his early life. It's just important to note
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that Charles Carroll was very strong Catholic. He was educated in Jesuit schools and
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he was very devout with college in Paris. I think he was in Bohemia
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for a while, came back and became probably Maryland's most prominent citizen. Upon
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his return to America in seventeen sixty five, the estate of Carrollton in Frederick
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County, Maryland was given to him, and he later became known as Charles
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Carroll of Carrollton. In the difficulties with the mother country, Carroll aggressively defended
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the position taken by the colonies. In seventeen seventy a proclamation by Governor Eden
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imposed certain fees upon the colonists. The fees were treated as taxes and were
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vigorously opposed as violating the right of the people attacks themselves. They're going a
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little bit about the history, and I mean, you know why America eventually
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rebelled against England taxation without representation and really being treated unfairly by the English.
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In seventeen seventy four, Carroll was elected with six others by the citizens of
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Anne Arrowdale County Erindale County, ann Annapolis, with full power to represent them
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in the provincial Convention. Catholics had been disenfranchised and declared ineligible to seat in
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the Assembly, but by this act, the prejudice against him was swept away.
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Carroll was from this time for a period of twenty seven years, called
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to important public service on behalf of the colony for the General Government. In
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December of this year he was made a member of the Provincial Committee of Correspondence.
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He was a member of the Maryland Convention of seventeen seventy five, which
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adopted the Association of the Freemen of Maryland, which became the charter of the
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colony until the adoption of Maryland Constitution seventeen seventy six the Association. The Association
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pledged to armed resistance to Great Britain. He was apt. He was appointed
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by the Convention to consider the ways and means to put the province in the
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best state of defense. Seventeen seventy five, the Citizens of Van Erindale County
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an Annapolis appointed committee for the town and county of which Carrollton was a member.
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At this meeting he was elected one the deputies represent the county in the
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State Convention. He just keeps rising through their ranks and interesting really. One
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of the committees he was on. The mission wants to devise ways and means
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to promote and manufacture saltpeter. Saltpeter was a necessary ingredient in black powder gunpowder.
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Without it we would have had no ammunition against the British. January seventeen
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seventy six, he was a delicate to the Continental Congress, and that's what
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led to our independence. As I mentioned, also in seventeen seventy six,
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he and Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Chase went up to Quebec and such trying to
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get the French Canadians to join with us. And actually John Carroll, who
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became Archbishop Carroll accompanied this in that effort, was John his brother or his
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nephew. That's where I get a little money. The committee. They didn't
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accomplish what they wanted to do, obviously, but by June of seventeen seventy
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six, Maryland was ready to declare independence, and as a delegate to the
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Constituent Continental Congress, on the fourth of July seventeen seventy six, he took
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his seat and signed the Declaration of Independence. He actually got there late and
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didn't get to sign it until August. Second, of all the signers,
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he risked the most. He was the wealthiest man in the colonies at the
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beginning of the revolution, Wealth's committed over two million dollars. He's almost all
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that was going. By the end of the war, he had to start
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over, essentially. So he did all he could during the Revolutionary War to
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support the cause, after which he served at various positions in the Maryland Senate
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and such, and as a United States Senator. He became again a fairly
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prosperous businessman and would have become a railroad titan. And he lived past the
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age of ninety five. And let me just see real quick if I can
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figure out the relationship to John Carroll, who, by the way, if
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you ever look at his painting, which was just like my grandfather. He
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was America's first Catholic bishop. He served as the ordinary in the first Diocese
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and later Archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland. He was born seventheen thirty five and
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he was cousin to Charles Carroll of carrollin Carrollton. He was cousin to Charles
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Carroll of Carrollton. His older brother was Daniel Carroll, and he was one
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of only five men signed the Articles of Confederation and Professual Union and the Counts
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TuS to the United States. So he also founded Georgetown University. Very strong,
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devout Catholic, a Jesuit and really one of the first to advocate that
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the Mass not be done entirely in Latin. If the priests decided that most
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of the congregation didn't understand the language, he would have made it optional to
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have a Mass in Latin or in the vernacular. Because here he was in
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the United States where multiple languages were being spoken. You had immigrants coming in
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from all over and a lot of them were not very well educated. He
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did a great deal for education. And yeah, so really interesting family,
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really influential family, and we owe a lot a lot to Charles Carroll and
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John Carroll and John Earl's brother David, And yeah, I just think this
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is a history that that just really needs to be told. Part of America's
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history is Catholic and we should be proud of it. I mean, there
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are so many myths that are taught in school there. We're taught that America
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has had this great relationship with England. You know, we have this special
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relationship. There are a mother country, you know, look at it with
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without this Irish family, without the help of another one of my ancestors,
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General Francis Marion of French descent, without Lafayette encouraging the French to help block
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the British navy, without several Native American tribes that fought alongside the colonists,
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without several, um, you know, African Americans. You see think of
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that iconic picture of Washington crossing the Delaware. One of the men on that
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boat is black. He was a freeman who was fighting for America. The
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story of America is a lot more complex than people want to admit, and
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it's not always black and white. And we did fight two wars to get
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England out of our country. And they were brutal. They were absolutely brutal.
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You can google what happened to the signers of the Decoration. I mean
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they were hunted down like dogs, properties taken, homes, burned, family
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killed before their eyes, you know, executed, you name it. And
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they were an interesting bunch of people, they really were. You know,
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you had the Carols, who were very upstanding Catholics, and then you had
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some of these guys like you know, Adams and Pain and different ones who
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were smugglers, bootleggers, pirates. Even you had Southern gentleman like Thomas Jefferson
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and James Madison. It was a real mix of people. You know,
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Benjamin Franklin, if he had been treated well by the English, probably would
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have sided with them, you know, interesting character in and of himself.
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And the thing that gets to me is Charles Carroll is like almost always left
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out of the history books. You know, it is our country too,
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after all. I think we need to take back our heritage and maybe get
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away from that PBS narrative of like worshiping the English. Seriously, all right,
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y'all, have a great Independence Day. And as I always say,
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on days like this where we commemorate, whether it's our fauniding generation or you
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know, like Memorial Day and such, we're commemorating our soldiers who died in
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battle for our freedoms. Be the people they fought for, even if they
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didn't always attain those ideals themselves. Be the people that their ideals would embody
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or would embody be embodied by. Be the people they wanted us to be.
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Let's just go with that. Just remember what Detactile said, America is
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great because America is good. Should America fail to be good, America will
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no longer be great. And I think we can look at the news seas
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days and see there's not a whole lot of goodness going on in this country.
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And meanwhile, we're losing our freedoms and our status in this world.
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We're losing our place as that world power that you know, in large part,
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helped win a couple of world world wars, prevent Soviet and Chinese domination,
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and bring peace and freedom to a whole lot of people. We need
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to be good so our country can be great. So, in the words
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of Saint Padre Pio, pray, hope and don't worry, and I will
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talk to you next time.