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Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > C > Daniel Carroll


DANIEL CARROLL

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Brother of Archbishop Carroll, b. at upper Marlboro, Maryland, U. S. A., 1733;
d. at Washington, 1829. Politically he was, in his time, one of the most
influential men of his native State, but the wider fame of his illustrious
brother has somewhat overshadowed his repute. His early training was like that
of the archbishop. "My father", he wrote, 20 Dec., 1762, to his kinsman, James
Carroll, in Ireland, "died in 1750 and left six children, myself, Ann, John,
Ellen, Mary and Betsey. My eldest sister Ann is married to Mr. Robert Brent in
Virginia. They have one child a son. My brother John was sent for his education
on my return. Ellen, my second sister, is married well, to Mr. Wm. Brent in
Virginia near my eldest sister. She has three boys and one girl. My sisters Mary
and Betsy are unmarried and live chiefly with my mother" (Woodstock Letters,
VII, 5). An elder brother, Henry, was drowned while a boy at school. Until the
Revolution Daniel Carroll led the life of the country gentlemen of the day, but
it may be noted that the Catholic men who had been sent abroad to school were
far superior, as a class, to their neighbours, whose narrow and insular
education rarely led them to interests beyond their county limits. Carroll was
an active partisan of the colonists, serving as a member from Maryland of the
old Colonial Congress (1780-1784). He was also a delegate from Maryland to the
convention that sat in Philadelphia, 14 May to 17 Sept., 1787, and framed the
Constitution of the United States. Thomas Fitz-Simons of Pennsylvania was the
only other Catholic among the members. On his return to Maryland, Carroll was by
his efforts largely instrumental in having the Constitution adopted by that
State. In opposition to the arguments of Samuel Chase, the Anti-Federalist
leader in Maryland, he wrote and printed a public letter defending the proposed
Constitution, the last sentences of which read: "If there are errors it should
be remembered that the seeds of reformation are sown in the work itself and the
concurrence of two-thirds of the Congress may at any time introduce alterations
and amendments. Regarding it then in every point of view with a candid and
disinterested mind I am bold to assert that it is the best form of government
which has ever been offered to the world" (Maryland Journal, 16 Oct., 1787). As
one of the four laymen representing the Catholics of the United States, his name
is signed to the address of congratulation presented to George Washington on his
election as President of the Republic under the Constitution.



In the sessions of the new Congress Carroll served again (1789-1791) as a member
from Maryland. When the Congress, at the session held in October, 1784, at
Trenton, New Jersey, enacted that a board of three commissioners should lay out
a site, between two and three miles square, on the Delaware for a federal city,
to be the capital of the nation, he was named with Thomas Johnson and David
Stuart as his associates. The choice of the present site of Washington was
advocated by him, and he owned one of the four farms taken for it, Notley Young,
David Burns, and Samuel Davidson being the others interested. The capitol was
built on the land transferred to the Government by Carroll, and there is
additional interest to Catholics in the fact that, in 1663, this whole section
of country belonged to a man named Pope, who called it Rome. On 15 April, 1791,
Carroll and David Stuart, as the official commissioners of Congress, laid the
corner-stone of the District of Columbia at Jones's Point near Alexandria,
Virginia. When the Congress met in Washington for the first time, in November,
1800, Carroll and Notley Young owned the only two really comfortable and
imposing houses within the bounds of the city. Young's name is among those
assisting as collectors of subscriptions (1787) for the founding of Georgetown
College.




SOURCES

SHEA, Life and Times of the Most Rev. John Carroll (New York, 1888); SCHARF,
History of Western Maryland (Baltimore, 1882); VARNUM, The Seat of Government of
the U. S. (Washington, 1854); FORD, Essays on The Constitution of The U. S.
(Brooklyn, 1892); Madison State Papers in the archives of the State Department,
Washington; United States Gazette, files (1791).


ABOUT THIS PAGE

APA citation. Meehan, T. (1908). Daniel Carroll. In The Catholic Encyclopedia.
New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03381a.htm

MLA citation. Meehan, Thomas. "Daniel Carroll." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.
3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908.
<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03381a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron. With
thanks to Fr. John Hilkert, Akron, Ohio.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D.,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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