Daniel Carroll

Daniel Carroll
Portrait by John Wollaston, 1753–1754. Portrait by John Wollaston, 1753–1754.
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland's 6th district
In office March 4, 1789 – March 3, 1791
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Upton Sheredine
3rd Commissioner of the Federal City
In office March 4, 1791 – May 21, 1795
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Alexander White
Personal details
Born	July 22, 1730 Marlborough Town, Province of Maryland, British America
Died	May 7, 1796 (aged 65) Forest Glen, Maryland, U.S.
Resting place	St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church (Silver Spring, Maryland)
Parents	Daniel Carroll Eleanor Darnall Carroll
Relatives	John Carroll Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Known for	one of the Founding Fathers of the United States

Daniel Carroll Jr. (July 22, 1730 – May 7, 1796) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a Maryland politician, and a plantation owner. He supported the American Revolution, served in the Confederation Congress, was a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 which penned the Constitution of the United States, and was a U.S. representative in the First Congress. Carroll was one of five men to sign both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. He was one of the few Catholics among the Founders.

Early life

Carroll was born in Marlborough Town in the Province of Maryland on July 22, 1730. He was the son of wealthy planters Daniel Carroll (c.1696 - 1751) and Eleanor Darnall Carroll (1703-1796). His parents' home was Darnall's Chance, a plantation of 27,000 acres which his mother had inherited from her grandfather. Carroll was sent abroad for his education. Between 1742 and 1748 he studied under the Jesuits at the College of St. Omer in France, established for the education of English Catholics. Then, after a tour of Europe, he sailed home and soon married Eleanor Carroll, apparently a first cousin, whose great-grandparents were Daniel Carroll and Dorothy Kennedy from Ireland.

His younger brother John was the first Catholic bishop in the United States (as Bishop of Baltimore, 1790) and founder of Georgetown University; his cousin Charles Carroll of Carrollton signed the Declaration of Independence.

Career

In the 1770s, Carroll gradually joined the Patriot cause. As a slaveholder and large landholder, he was initially concerned that the Revolution might fail economically and bring about his family's financial ruin and mob rule.

At the time, Maryland, though Catholic-founded, had (like the rest of the Thirteen Colonies) issued laws excluding Catholics from holding public office. When Maryland declared its independence from the Crown and enacted its first constitution, these laws were nullified. Carroll was elected to the Maryland Senate, serving 1777–1781. As a state senator, he helped raise troops and money for the American cause. His involvement in the Revolutionary War, like that of other Patriots in his extended family, was inspired by the family's motto: "Strong in Faith and War".

He led the effort to block the State Assembly from ratifying of the Articles of Confederation until the states that had western land claims (which Maryland did not) ceded those claims to Congress. Carroll dropped his opposition only after Virginia relinquished its claims on land north of the Ohio River to Congress, and on February 2, 1781, Maryland became the thirteenth and final state to ratify the Articles.

Constitutional Convention of 1787

In 1787, Carroll was named a Maryland delegate to the Philadelphia Convention, which convened to revise the Articles, and produced the Constitution. Like his good friend James Madison of Virginia, Carroll was convinced that a strong central government was needed to regulate commerce among the states and with other nations. He also spoke out repeatedly in opposition to the payment of members of the United States Congress by the states, reasoning that such compensation would sabotage the strength of the new government because "the dependence of both Houses on the state Legislatures would be complete... The new government in this form is nothing more than a second edition of [the Continental] Congress in two volumes, instead of one, and perhaps with very few amendments."

When it was suggested that the president (executive branch) should be elected by the Congress (legislative branch), Carroll, seconded by James Wilson, moved that the words "by the legislature" be replaced with "by the people". He and Thomas Fitzsimons were the only Catholics to sign the Constitution, but their presence was a sign of the continued advancement of religious freedom in America. Carroll played an essential role in formulating the limitation of the powers of the federal or central government. He was the author of the presumption—enshrined in the Constitution as a closing article – that powers not specifically delegated to the federal government were reserved to the states or to the people. Carroll spoke about 20 times during the summer of debates at the Constitutional Convention and served on the Committee on Postponed Matters. Returning to Maryland after the convention, he campaigned for ratification of the Constitution but was not a delegate to the Maryland state convention for ratification.

Political career

Following the convention, Carroll continued to be involved in state and national affairs. He was a key participant in the Maryland ratification struggle of 1787–1788. He defended the Constitution in the "Maryland Journal", most notably in his response to the arguments advanced by the well-known Anti-Federalist and Patriot delegate Samuel Chase. After ratification was achieved in Maryland, Carroll was elected as a representative ("congressman") of the Sixth Congressional District of Maryland to the First Congress of 1789, meeting in New York City. Given his concern for economic and fiscal stability, he voted for the assumption of state debts accumulated during the war by the federal government to establish a new level of financial confidence of credible public debts as proposed by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton as part of a "grand bargain" with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, for Northerners to support locating the new national capital in the upper South, along the Potomac River.

One of three commissioners appointed to survey the newly designated District of Columbia and acquire land for the new federal capital in the District, Carroll was related to two major landowners whose land was acquired by the government, his brother-in-law Notley Young and nephew Daniel Carroll of Duddington. The United States Capitol was built on a wooded hill owned by his nephew. As one of his first official acts as commissioner, on April 15, 1791, he and fellow commissioner David Stuart of Virginia laid the cornerstone for the beginning boundary line survey of the District at Jones Point, on the south bank of the Potomac near Alexandria, formerly in Virginia. He served as a commissioner until 1795, when he retired because of poor health.

He later was again elected to the Maryland Senate. He had many interests in his state and region, including the "Patowmack Company", which sought to build a Patowmack Canal to the West. This was a long-time project of George Washington since his western explorations and military campaigns against the French. This predated the survey and construction thirty years later of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

Carroll died May 7, 1796, at age 65, at his home near Rock Creek in the present neighborhood of Forest Glen, Maryland. Carroll's body was buried there in Saint John the Evangelist Catholic Church Cemetery.

Legacy

Carroll Street in Madison, Wisconsin, is named in his honor.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

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., 1780, 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.

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).

Bibliography

Secondary sources

• Geiger, Mary Virginia (1943). Daniel Carroll, A Framer of the Constitution. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America.
• Meehan, Thomas (1908). "Daniel Carroll". The Catholic Encyclopedia. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• "Daniel Carroll", Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

External links

• Works by or about Daniel Carroll at Wikisource