Interview with Bradley J. Birzer, author of Who was Charles
Carroll of Carrollton? Charles Carroll of Carrollton
(1737-1832), one of the most educated of the American founders,
served as the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration of
Independence. As advocate of government defending justice
through a proper understanding of Natural Rights and Natural
Law, Carroll defended the U.S. Constitution, served as the
inspiration for the U.S. Senate, and served as a U.S. Senator.
After 1800, he commented vigorously on the growing
democratization of the American republic. Why was Maryland so
anti-Catholic? Was this true of the American colonies as a
whole? The original English and Scottish settlers in North
America had been intimately involved in the latter stages of the
Reformation. They viewed Catholicism as superstitious and
oppressive. Generally, each colony expressed religious tolerance
only for a particular sect of Christianity, excluding all
others. One can regard the individual colonies, generally, as
island