Charles Carroll the Signer of The Declaration of Independance

Charles Carroll of Carrollton was born in Annapolis, Maryland, September 30, 1737. With the Declaration of Independence, all the bias and restrictions against Catholics in Maryland ended. Carroll was the only Roman Catholic to sign the Declaration, and of all the signers he risked the most financially, his worth being estimated at $2,000,000. On July 19, 1776, Carroll was appointed to the Board of War, a very important committee, which was in charge of all the executive duties of the military department.

Charles Carroll's Address on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, August 2, 1826:

Grateful to almighty God for the blessing which, through Jesus Christ our Lord, he has conferred upon my beloved country in her emancipation and upon myself, in permitting me, under circumstances of mercy, to live to the age of 89 years and to survive the fiftieth year of American Independence, and certifying by my present signature my approbation of the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on the fourth day of July, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and seventy six, which I originally subscribed on the second day of August of the same year, and of which I am now the last surviving signer. 

I do hereby recommend to the present and future generations the principles of that important document as the best earthly inheritance their ancestors could bequeath to them, and pray that the civil and religious liberties they have secured to my country may be perpetuated to the remotest posterity and extended to the whole family of man.