A. Catholics participated in the Constitutional Convention that drew up the original Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787. Two of the thirty-nine signers of the Constitution were Catholic citizens of considerable distinction and influence in their communities. In the nature of things, they had to be rather outstanding because they represented overwhelmingly Protestant states. These two were Daniel Carroll, of Maryland, and Thomas Fitzsimmons, of Pennsylvania. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was originally chosen to represent Maryland, but declined the appointment, because as a member of the state legislature of Maryland he felt that he ought to stay at home in order to attend to the business of the legislature, particularly to work against a threatened issue of paper money by the state.
While it is of no great significance, perhaps it is interesting to note that, while there were only two Catholic signers of the Constitution and thirty-seven non-Catholic signers, this made Catholic representation in writing the Constitution about seven times as large in proportion to the Catholic population as was the non-Catholic representation in proportion to the non-Catholic population. The various estimates of the Catholic population of the United States in 1787 run from twenty-four to thirty thousand. The total population of the United States in 1787 is generally estimated to have been about four million. To keep the proportions even, there should have been about 264 non-Catholic signers of the Constitution to balance the two Catholic signers. The two Catholic delegates to the Convention both signed the Constitution
Thomas Fitzsimmons (1741-1811) was born in County Tubber, Wicklow, Ireland, and came to this country sometime before 1760. In 1770 he joined the shipping firm of George Mead and Company, in Philadelphia. In 1774, following the Boston Tea Party, he was made a member of the Committee of Correspondence to keep in communication with the men of other colonies concerning the growing crisis. He was the first Catholic to attain a municipal office in Pennsylvania. In 1776 he was elected to membership in the Council of Safety and in 1777 a member of the Navy Board created by the legislature of Pennsylvania. He served in the Revolutionary War under George Washington, by commanding a company of volunteer home and was chosen a delegate to the Constitutional Convention on December 30, 1786, with Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, and Governor Morris. He was a member of the Continental Congress in 1782 and 1783; member of the State house of representatives in 1786 and 1787; delegate to the United States Constitutional Convention in 1787; elected as a Federalist to the First, Second, and Third Congresses (March 4, 1789-March 3, 1795); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1794 to the Fourth Congress; president of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce; trustee of the University of Pennsylvania; founder and director of the Bank of North America. Fitzsimmons died in Philadelphia, Pa., on August 26, 1811 and was interred in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Churchyard.
Daniel Carroll (1730-1796) was educated at home as a small boy and from the age of twelve to eighteen at the English Jesuit College of St. Omer in French Flanders. Education of Catholic youth in Maryland in Carroll’s boyhood was difficult and even hazardous on account of the drastic English penal laws, which were still in force in Maryland. When Daniel was twenty-one, his father died, leaving heavy responsibilities on him-as manager of large estates and the family mercantile business. His only brother, John, later the first Catholic bishop and archbishop in America, was in France preparing for the priesthood. Daniel’s public life began at the age of forty-seven, in 1777, when he was elected to the Council of State of the new state of Maryland. He was re-elected four times. He resigned on January 17, 1781, to accept a seat in the Continental Congress.
On November 24, 1781, he was elected to a five-year term as state senator and was re-elected in 1786. During his years as a state senator, he was also a member of the Continental Congress from 1781 until the work of the Congress was over. He served part of this time also as President of the Senate.
Daniel Carroll was one of the few signers of both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States. In the Continental Congress Carroll was active on many matters, particularly with such colleagues as Madison and Hamilton on army supply and public finance.
On May 26, 1787, Daniel Carroll was chosen as one of Maryland’s five delegates to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia. He took his seat there July 9, 1787, and remained to the final day, and the signing of the Constitution on September 17, 1787. Later he was ardent and active in securing Maryland’s ratification. On January 13, 1789, Daniel Carroll was elected to the House of Representatives in the First Congress. The record shows that Carroll played an active part in framing the religious clause of the First Amendment and the Tenth Amendment which reserves “to the people” of the states the authority to say what power over them shall be exercised by the federal government. Daniel Carroll was one of the three commissioners appointed in 1791 by Washington to plan the permanent seat of the government in s, where he served through its three sessions-March, 1789, to March 4, 1791. He was particularly concerned with the First and Tenth Amendments. Carroll was one of the three commissioners appointed in 1791 by Washington to plan the permanent seat of government in the newly created District of Columbia. He resigned in 1795, and died on May 7, 1796 at the age of 65 at his home near Rock Creek in Forest Glen, MD. He was buried there in St. John’s Catholic Cemetery.