Maryland History (1632) from The Original 13-A Documentary History of Religion in America's First Thirteen States (Amerisearch, Inc., 2009):
<Maryland was founded as a colony for persecuted Catholics in 1632 by Cecil Calvert and his brother Leonard Calvert. It was named for King Charles I's wife, Henrietta Maria, who was a French Catholic. Religious tensions of that era were such that the Puritans of Boston would not allow Calvert into their port after his transatlantic voyage.
The Declaration of Lord Baltimore's Plantation, stated:
"It pleased his most Excellent Majesty in June last, 1632, to give under the Great Seale of England, a Province near unto the English Plantation in Virginia, to my Lord Baltimore and his heirs for ever: calling it MARYLAND, in honor of our most gracious Queen. My Lord therefore, meaning to plant and people it, first with this express and chief intention to bring to CHRIST that and the Countries adjacent, which from the beginning of the World to this day never knew GOD; and then with this end, to enlarge his Majesty's Empire and Dominions."
Maryland's history continued during the Civil War in England. In 1644, Virginia Anglicans Richard Ingle and William Claiborne led an attack on Maryland's St. Mary's City, burned the Church, took control of government and imprisoned the Catholic leaders. Leonard Calvert returned with a small force, drove out the marauders and re-established his authority.
The population of Maryland in 1645 was between 4,000 and 5,000, with three-fourths being Catholics. There were 4 Franciscan priests, followed by 4 Jesuit priests.
After Leonard Calvert died in 1647, Cecil appointed Protestant Governor William Stone in 1648. Cecil granted the Tolerance Act of 1649, which allowed any Christian to hold office. This was the first instance of freedom of conscience in colonial America.
A few years earlier, Virginia's House of Burgesses passed a law requiring all persons to conform to the Church of England. Virginia's Governor strictly enforced this law, resulting in many Puritans and Quakers fleeing.
Governor William Stone invited these refugees to Maryland and gave them a large tract of land where they founded Annapolis.
The Puritans complained that their consciences would not allow them to submit to a Catholic government, so in 1650, they seized the Colony's government and repealed the Toleration Act.
They defeated Governor William Stone's forces at the Battle of the Severn and declared Catholics ineligible to hold office. Their act "Concerning Religion" stated:
"That none who profess and exercise the Papistic, commonly known as the Roman Catholic religion, can be protected in this province."
During this Puritan usurpation, gangs broke into Catholic chapels and mission houses and destroyed their property. Three of the four Jesuit priests fled to Virginia where they lived in hiding for several years.
A second civil war in England resulted in Puritan Commissioners of the English Parliament controlling Maryland from 1652 to 1655. In 1658 the government of the province was restored to Lord Baltimore and the Toleration Act of 1649 was put back into effect.
Philip Calvert, brother of Cecil, was governor from 1660 to 1662, then he was succeeded by Charles Calvert, the son Cecil. Charles married and settled in Maryland and there was an era of prosperity. By 1665, the population grew to 16,000, and by 1671 the population was 20,000, of which 5,000 were Catholic, served by 5 priests.
In 1672, George Fox, founder of the Quakers-Religious Society of Friends, preached in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and the Friends formed the Maryland Yearly Meeting. In 1682, Quakers began building the Third Haven Meeting House in Talbot County.
After the death of his father Cecil in 1675, Charles took the title of third Lord Baltimore. In 1676, attempts were made to force him to provide public support for clergymen of the Church of England, which he resisted. Several Protestants denounced him and assembled in arms in Calvert County to overthrow the government. Governor Thomas Notley suppressed the movement and hanged two of the ringleaders.
John Coode and Colonel Jowles formed "The Protestant Association in arms to defend the Protestant religion." Charles Calvert's government was overthrown, Deputy Governor Notley was forced out of office, and a "Committee of Public Safety" was installed. This Committee appealed to and was granted recognition by England's new sovereigns, William and Mary.
Lord Baltimore never regained the government, though he was allowed to retain his lands, which kept Maryland from being absorbed into Virginia or Pennsylvania.
In 1683, Colonel William Stevens of Rehobeth, Maryland, invited Reverend Francis Makemie to be a Presbyterian missionary in the colonies. Francis Makemie, born in 1658 in County Donegal, Ireland, was educated at Glasgow University and ordained in 1682. In 1684, he built the first Presbyterian Church in America at Snow Hill.
At Rehobeth in Somerset County, Maryland, Rev. Makemie built a Church which remains as the oldest standing Presbyterian Church in America. Makemie preached in a meeting house on the Buckingham Plantation, which became Buckingham Presbyterian Church in Berlin, Maryland.
Rev. Makemie founded Beaver Dam Presbyterian Church and Pitts Creek Presbyterian Church in Pocomoke City, Maryland. Near a ferry site on the Pocomoke River, the congregation erected a log meeting house. Unfriendly residents threw the logs into the river, but members retrieved the logs and rebuilt the meeting house. As early as 1724, worship services were held at West Nottingham Church in Colora, Maryland.
Rev. Makemie organized the first meeting of Presbyterian leaders in America, called a "Presbytery," in the city of Philadelphia, and by 1716 there were four Presbyteries in America: Snow Hill, New York, Philadelphia and New Castle, Delaware. In 1717, these four united to form the Synod of Philadelphia.
In 1691, William and Mary made Maryland a royal colony and appointed Lionel Copley as governor. In 1692, they issued the "Act of Religion" which established the Church of England, even though members of the Church of England were a minority. This Act was very obnoxious to Catholics, Quakers and other Dissenters. The Test Oath of 1692 debarred Catholic attorneys from practicing in provincial courts.
In 1702, an Act exempted Puritans, Quakers and other Dissenters from the provisions of this law, but not Catholics.
By the Act of 1704, Catholics were prohibited from practicing their religion, priests could not exercise their functions, Catholic parents were forbidden to teach their children religion, and children were encouraged to refuse obedience to the authority of their Catholic parents.
Charles Calvert died February 20, 1715. In 1718, a more stringent law was passed barring Catholics from holding any office in the province. Another law was adopted stating that if a Protestant should die leaving a widow and children, and such a widow should marry a Catholic, it should be the duty of the governor and council to remove the children out of the custody of such parents. Re-enacted in 1729, this law gave judges authority to remove Catholic children and place them wherever they pleased, without regard to sex or age of the child. There was no appeal.
In the 1740's German Moravians-Church of the Brethren began arriving, working particularly with the Native Americans. In 1756, there was legislation proposed in the Maryland Assembly Lower House, as reported in the "Maryland Gazette" published in Annapolis, that any tract of land belonging to priests, which they used to provide funds for charity, education, and missionary work, should be taken and sold on October 1, 1756. Priests were required to take test oaths and if they refused they were banished as "Romish recusants."
The bill, introduced by the Governor's Council, 1756, was titled "To prevent the growth of Popery within this province." Not only could priests not hold property, they had to register their names and put up a bond for their good conduct. They were prohibited from converting Protestants under the penalty of high treason and any person educated at a foreign Catholic seminary could not inherit or hold lands in the province.
Charles Carroll, the father of the signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote to his son that Maryland was no longer fit for a Catholic to live in. He planned to sell of his great estate and leave, as many Catholics were moving to Pennsylvania, but his son dissuaded him. In 1752, the elder Carroll sailed to France to obtain from Louis XV land in the Louisiana territory for Maryland Catholics to move to. When this plan failed, many Catholics emigrated from Maryland to Kentucky in 1774.
Maryland's Protestant Revolution reduced the Catholic population so that in 1708, with 33,000 citizens, only 3,000 were Catholic. In 1754, with a population of 153,000, only 8,000 were Catholic.
The Revolutionary War changed everything. Maryland at first did not join in the cause of Independence, as almost every member of the Anglican clergy supported King George III. It was not until Catholic Charles Carroll, the son, who was the wealthiest landowner in the province, took a stand for the patriot movement that Maryland was persuaded to take part.
Charles Carroll was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence and he outlived all the other signers. Considered at his death the wealthiest citizen in America, he was elected a U.S. Senator. Maryland chose his statue to represent their State in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall.
Charles Carroll wrote to Rev. John Stanford on October, 9, 1827:
"To obtain religious as well as civil liberty I entered jealously into the Revolution, and observing the Christian religion divided into many sects, I founded the hope that no one would be so predominant as to become the religion of the State. That hope was thus early entertained because all of them joined in the same cause, with few exceptions of individuals."
Charles Carroll wrote on November 4, 1800, to James McHenry, the signer of the Constitution for whom Fort McHenry was named:
"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure and which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
Charles had a cousin John Carroll, who grew up in Maryland, went to Europe to become a priest, and upon his return, since there was not one Catholic Church in the entire State, he started one on his family’s farm. Protestants at the time did not think Catholics could be both loyal to the Pope and loyal to the American cause, but John Carroll was such a strong patriot that the Continental Congress in 1776 sent him to Canada with Ben Franklin in an attempt to persuade that French Catholic country to join in the Revolution. Rev. Carroll's reputation led several States to give Catholics equality.
On June 9, 1784, the Catholic Church in the United States was organized and Rev. John Carroll was appointed superior of the missions in all thirteen of the United States.
In 1789, the nation's first Catholic diocese was founded in Baltimore and Rev. John Carroll was appointed the first Catholic Bishop in the United States.
On January 23, 1789, he founded Georgetown University and the nation's first Catholic seminary. He began the parochial school system and persuaded Elizabeth Seton to start a girls' school in Baltimore.
Bishop John Carroll wrote:
"Freedom and independence, acquired by...the mingled blood of Protestant and Catholic fellow-citizens, should be equally enjoyed by all."
Bishop Carroll stated of Catholics who fought in the Revolution: "Their blood flowed as freely (in proportion to their numbers) to cement the fabric of independence as that of any of their fellow-citizens. They concurred with perhaps greater unanimity than any other body of men, in recommending and promoting that government, from whose influence America anticipates all the blessings of justice, peace, plenty, good order and civil and religious liberty."
Bishop John Carroll wrote to Cardinal Borromeo in 1783:
"This is a blessing and advantage, which is our duty to preserve & improve with the utmost prudence, by demeaning ourselves on all occasions as subjects zealously attached to our government & avoiding to give any jealousies on account of any dependence on foreign jurisdictions, more than that, which is essential to our Religion and acknowledgment of the Pope's spiritual Supremacy over the whole Christian world."
In 1789, Bishop John Carroll wrote in a National Gazette article:
"The establishment of the American empire was not the work of this or that religion, but arose from a generous exertion of all her citizens to redress their wrongs, to assert their rights, and lay its foundations on the soundest principles of justice and equal liberty...An earnest regard to preserve inviolate forever, in our new empire, the great principle of religious freedom."
In 1790, Bishop John Carroll wrote a report from Catholic clergy in America to Rome:
"In 1776, American Independence was declared, and a revolution effected, not only in political affairs, but also in those relating to Religion. For while the thirteen provinces of North America rejected the yoke of England, they proclaimed, at the same time, freedom of conscience, and the right of worshipping the Almighty, according to the spirit of the religion to which each one should belong. Before this great event, the Catholic faith had penetrated two provinces only, Maryland and Pennsylvania. In all the others the laws against Catholics were in force. Any priest coming from foreign parts, was subject to the penalty of death; all who professed the Catholic faith, were not merely excluded from offices of government, but hardly could be tolerated in a private capacity....By the Declaration of Independence, every difficulty was removed: the Catholics were placed on a level with their fellow-Christians, and every political disqualification was done away."
President Washington wrote to Carroll, March 1790:
"Your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution...May the members of your society in America, animated alone by the pure spirit of Christianity...enjoy every temporal and spiritual felicity."
Another cousin, Daniel Carroll of Duddington, was one of two Catholics to sign the U.S. Constitution. He provided much of the land where the
U.S. Capitol is built and was elected a U.S. Congressman. Carroll's nephew, Robert Brent, was Washington, D.C.'s first mayor, being reappointed by Jefferson and Madison.
In 1817, a Scotch Presbyterian immigrant named Thomas Kennedy was elected to the Maryland Legislature and placed on a committee to consider the political disability of the Jews, which numbered about 150 in the State.
Believing religion was "a question which rests, or ought to rest, between man and his Creator alone," Kennedy titled his 1819 committee report:
"An Act to extend to the sect of people professing the Jewish religion the same rights and privileges that are enjoyed by Christians."
Kennedy's bill was defeated. He introduced it again, and not only was it defeated, it caused Kennedy to lose reelection.
Kennedy ran again in 1825 and was reelected. With the help of H.M. Brackenridge, William Worthington, and Jews Jacob I. Cohen and Solomon Etting, public opinion turned. Kennedy's eight year effort saw the bill's approval in 1826. A few months later, two Jews were elected to Baltimore's City Council.
In 1851, Maryland's Constitution reflected the change to allow Jews to hold office, and in 1867, the Constitution was changed again requiring only belief in God to hold office.> 1632MH001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1632MH001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Maryland History, beginning in 1632. William J. Federer, The Original 13-A Documentary History of Religion in America's First Thirteen States (St. Louis, MO: Amerisearch, Inc.).