Independence Day: Charles Carroll on Liberty

“ … the best earthly inheritance …”

In 1892 a Baltimore librarian made a surprising discovery: a copy of the Declaration of Independence accompanied by an 1828 attestation of then-89 year old Charles Carroll (d. 1832), one of the original signers.

The discovery made national news in 1892 and the story was repeated in 1912 in The Catholic Chronicle of Erie, PA:

Further, the paper opined,

“We claim that the attestation by Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, the loyal Catholic citizen of our country, the last signer and the last of the signers to die, should be printed every year on July 4th!

“Yes, for that day every paper in the land should print it to remind our citizens and our children that we are grateful to God for the liberties we enjoy in this country and that we pray that the same may be perpetuated to the remotest posterity.”