Final attempt at political power and death
In 1715, political power over the Maryland colony was restored to the Calvert family after the conversion of Benedict Calvert to Protestantism. Emboldened by this turn of events, and with support from a number of prominent Maryland Catholic families, Carroll attempted to gain government office in the state. This would have been a profound departure from the policy of excluding Catholics from government, which had existed since the Protestant takeover in 1689. Carroll's chief antagonist in this effort was the Governor, John Hart. In 1716, Hart discovered that Carroll was planning to travel to England to lobby Calvert's officials for restoration of officeholding rights for Catholics, something Hart vehemently opposed, claiming Carroll had promised against such. Hart described Carroll as:
a professed Papist, and the first fomentor of our late Disturbances, who having acquired a large estate in the Province by the offices he formerly employed, and his practice in Law...must needs add the Ambition of Rule to his former Felicity.
Carroll convinced the proprietor's officials to appoint him as the proprietor's chief agent in the colony. He was further appointed to the positions of receiver general, escheator, and naval officer. These positions together effectively gave Carroll the power to oversee all money in the colony that was collected by the government or by Calvert's private organization.
Upon Carroll's return to Maryland, Hart was incensed both at the threat to his own power and the idea of a Catholic officeholder in the colony. Hart demanded that Carroll take the oath of allegiance, which he was willing to do, and the oath of abjuration confirming the Protestant succession to the English throne, which Carroll was not willing to do. Carroll began to act in the capacity authorized by the proprietor's commission, and Hart turned to the upper house of the colonial legislature for relief. Rejecting Carroll's arguments in support of his right to hold government offices, the assembly resisted his attempts to exercise the commission and, near the end of 1716, passed a series of laws confirming and restricting the oath requirements for officeholders, which were anti-Catholic by intent. Carroll's case may have been undermined when he came to the defense of his nephew, who had raised a toast to the Catholic James Stuart. Stuart had tried to take the British throne during a rebellion in 1715 and was extremely unpopular with Protestants in the colony. The proprietor, whose position had been so recently restored and who did not want to risk the loss of the colony, confirmed the decision of the assembly. Carroll's commission was formally revoked on 20 February 1717. According to a later account Hart gave to the assembly, Carroll began a campaign to undermine the Governor. There is no evidence that Hart was accurate, but the assembly passed stricter anti-Catholic laws in 1718, including disfranchisement, stripping Catholic males of the right to vote.
Carroll died only two years later, with his wealth intact but having failed to regain any political rights for Catholics in Maryland. Carroll's eldest son Henry had died a year before; the family fortune was passed on to his younger sons Charles and Daniel.
His son Charles, known as Charles Carroll of Annapolis, maintained and expanded the family fortune. His grandson, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, achieved the restoration of political rights his grandfather had desired. He became the only Catholic to sign the United States Declaration of Independence.
