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Convention: A Daily Journal

Center for Civics Education

Convention: A Daily Journal

Convention: A Daily Journal is a day-by-day journal of the 1787 Constitutional Convention convened by twelve of the original thirteen states to amend the Articles of Confederation and create a “more perfect union.” It chronicles the daily activities of the Convention, profiles the delegates and their interactions with each other, and looks back to life in America in the 1780s. Writing in the first person, the story is told from an “observer” hearing events as told in contemporary newspaper accounts and delegates’ personal notes and letters.


Sunday, May 27, 1787

May 27, 2020 - 4 minute read


Romish Church

Today, George Washington’s diary records, “I went to the Romish Church – to high Mass. Dined, drank Tea, and spent the evening at my lodgings.”  

The cultural and religious foundations of the American colonies were primarily English and Protestant, but Catholics settled in America as early as 1634 when Charles I issued a charter to Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, to establish a colony as a safe haven for Catholics.  It was called Maryland. In 1629, Calvert’s father, George Calvert, had visited Jamestown where he received a cool welcome because of his Catholic faith. Leaving his wife and servants behind, he returned to England to apply for a new charter. When he returned to bring them home, his wife drowned off the Irish coast, leaving Calvert devastated, but undeterred in his quest to secure a charter. 

In April 1632, five weeks before the charter was approved, Calvert died, leaving to his eldest son his title and the grant to establish a colony in which Calvert and his heirs would have absolute authority.  In 1745, Puritans from Virginia succeeded in overthrowing Calvert, who regained control in 1647. The final major political upheaval in Maryland took place in 1689 when anti-Catholic sentiments were re-ignited in the “Glorious Revolution” which deposed Catholic James II and brought Protestant William and Mary to the English throne.

Conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in the colonies mirrored those between Protestants and Catholics in England. English exploration of “Terra Nova,” the New World, actually began under a Catholic king when Henry VII commissioned John Cabot, William Weston and others to explore the North American coast. However, Jamestown and its sister colonies along the eastern seaboard of America were founded under the authority of Protestants James I and Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII. It was Henry VIII who had precipitated the schism from the Catholic Church after the Pope refused to grant him a divorce.  Henry broke from Rome, declared the church to be a spiritual department of his government, and placed himself at the head of the new English, or Anglican, Church.  

Protestant – Catholic quarrels erupting throughout Europe were generally characterized by persecution of minority religions. In the English colonies in America, for example, most colonies prohibited Catholics from voting and holding office.  In others, loyalty oaths were required, effectively restricting Catholics from practicing law and engaging in other professions. Parents could be fined for sending their children abroad to receive a Catholic education. In 1702, Maryland established the Church of England as its official church and sixteen years later explicitly barred Catholics from voting. The charter of Georgia extended religious freedom, “except to papists.” There was more.

In Catholic countries, Protestants of various denominations suffered similar or even worse discrimination. Persecution of French Protestants, the “Huguenots,” was severe, forcing hundreds of thousands of Huguenots to emigrate in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many to America.  Among them was Apollos Rivoire, the father of Paul Revere, a patriot deputized to warn the citizens of Lexington and Concord, “the British are coming!”

In response to restrictions on the practice of Catholicism throughout the colonies, Jesuit priests expanded their efforts into Delaware and Pennsylvania where religious toleration was a foundational principle. Then, in 1729, St. Joseph’s Catholic church was founded in Philadelphia and almost immediately the right of Catholics to worship at the “Romish Chapel” was challenged by the deputy governor.  However, the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly disagreed and decided against banning celebration of the mass, citing William Penn’s Charter of Privileges.

In 1763, St. Mary’s Catholic church opened to accommodate the growing number of Catholics in the Philadelphia area. During the Revolutionary War, the Marquis de Lafayette and the Comte de Rochambeau worshipped here, as George Washington did today. 

Two convention delegates are Catholic, Thomas Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania and Daniel Carroll of Maryland. Fitzsimons was born in Ireland in 1741 and came to America about 1760 where his father quickly established a mercantile business. Thomas married Catherine Reade, the daughter of a prominent local merchant, and soon went into business with his brother-in-law, George. Before long, George Reade & Co. became one of the leading commercial businesses in Philadelphia, specializing in the West Indies trade.

Fitzsimons’s reputation as a business man and financier advanced quickly, and when the Stamp Act and other British impositions began to hamper business, Fitzsimons was among the first to join the patriot movement. He helped to organize the Pennsylvania militia, marched to New Jersey to support Washington’s troops, and served on the Navy Board during the Revolutionary War, and the Confederation Congress after the War. With Robert Morris, he organized the first Bank of North America.

Daniel Carroll’s early life was very different than Fitzsimons’s. Born in 1730 into one the country’s most wealthy families in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, his father was a profitable planter. As a young Catholic during a time when teaching children in Catholic schools was forbidden, he was educated privately before his partents sent him to France for a Jesuit education. When the Maryland constitution of 1777 allowed Catholics to vote and hold office, Carroll entered the state legislature and later served in the Continential Congress. His brother, John, became the first Catholic bishop and archbishop in the United States.

 Both Fitzsimons and Carroll managed to navigate around religious prejudice to achieve personal success, earn the respect of their peers and contribute mightily to their country.

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