Attitude Toward Slavery
The Carroll family were slaveholders, and Charles Carroll was himself a substantial and wealthy planter. Like many southerners, Carroll was opposed in principle to slavery, asking rhetorically "Why keep alive the question of slavery? It is admitted by all to be a great evil". However, although he supported its gradual abolition, he did not free his own slaves, perhaps fearing that they might be rendered destitute in the process. Carroll introduced a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the Maryland senate but it did not pass. In 1828, aged 91, he served as president of the Auxiliary State Colonization Society of Maryland, the Maryland branch of the American Colonization Society, an organization dedicated to returning black Americans to lead free lives in African states such as Liberia.
Read more about this topic: Charles Carroll Of Carrollton
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