The four Maryland signers of the Declaration of Independence were Thomas Stone, Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll, and William Paca. While not as glamorous as their counterparts from other states such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and James Madison, they have this one unique commonality - they were all Marylanders, born and bred, and they represented the Maryland colony at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
If you need some kind of memory trick to remember the four Maryland signers of the Declaration of Independence, just remember what every Maryland history teacher will tell you: Paca Chased Carroll with a Stone.
Thomas Stone (1743-1787) and William Paca (1740-1799) are the final two Patriots to be featured in our three part series on the Maryland signers.
Born in Charles County, Thomas Stone was a successful lawyer who gained a reputation for speaking out against the British. Elected to the Continental Congress in 1774, he advocated for Independence, though, being a pacifist, he was in favor of reconciling with the British crown before engaging in revolution.
In fact, the Maryland legislature demanded that their delegates not vote for Independence without their express permission. Though he was on the committee to draft the Articles of Confederation — a forerunner of the U.S. Constitution — his wife became sick, causing him to take her home, thus limiting his involvement in Philadelphia.
He later joined the Maryland legislature to convince them to sign on to the Articles of Confederation. After serving on the Maryland Senate for 6 years, he withdrew from politics to care for his family.
Born in Abingdon, Maryland, William Paca attended school at a local academy and received a Bachelor and Masters of the Arts at the College of Philadelphia, thereafter, returning to Maryland to study law. With the increasing British hostility toward the colonists, William Paca, along with Samuel Chase, organized the Sons of Liberty in Annapolis as a result of the Stamp Act which extracted unfair revenues by charging an excise fee on official documents, including legal documents, newspapers, bills of sale, and in fact papers of any kind that involved printing.
The Sons of Liberty was a kind of fraternal organization that spread from colony to colony as a resistance to the increasing British taxation and intrusion, which the colonists referred to as “The Intolerable Acts.” Examples of this British over-reach included an unfair tea tax, restricted trade, and forced quartering of rowdy, drunken soldiers in private, colonial homes.
These early Maryland settlers were Patriots who gave their time and talents to usher in self-governance and freedom from British rule. Today, though we do not mount a standoff at the Lexington Green or the Concord Bridge, we do engage in wrestling back our independence from a central government who increasingly seeks to overtake our liberties and impose its unwelcome agenda upon the will of the people.
They were patriots — ordinary people like you and I who threw down the gauntlet to stand against tyranny. As their descendants, we must do the same, or we will be surrendering our rights as United States citizens to live within a society of fair elections, fair trade, fiscal responsibility, and independent statehood.
Just as they put their pens to parchment at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, so too must we exercise our electronic pens and declare our support to call for a Convention of States. Won’t you please sign the petition and help us secure 50,000 signatures toward our Maryland resolution?
Citizens concerned for the future of their country--under a federal government that's increasingly bloated, corrupt, reckless, and invasive--have a constitutional option. We can call a Convention of States to bring power back to the states and the people, where it belongs.
Be a 21st Century patriot and 1 of 50,000 Marylanders to join our Race to Liberty and sign the petition at Convention of States Action today.
