Unlike some of our present-day citizens of foreign extraction, and in circumstances involving not merely sentiment, but property and perhaps life, he showed no tendency to split his Americanism, but boldly threw his noble old cocked hat into the ring.

Nor did he require a Roosevelt to make his duty clear to him.
In 1775 Mr.Carroll was a delegate to the Revolutionary Convention of Maryland; in 1776 he went with three other commissioners (Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Father John Carroll) to try to induce the Canadian colonies to join in the revolt; and soon after his return from this unsuccessful journey he signed the Declaration of Independence.

Of the circumstances of the signing the late Robert C.Winthrop of Boston gave the following description: "Will you sign ?" said Hancock to Charles Carroll.
"Most willingly," was the reply.
"There goes two millions with the dash of a pen," says one of those standing by; while another remarks: "Oh, Carroll, you will get off, there are so many Charles Carrolls." And then we may see him stepping back to the desk and putting that addition "of Carrollton" to his name, which will designate him forever, and be a prouder title of nobility than those in the peerage of Great Britain, which were afterward adorned by his accomplished and fascinating granddaughters.
Some doubt has been cast upon this tale by the fact that papers in possession of the Carroll family prove that Mr.Carroll was wont to sign as "of Carrollton" long before the Declaration.

Further, it is recorded that John H.B.Latrobe, Mr.Carroll's contemporaneous biographer, never heard the story from the subject of his writings.
Nevertheless, I believe that it is true, for it seems to me likely that though Mr.Carroll used the subscription "of Carrollton" in conducting his affairs at home, where there was chance for confusion between his son Charles, his cousin Charles, and himself, he might well have been inclined to omit it from a public document, as to the signers of which there could be no confusion.

Further, the fact that he never told the story to Latrobe does not invalidate it, for as every man (and every man's wife) knows, men do not remember to tell everything to their wives, and it is still less likely that they tell everything to their biographers.