The Act of Toleration was written to protect the Catholics, but failed. The Calverts established a colony in America, specifically Maryland, as a place for Catholics to go worship Catholicism without being persecuted. However, that is not what it turned out to be, the Catholics quickly became a minority in Maryland, Protestants outnumbered the Catholics eight to one. Yet, the Catholics still maintained political power through the Calverts. As the Catholic population was growing smaller and smaller the Protestant population continued to grow exponentially, thus the chance of Catholics being mistreated became increasingly large possibility. After the death of King Charles I, Maryland was put in a risky position. The Calverts supported King Charles I which resulted in the possible attacks by their Protestant neighbors. A limited number of Protestants eventually assembled a small anti-Catholic army.
The Calverts wanted religious freedom and protection for the people of their religion, Catholics, therefore they passed an Act of Toleration to ensure the religious liberty of the Catholics in Maryland. The act granted…show more content… There were a handful of contributing factors that lead to the downfall of the Act of Toleration. The bloody civil war that had erupted in England seven years prior to the creation of this act, ending in the beheading of King Charles I, played a role in the Act of Tolerations’ demise. As the situation in England grew worse after the beheading, Maryland’s situation with the Protestants also grew progressively worse. The period between 1649-1660 marked the return of severe anti-Catholicism. The Act of Toleration was repealed in 1654 after the Protestants overthrew the government of Maryland. This new administration outlawed the Catholic faith. The Catholics’ days were numbered from the start. The Catholic to Protestant ratio was too large for each branch to live peacefully