 Charles
Pinckney, the second cousin of fellow-signer Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney, was born at Charleston, SC, in 1757. His father, Col.
Charles Pinckney, was a rich lawyer and planter, who on his death in
1782 was to bequeath Snee Farm, a country estate outside the city,
to his son Charles. The latter apparently received all his education
in the city of his birth, and he started to practice law there in
1779.About that time, well after the
War for Independence had begun, young Pinckney enlisted in the
militia, though his father demonstrated ambivalence about the
Revolution. He became a lieutenant, and served at the siege of
Savannah (September-October 1779). When Charleston fell to the
British the next year, the youth was captured and remained a
prisoner until June 1781.
Pinckney had also begun a political career,
serving in the Continental Congress (1777-78 and 1784-87) and in the
state legislature (1779-80, 1786-89, and 1792-96). A nationalist, he
worked hard in Congress to ensure that the United States would
receive navigation rights to the Mississippi and to strengthen
congressional power.
Pinckney's role in the Constitutional
Convention is controversial. Although one of the youngest delegates,
he later claimed to have been the most influential one and contended
he had submitted a draft that was the basis of the final
Constitution. Most historians have rejected this assertion. They do,
however, recognize that he ranked among the leaders. He attended
full time, spoke often and effectively, and contributed immensely to
the final draft and to the resolution of problems that arose during
the debates. He also worked for ratification in South Carolina
(1788). That same year, he married Mary Eleanor Laurens, daughter of
a wealthy and politically powerful South Carolina merchant; she was
to bear at least three children.
Subsequently, Pinckney's career blossomed. From
1789 to 1792 he held the governorship of South Carolina, and in 1790
chaired the state constitutional convention. During this period, he
became associated with the Federalist Party, in which he and his
cousin Charles Cotesworth Pinckney were leaders. But, with the
passage of time, the former's views began to change. In 1795 he
attacked the Federalist backed Jay's Treaty and increasingly began
to cast his lot with Carolina back-country Democratic-Republicans
against his own eastern aristocracy. In 1796 he became governor once
again, and in 1798 his Democratic-Republican supporters helped him
win a seat in the U.S. Senate. There, he bitterly opposed his former
party, and in the presidential election of 1800 served as Thomas
Jefferson's campaign manager in South Carolina.
The victorious Jefferson appointed Pinckney as
Minister to Spain (1801-5), in which capacity he struggled valiantly
but unsuccessfully to win cession of the Floridas to the United
States and facilitated Spanish acquiescence in the transfer of
Louisiana from France to the United States in 1803.
Upon completion of his diplomatic mission, his
ideas moving ever closer to democracy, Pinckney headed back to
Charleston and to leadership of the state Democratic-Republican
Party. He sat in the legislature in 1805-6 and then was again
elected as governor (1806-8). In this position, he favored
legislative reapportionment, giving better representation to
back-country districts, and advocated universal white manhood
suffrage. He served again in the legislature from 1810 to 1814 and
then temporarily withdrew from politics. In 1818 he won election to
the U.S. House of Representatives, where he fought against the
Missouri Compromise.
In 1821, Pinckney's health beginning to fail,
he retired for the last time from politics. He died in 1824, just 3
days after his 67th birthday. He was laid to rest in Charleston at
St. Philip's Episcopal Churchyard. |
