Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was an American statesman, military officer and Founding Father who served as United States Minister to France from 1796 to 1797. A delegate to the Constitutional Convention where he signed the Constitution of the United States, Pinckney was twice nominated by the Federalist Party as its presidential candidate in 1804 and 1808, losing both elections.
Born into a planter class family from South Carolina, Pinckney practiced law for several years and was elected to the colonial legislature. A supporter of independence from Great Britain, Pinckney served in the American Revolutionary War, rising to the rank of brigadier general. After the war, he won election to the South Carolina legislature, where he and his brother Thomas represented the landed slavocracy of the South Carolina Lowcountry. An advocate of a stronger federal government, Pinckney served as a delegate to the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, which wrote a new federal constitution. Pinckney's influence helped ensure that South Carolina would ratify the United States Constitution. A town and district named Pinckneyville in South Carolina were named after Charles in 1791.
Pinckney declined George Washington's first offer to serve in his administration, but in 1796 Pinckney accepted the position of minister to France. In what became known as the XYZ Affair, the French demanded a bribe before they would agree to meet with the U.S. delegation. Pinckney returned to the United States, accepting an appointment as a general during the Quasi-War with France. Though he had resisted joining either major party for much of the 1790s, Pinckney began to identify with the Federalist Party following his return from France. The Federalists chose him as their vice presidential nominee in the 1800 presidential election, hoping that his presence on the ticket could win support for the party in the American South. Though Alexander Hamilton schemed to elect Pinckney president under the electoral rules then in place, both Pinckney and incumbent Federalist president John Adams were defeated by the Democratic-Republican candidates.
Seeing little hope of defeating popular incumbent president Thomas Jefferson, the Federalists chose Pinckney as their presidential nominee for the 1804 election. Neither Pinckney nor the party pursued an active campaign, and Jefferson won in a landslide. The Federalists nominated Pinckney again in 1808, in the hope that Pinckney's military experience and Jefferson's economic policies would give the party a chance of winning. Though the 1808 presidential election was closer than the 1804 election had been, Democratic-Republican nominee James Madison nonetheless prevailed.
Early life and family
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was born in Charlestown in the Province of South Carolina on February 25, 1746, into the planter class. He was the son of Charles Pinckney, who would later serve as the chief justice of the Province of South Carolina, and Eliza Lucas, a celebrated planter and agriculturalist, who is credited with developing indigo cultivation in this area. His younger brother, Thomas Pinckney, later served as governor of South Carolina, as did his first cousin once removed, Charles Pinckney.In 1753, Pinckney's father moved the family to London, England, where he served as the colony's agent. Both Charles and his brother Thomas were enrolled in the Westminster School, where they continued as students after the rest of the family returned to South Carolina in 1758. Pinckney enrolled in Christ Church, Oxford, in 1763 and began studying law at Middle Temple in 1764. After a short stint at a military academy in France, Pinckney completed his studies in 1769 and was called to the English bar. He briefly practiced law in England before establishing a legal practice in Charleston.
After returning to the American colonies in 1773, Pinckney married Sarah Middleton. Her father Henry Middleton later served as the second president of the Continental Congress, and her brother Arthur Middleton signed the Declaration of Independence. Sarah died in 1784. In 1786, Pinckney married again, to Mary Stead, who came from a wealthy family of planters in Georgia. Pinckney had three daughters. Pinckney's daughter, Maria Henrietta Pinckney, authored the Quintessence of Long Speeches, Arranged as a Political Catechism defending states rights and nullification.
Pinckney studied botany in France in 1769 for a year. For his assistance to the French botanist André Michaux, he was honored by having a plant species named for him: Pinckneya pubens.
Early political career
After returning to South Carolina from Europe, Pinckney began to practice law in Charleston. He was first elected to a seat in the colonial legislature in 1770. In 1773 he served as a regional attorney general. When war erupted between the thirteen American colonies and Great Britain in 1775, Pinckney stood with the American Patriots; in that year he was a member of the first South Carolina provincial congress, which helped South Carolina transition from being a British colony to being an independent state. During the American Revolutionary War, he served in the lower house of the state legislature and as a member of the South Carolina Senate, in addition to his military service.Revolutionary War
Pinckney joined the colonial militia in 1772, and he helped organize South Carolina's resistance to British rule. In 1775, after the American Revolutionary War had broken out, Pinckney volunteered for military service as a full-time regular officer in George Washington's Continental Army. As a senior company commander with the rank of captain, Pinckney raised and led the elite Grenadiers of the 1st South Carolina Regiment. He participated in the successful defense of Charleston in the Battle of Sullivan's Island in June 1776, when British forces under General Sir Henry Clinton staged an amphibious attack on the state capital. Later in 1776 Pinckney took command of the regiment, with the rank of colonel, a position he retained to the end of the war.After this, the British Army shifted its focus to the northern and mid-Atlantic states. Pinckney led his regiment north to join General Washington's troops near Philadelphia. Pinckney and his regiment participated in the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of Germantown. Around this time he first met fellow officers Alexander Hamilton and James McHenry, who became future Federalist statesmen.
In 1778, Pinckney and his regiment, returning to the South, took part in a failed American expedition attempting to seize British East Florida. The expedition ended because of severe logistical difficulties and a British victory in the Battle of Alligator Creek Bridge. Later that year, the British Army shifted its focus to the southern theater, capturing Savannah, Georgia, in December 1778. In October 1779, the southern Army of Major General Benjamin Lincoln, with Pinckney leading one of its brigades, attempted to re-take the city in the Siege of Savannah. This attack was a disaster for the Americans, who suffered numerous casualties.
Pinckney participated in the 1780 defense of Charleston against British siege, but the city fell. Major General Lincoln surrendered his 5,000 men to the British on May 12, 1780, and Pinckney became a prisoner of war. As such, he demonstrated leadership, playing a major role in maintaining the troops' loyalty to the Patriot cause. During this time, he said, "If I had a vein that did not beat with the love of my Country, I myself would open it. If I had a drop of blood that could flow dishonorable, I myself would let it out." He was kept in close confinement until his release in 1782. In November 1783, he was commissioned a brevet brigadier general shortly before the southern regiments were disbanded. He was promoted to major general during his subsequent service in the South Carolina militia.
Constitutional Convention
With the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, Pinckney returned to his legal practice, becoming one of the most acclaimed attorneys in South Carolina. He also returned to the lower house of the South Carolina legislature, and he and his brother Thomas became major political powers in the state. He became an advocate of the landed elite of the South Carolina Lowcountry, who dominated the state's government during this period. Though close friends with fellow legislator Edward Rutledge, Pinckney opposed Rutledge's attempts to end the importation of slaves, arguing that South Carolina's economy required the continual infusion of new slaves. Pinckney also took the lead in negotiating the end to a border dispute with the state of Georgia, and he signed the Convention of Beaufort, which temporarily solved some of the disputes.The Revolutionary War had convinced many in South Carolina, including Pinckney, that the defense of the state required the cooperation of the other colonies. As such, Pinckney advocated a stronger national government than that provided by the Articles of Confederation, and he represented South Carolina at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where his younger cousin Charles Pinckney also served as a delegate. Pinckney advocated that African American slaves be counted as a basis of representation. According to a book review in The New York Times in January 2015:
Pinckney advocated for a strong national government to replace the weak one of the time. He opposed as impractical the election of representatives by popular vote. He also opposed paying senators, who, he thought, should be men of independent wealth. Pinckney played a key role in requiring treaties to be ratified by the Senate and in the compromise that resulted in continued American participation in the international slave trade for at least twenty years. He also opposed placing a limitation on the size of a federal standing army.
Pinckney played a prominent role in securing the ratification of the Federal Constitution in the South Carolina convention of 1788, and in framing the South Carolina Constitution in the convention of 1790. At the ratification convention, Pinckney distinguished three types of government and said republics were where "the people at large, either collectively or by representation, form the legislature". After this, he announced his retirement from politics.