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 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney Posted by:  carolina1
N 32° 46.592 W 079° 55.825
17S E 600170 N 3627020
Lawyer and Legislator, Major General, U.S. Army, Minister to France.
Waymark Code: WM4N6H
Location: South Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 09/10/2008
Views: 42
Born: 25-Feb-1746
Birthplace: Charleston, SC
Died: 16-Aug-1825
Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Government
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Not one cent for tribute
Military service: Continental Army (brigadier-general)
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, American politician was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 25th of February 1746, the son of Charles Pinckney (d. 1758), by his second wife, the celebrated girl planter, Eliza Lucas. When a child he was sent to England, like his brother Thomas after him, to be educated. Both of them were at Westminster and Oxford and were called to the bar, and for a time they studied in France at the Royal Military College at Caen. Returning to America in 1769, C. C. Pinckney began the practice of law at Charleston, and soon became deputy attorney-general of the province. He was a member of the first South Carolina provincial congress in 1775, served as colonel in the South Carolina militia in 1776-1777, was chosen president of the South Carolina Senate in 1779, took part in the Georgia expedition and the attack on Savannah in the same year, was captured at the fall of Charleston in 1780 and was kept in close confinement until 1782, when he was exchanged. In 1783 he was commissioned a brevet brigadier-general in the Continental Army. He was an influential member of the constitutional convention of 1787, advocating the counting of all slaves as a basis of representation and opposing the abolition of the slave trade. He opposed as "impracticable" the election of representatives by popular vote, and also opposed the payment of senators, who, he thought, should be men of wealth. Subsequently Pinckney bore a prominent part in securing the ratification of the Federal constitution in the South Carolina convention called for that purpose in 1788 and in framing the South Carolina State Constitution in the convention of 1790. After the organization of the Federal government, President George Washington offered him at different times appointments as associate justice of the Supreme Court (1791), Secretary of War (1795) and Secretary of State (1795), each of which he declined; but in 1796 he succeeded James Monroe as minister to France. The Directory refused to receive him, and he retired to Holland, but in the next year, Elbridge Gerry and John Marshall having been appointed to act with him, he again repaired to Paris, where he is said to have made the famous reply to a veiled demand for a "loan" (in reality for a gift), "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute", -- another version is, "No, not a sixpence." The mission accomplished nothing, and Pinckney and Marshall left France in disgust, Gerry remaining. When the correspondence of the commissioners was sent to the United States Congress the letters "X", "Y" and "Z", were inserted in place of the names of the French agents with whom the commission treated -- hence the "X Y Z Correspondence", famous in American history. In 1800 he was the Federalist candidate for Vice President, and in 1804 and again in 1808 for President, receiving 14 electoral votes in the former and 47 in the latter year. From 1805 until his death, on the 16th of August 1825, he was president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati.
Patriot Name: Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
Type of Service Provided: Signer of the US Constitution
Cemetery Name: St. Michael's Episcopal Church
Text of the Grave Marker:
Underneath the stone are deposited the earthly remains of Charles Cotsworth Pinckney Son of Charles Pinckney and Eliza Lucas, Born 25th February 1746 and died 16 August 1825.
Grave Marker Type: Tablet Marker
Historical Background:
The eldest son of a politically prominent planter and a remarkable mother who introduced and promoted indigo culture in South Carolina, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney was born in 1746 at Charleston. Only 7 years later, he accompanied his father, who had been appointed colonial agent for South Carolina, to England. As a result, the youth enjoyed a European education.
Pinckney received tutoring in London, attended several preparatory schools, and went on to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he heard the lectures of the legal authority Sir William Blackstone and graduated in 1764. Pinckney next pursued legal training at London's Middle Temple and was accepted for admission into the English bar in 1769. He then spent part of a year touring Europe and studying chemistry, military science, and botany under leading authorities.
Late in 1769, Pinckney sailed home and the next year entered practice in South Carolina. His political career began in 1769, when he was elected to the provincial assembly. In 1773 he acted as attorney general for several towns in the colony. By 1775 he had identified with the patriot cause and that year sat in the provincial congress. Then, the next year, he was elected to the local committee of safety and made chairman of a committee that drew up a plan for the interim government of South Carolina.
When hostilities broke out, Pinckney, who had been a royal militia officer since 1769, pursued a full-time military calling. When South Carolina organized its forces in 1775, he joined the First South Carolina Regiment as a captain. He soon rose to the rank of colonel and fought in the South in defense of Charleston and in the North at the Battles of Brandywine, PA, and Germantown, PA. He commanded a regiment in the campaign against the British in the Floridas in 1778 and at the siege of Savannah. When Charleston fell in 1780, he was taken prisoner and held until 1782. The following year, he was discharged as a brevet brigadier general.
After the war, Pinckney resumed his legal practice and the management of estates in the Charleston area but found time to continue his public service, which during the war had included tours in the lower house of the state legislature (1778 and 1782) and the senate (1779).
Pinckney was one of the leaders at the Constitutional Convention. Present at all the sessions, he strongly advocated a powerful national government. His proposal that senators should serve without pay was not adopted, but he exerted influence in such matters as the power of the Senate to ratify treaties and the compromise that was reached concerning abolition of the international slave trade. After the convention, he defended the Constitution in South Carolina.
Under the new government, Pinckney became a devoted Federalist. Between 1789 and 1795 he declined presidential offers to command the U.S. Army and to serve on the Supreme Court and as Secretary of War and Secretary of State. In 1796, however, he accepted the post of Minister to France, but the revolutionary regime there refused to receive him and he was forced to proceed to the Netherlands. The next year, though, he returned to France when he was appointed to a special mission to restore relations with that country. During the ensuing XYZ affair, refusing to pay a bribe suggested by a French agent to facilitate negotiations, he was said to have replied "No! No! Not a sixpence!"
When Pinckney arrived back in the United States in 1798, he found the country preparing for war with France. That year, he was appointed as a major general in command of American forces in the South and served in that capacity until 1800, when the threat of war ended. That year, he represented the Federalists as Vice-Presidential candidate, and in 1804 and 1808 as the Presidential nominee. But he met defeat on all three occasions.
For the rest of his life, Pinckney engaged in legal practice, served at times in the legislature, and engaged in philanthropic act
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