Charles Pinckney

Background

Charles Pinckney was born on Oct. 26, 1757, into a wealthy South Carolina family.

Education

The son of a wealthy and influential planter, Charles Pinckney was educated in his home state and there admitted to the bar.

Career

Little is known of his early life except that Charles Pinckney served in the militia during the Revolution and was captured at the fall of Charleston in 1780.

His brilliant attack on a proposed treaty with Spain that would have surrendered American navigation rights on the Mississippi convinced Congress to pigeonhole the scheme.

After the convention he published a pamphlet purportedly describing his personal contributions, and in 1819 he made statements which aroused a controversy settled only by scholarly analysis almost a century later.

The Louisiana Purchase changed thenature of Pinckney's problem, and he left Spain in 1805 with little accomplished. Pinckney returned to the South Carolina Legislature and was elected governor a fourth time in 1806.

After one term, where he pushed for election reforms that favored the growing backcountry populace (such as universal suffrage for white males), Pinckney served two terms in the state legislature.

In 1818 he was elected to the U. S. Congress.

Achievements

• Charles Pinckney was a leading figure in South Carolina politics during the early years of the republic.

Membership

House of Representatives

Connections

Charles Pinckney married Mary Eleanor Laurens. They had at least three children.

Father:

Colonel Charles Pinckney

Mother:

Frances Brewton

dauther:

Mary Eleanor Pinckney

Son:

Henry Laurens Pinckney

dauther:

Frances Henrietta Pinckney