Researching Charles Pinckney

Pinckney's descendants included seven future South Carolina governors, including men related to the Maybank and Rhett families.

Pinckney was born into a powerful family of aristocratic planters. He 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 Pinckney represented the landed elite 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.

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 election, hoping that his presence on the ticket could win support for the party in the 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.