Charles Pinckney (26 October 1757 – 29 October 1824) was Governor of South Carolina from 26 January 1789 to 5 December 1792, succeeding Thomas Pinckney and preceding William Moultrie; from 1 December 1796 to 6 December 1798, succeeding Arnoldus Vanderhorst and preceding Edward Rutledge; and from 1 December 1806 to 10 December 1808, succeeding Paul Hamilton and preceding John Drayton. He also served as a US Senator from South Carolina from 6 December 1798 to 6 June 1801, succeeding John Hunter and preceding Thomas Sumter, and a member of the US House of Representatives from South Carolina's 1st district from 4 March 1819 to 4 March 1821, succeeding Henry Middleton and preceding Joel Roberts Poinsett.
Biography[]
Charles Pinckney was born in Charleston, South Carolina on 26 October 1757 to a wealthy family of planters, and he was elected to the Continental Congress in 1777. In 1779, he started to practice law in Charleston, and he served as a lieutenant in the Continental Army at the Siege of Savannah in 1779 before being captured during the Fall of Charleston in 1781. From 1784 to 1787, he again served in the Congress, and he married the daughter of Henry Laurens in 1787. Pinckney distinguished himself as a nationalist politician, and he served in the state legislature from 1786 to 1789 and from 1792 to 1796. He worked hard to strengthen the power of the US Congress and to secure navigational rights along the Mississippi River, and he was an important drafter of the US Constitution, ensuring that the Virginia Plan succeeded, and that his state ratified the constitution in 1788. From 1789 to 1792, he served as Governor of South Carolina, and Pinckney and his cousin Charles Cotesworth Pinckney became important leaders of the Federalist Party in the state. However, he opposed the Jay Treaty with Great Britain and began to associate himself with the backwoods Democratic-Republican Party of western South Carolina, which was gaining more support as more people moved to the frontier. In 1800, he served as Thomas Jefferson's campaign manager in South Carolina, and he served as Minister to Spain from 1801 to 1805. He failed to secure the cession of Spanish Florida to the USA, but he succeeded in ensuring that Spain agreed with the Louisiana Purchase. He served in various other posts until he retired in 1821, and he died in 1824.