Learn why Charles Pinckney is known as the Forgotten Founder

Discover the Life of Charles Pinckney, Revolutionary War Hero, Politician, and Contributor to the U.S. Constitution at His Iconic Snee Farm Estate, Now a National Historic Site.

Introduction to Charles Pinckney’s Legacy

One of America’s Founding Fathers, Charles Pinckney (Oct. 26, 1757 – Oct. 29, 1824), was a lawyer, planter, and politician who served four non-consecutive terms as South Carolina’s Governor, a U.S. Senator and Congressman, and a member of the state legislature. However, he is perhaps best remembered for his role in crafting the U.S. Constitution.

Early Life and Influential Family Connections

Pinckney was born to Col. Charles Pinckney and Frances Brewton Pinckney at his father’s Snee Farm plantation, the name Snee coming from the Old English word for plentiful or bounteous. Both the Pinckneys and the Brewtons were wealthy, influential families in the Charles Town colony. His mother was the sister of Miles Brewton and Rebecca Brewton Motte, also key figures in Charleston’s history. On his father’s side, he was the first cousin once removed from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the son of Chief Justice Charles and Eliza Lucas Pinckney, who was also a signer of the U.S. Constitution.

Charles Pinckney’s Education and Revolutionary War Service

Like many of Charleston’s elite families, Charles’ parents had planned to send him to England to study law in 1773. With the increasing unrest between the colonies and their mother country, however, they reconsidered and decided to have him educated at home by a friend of his father’s, then later by reading law at his father’s office. Despite the beginning of the American Revolution, Charles completed his studies in 1779 when he was 21 years old.

That same year, he was elected to South Carolina’s General Assembly and began his military service as a lieutenant in the Patriot militia. He fought in the unsuccessful Siege of Savannah in the fall of 1779 and was captured in Charles Town when it fell to the British in May 1780. He was imprisoned, but eventually freed in Philadelphia as part of a prisoner exchange in the summer of 1781.

Snee Farm During the British Occupation

His father, Col. Charles Pinckney, was also captured in Charles Town and later reluctantly took an oath of loyalty to the British to avoid confiscation of Snee Farm and the family’s extensive other properties, as did more than 160 other Charlestonians. Many prominent Patriots who were captured in the Fall of Charles Town, including Charles himself, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Gen. William Moultrie, were held prisoner at Snee Farm for a time.

Post-Revolution: Pinckney’s Political Rise

After the war, Snee Farm was confiscated by the Americans because of Col. Pinckney’s decision to swear allegiance to the British. However, because of his son’s Patriotism and the support of his prominent Pinckney relatives, the property was returned to him with a 12% fine.

Col. Pinckney died in September 1782 a broken man. His son returned from Philadelphia the next year to help his mother settle his father’s estate and to resume his legal and political career. Col. Pinckney bequeathed Snee Farm to his son.

Charles Pinckney rejoined the S.C. General Assembly in 1784, which elected him to attend the Confederation Congress later that year and then as one of four South Carolinians to attend the May 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He immediately became one of the convention’s most active and outspoken members, never missing a meeting. He was an effective speaker and was efficient in helping resolve issues that arose during the debates. Yet his role in that esteemed body has not been without controversy.

Controversy Surrounding the Pinckney Plan

Although he claimed to be its youngest delegate at 24, he was actually 29 at the time of the convention. He also would later boast that he had submitted a draft of the Constitution, which he called the Pinckney Plan, that served as the basis of the document’s final draft. Other delegates, including James Madison, largely regarded as the Father of the Constitution, disputed this claim, noting that Pinckney’s plan was basically a rewrite of an earlier version.

Nevertheless, historians agree that Pinckney was an important delegate to the convention. The final draft of the Constitution included at least 28 of his proposals. Among those was the need for a strong national government consisting of three “separate and distinct” branches that would provide for a strong military defense and the regulation of commerce. He urged the separation of church and state, the establishment of a post office, an agency to “coin money,” and the writ of habeas corpus. Along with South Carolina’s other delegates, Pinckney stood firm in saying that should an anti-slavery clause be added to the Constitution, it would be rejected.

Marriage and Family Life

The next year, 1788, Pinckney married Mary Eleanor Laurens, daughter of Henry Laurens, who had served as president of the Second Continental Congress, and thereby further increased his wealth and land holdings. The couple would have at least three children and live primarily in Eleanor’s fine three-story house that still stands at 16 Meeting Street.

Political Career After the Constitution

After the Constitutional Convention, Pinckney returned to service in the state government, serving his first term as Governor from 1789 to 1792, the first governor to hold office in the new capital of Columbia. As Governor, he led the effort in 1790 to support the state’s ratification of the U.S. Constitution. He came to favor legislation that would give the state’s back-country farmers better representation in state government and ensured universal suffrage for all white men. He was elected Governor again in 1796 and to the U.S. Senate in 1798.

Though he began his political career as a Federalist, by 1791 Pinckney had become a staunch member of the Jeffersonian Republican Party. By opposing Federalist policies, he broke ties with his elitist economic base, his geographical roots in the Lowcountry, and with his cousin, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who ran unsuccessfully against Jefferson for President in 1804.

Service as Minister to Spain

After Jefferson’s election as President in 1800, he appointed Pinckney as minister to Spain. During his time in that role, from 1801 to 1805, he helped smooth relations with Spain, as well as negotiate the transfer of Louisiana from France.

Return to South Carolina and Later Career

Returning to South Carolina in 1806, Pinckney was re-elected Governor for a third term. Pinckney would go on to serve a final term as governor several years later and then in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1818. There he fought against the Missouri Compromise, defending instead the right to expand slavery into new states and territories and paving the way for future Southern rights advocates such as John C. Calhoun.