Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States

PINCKNEY

PINCKNEY, Charles Cotesworth, son of chief justice Pinckney, of South Carolina, was born at Charleston, S. C.,———, 1746, and died there Aug. 16, 1825. He was educated at Westminster and Oxford, studied law at the Temple, and began practice in South Carolina in 1769. He distinguished himself in the revolutionary war, being thereafter known as Gen. Pinckney; and was a member of the convention of 1787. Under the new government he declined successively the positions of supreme court justice in 1789; secretary of war in 1795, and secretary of state in the same year. In 1797-8 he was minister and commissioner to France (see X Y Z MISSION), and while there is said to have given the reply to French demands for money: "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." In 1800 he was the alternate federalist candidate for the presidency. The democrats in the South Carolina legislature offered to unite with the federalists in casting the electoral vote of the state for Jefferson and Pinckney, which would have made the latter vice-president, but Pinckney refused the offer, and was defeated with Adams. In 1804 and 1808 the federalist votes were given for him as candidate for president. (See FEDERAL PARTY, II.)

—See Allen's Biographical Dictionary.

ALEXANDER JOHNSTON.