PINCKNEY, pInk'rti, Charles Cotesworth, American soldier and statesman: b. Charleston, S. C., 25 Feb. 1746; d. there, 16 Aug. 1825. He was educated at Oxford; read law in the Mid dle Temple, London; studied military affairs in the Royal Academy at Caen, France, and in 1769 began the practice of law in Charleston. He was a member of the first provincial con gress of South Carolina (1775), and during the Revolution served with distinction in the Con tinental army. During the second attack on Charleston he at first commanded Fort Moul trie, but after the entrance of the enemy's fleet into the harbor withdrew to the city, and was taken prisoner at the capitulation in May 1780. He was held in severe confinement for two years, exchanged in 1782 and made a brigadier in 1783. In 1787 he was a member of the United States Constitutional Convention, and took an active part in the busy debates connected with the framing of the instrument. He favored the slave trade, urged a landed-property qualifica tion for the executive, judiciary and the legis lative department; and demanded that blacks be counted equally with whites in the estimate for representation in the national legislature. It
was he who secured the insertion in the Con stitution of the clause that ((no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the authority of the United States." Under the Constitution he was a zealous Federalist. He was a.member of the State Constitutional Convention of South Caro lina in 1790 and in 1796 became United States Minister Plenipotentiary to France. Ordered by the Directory to quit France within 30 days, he retired to Amsterdam, and on his arrival in America was made (1797) major-general of United States troops by President Washington. It was during the French mission that Pinck ney, in response to Tallyrand's insinuation that recognition might be obtained by money, for lack of which war might follow, is said to have replied: "Millions for defense, but not a cent for tribute!" In 1800 he was Federalist can didate for the Vice-Presidency, and in 1804 and 1808 for the Presidency.