thomas pinckney
united states congressman
biography
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, and brother of the American statesman Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Thomas Pinckney was educated at the University of Oxford, admitted in 1774 into both the British bar and the American bar in South Carolina.
Pinckney was educated in England, studying at Oxford University and the Middle Temple, and military science at the royal military academy at Caen, France. He organized and trained new detachments of men during the Rebolutionary War and participated in the Florida campaign. He also served on Horatio Gates’ staff and was founded and captured at the battle of Camden.
From 1787 to 1789, Pinckney served as the governor of South Carolina, and within his powers, he did much to restore order in the state after the war. He particularly tried to improve the unhappy condition of the Loyalists. In 1788 he was president of the state convention which ratified the Consitution.
From 1792 to 1794, he served as an active United States minister to Great Britain. Just as well, he acted as a special commissioner to Spain in 1795 to 1795 and he negotiated a treaty with Spain that settled Mississippi River navigation rights and the southern United States boundary line with Spanish territories in North America.
He was an unsuccessful candidate of the Federalist party for vice-president in 1796, and served as a congressman from 1797 to 1801. During the War of 1812 he was commissioned major general of a Southern district. For the rest of his life, he remained deeply interested in agriculture, publishing articles and importing improved breeds of cattle.
