"Upon a clear and comprehensive view of the relative situation of the Union, and its members, we shall be convinced of the policy of concentring in the federal head a complete supremacy in the affairs of government."
In the Convention Pinckney moved that the members of the lower House should be chosen by the legislatures "of the several States"; but this was the one thing which he conceded to "the several States." The Senate was to be chosen by the House of Delegates; and what is more significant, the Senate was not to represent States, with the saving clause, "Each State shall be entitled to have at least one member in the Senate." Finally he would strike an absolutely fatal blow at State sovereignty by providing, "the Legislature of the United States shall have the power to revise the Laws of the several States that may be supposed to infringe the powers exclusively delegated by this Constitution to Congress, and to negative and annul such as do."
Knowing as we do of Pinckney's youth (he was not yet 30) and of Madison's poor opinion of him, it is desirable that we should know, if possible, what his contemporaries in the Convention thought of him. William Pierce the delegate from Georgia who has left to us the anecdote of Washington before quoted (p. 230) noted at the time his impressions of the leading members of the Convention. From these I select his sketches of four of the young members of the Convention who had even then attained distinction, Edmund Randolph, Rufus King, Alexander Hamilton and Charles Pinckney:
"Mr. Randolph is Governor of Virginia—a young gentleman in whom unite all the accomplishments of the Scholar and the Statesman. He came forward with the postulata or first principles on which the Convention acted; and he supported them with a force of eloquence and reasoning that did him great honor. He has a most harmonious voice, a fine person and striking manners."
"Mr. King is a Man much distinguished for his eloquence and great parliamentary talents. He was educated in Massachusetts, and is said to have good classical as well as legal knowledge. He has served for three years in the Congress of the United States with great and deserved applause, and is at this time high in the confidence and approbation of his Countrymen. This Gentleman is about thirty-three years of age, about five feet ten Inches high, well formed, an handsome face, with a strong expressive Eye, and a sweet high toned voice. In his public speaking there is something peculiarly strong and rich in his expression, clear, and convincing in his arguments, rapid and irresistible at times in his eloquence but he is not always equal. His action is natural, swimming, and graceful, but there is a rudeness of manner sometimes accompanying it. But take him tout en semble, he may with propriety be ranked among the Luminaries of the present age."
"Col. Hamilton is deservedly celebrated for his talents. He is a practitioner of the Law, and reputed to be a finished Scholar. To a clear and strong judgment he unites the ornaments of fancy, and whilst he is able, convincing, and engaging in his eloquence the Heart and Head sympathize in approving him. Yet there is something too feeble in his voice to be equal to the strains of oratory;—it is my opinion that he is a convincing Speaker, that (than) a blazing Orator. Col. Hamilton requires time to think,—he enquires into every part of his subject with the searchings of phylosophy, and when he comes forward he comes highly charged with interesting matter, there is no skimming over the surface of a subject with him, he must sink to the bottom to see what foundation it rests on.—His language is not always equal, sometimes didactic like Bolingbroke's, at others light and tripping like Sterne's. His eloquence is not so defusive as to trifle with the senses, but he rambles just enough to strike and keep up the attention. He is about 33 years old, of small stature, and lean. His manners are tinctured with stiffness, and sometimes with a degree of vanity that is highly disagreeable."
"Mr. Charles Pinckney is a young Gentleman of the most promising talents. He is, altho' only 24 [29] y's of age, in possession of a very great variety of knowledge. Government, Law, History and Phylosophy are his favorite studies, but he is intimately acquainted with every species of polite learning, and has a spirit of application and industry beyond most Men. He speaks with neatness and perspicuity, and treats every subject as fully, without running into prolixity, as it requires. He has been a member of Congress, and served in that Body with ability and eclat." (William Pierce of Georgia; 3 Amer. Hist. Review, 313.)
In this materialistic world of cause and effect there sometimes seem to be recurring fatalities which attend individuals that needlessness has not caused and that foresight could not have prevented—a fate of fire or flood or shipwreck, of good fortune or of bad fortune, of successes or of casualties of escapes or of disasters—a fate that fastens upon an individual and cannot be shaken off. The fate assigned to Pinckney seems to have been oblivion. Substantially everything which he prized is gone. His house was one of the finest in Charleston, if not the finest, and it was destroyed. He believed his library to be the most valuable library in the South and his great gallery to hold the rarest pictures in this country yet but a few volumes remain of the one and but two portraits of the other. His garden was the most beautiful in the State, it was his pride, his delight, and obliteration has indeed been its portion; even the soil which bore him flowers and shrubbery and trees and was laden with all the loveliness of semi-tropical vegetation is gone; for it was carried away during the Civil War to make military defenses. At the beginning of this investigation I began to search for the papers of which Pinckney speaks in his letter to the Secretary of State—papers which might throw new light on the framing of the Constitution or solve the problem of the contents of the draught. In this search General McCrady, of Charleston kindly and sympathetically co-operated, but I soon received his assurance that the quest was not a new one for him, and that neither in the Historical Society of South Carolina of which he was President nor in the possession of his friends could a document or paper or even a letter be found. At that time I desired to obtain a specimen of Pinckney's early handwriting and accordingly carried my pursuit into the circle of his direct descendants; but the sad reply came from his great-grandson, Mr. Charles Pinckney of Claremont, South Carolina that "all of his papers and private manuscripts were destroyed in the great fire in Charleston in 1861," and that his descendants possess "no remains of his handwriting except the autographs in his books." Letters and papers of eminent men are constantly coming to the light from unexpected hiding places and there is the official correspondence in the State Department and papers may exist in the public offices of South Carolina, but apart from these, my investigation stops at a point where it must be said that not so much as a single line of the writing of Charles Pinckney now exists.
In 1787 while Pinckney was in the full possession of his youthful power and fortune and all those things which give a man a prestige above his fellows, fate seems to have leaned forward and touched the instrument which was the supreme work of his life, the Draught of the Constitution of the United States—and to have set a seal upon the lips of every man who could testify as to its contents. If ever there was a paper of which it might be predicted that it would survive its time and be securely kept, that was the paper. The Convention was composed of the most orderly, caretaking and reputable of men, and the author of the draught was one of them. The command of the Convention was that its papers should be preserved. The papers were placed in the custody of the most scrupulous of men and by him transferred to the official guardianship of a department of the Government, and there we might expect to find the draught of Pinckney; but fate had touched the great State paper, and we find only that it had vanished mysteriously from the earth.