C.C. Pinckney and the Presidential Election of 1800

C.C. Pinckney (National Archives)

As the 2020 presidential election looms  - and the outcome appears too close to call among the pollsters and pundits - it is good to remember that electing a president is a process that only begins on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November every four years beginning in 1800. Remember your high school Civics class. Though it is not obvious on many state ballots since most just show the party affiliations of the candidates thereon, our ballots are actually cast for electors who have pledged to cast their ballots for a particular candidate shown in the Presidential race. So many times, we forget that the United States is a republic, not a direct democracy. 

What matters the most is whether a presidential candidate can secure the required number of electoral ballots to be elected. In 2020, that number is 270 - which is why you hear the term "path to election" used on the news. It matters not who gets the most votes when all the ballots of all the registered voters in all the states are counted. What matters is how the states certify the results of the ballots cast under their jurisdiction and then how the states allocate their electoral votes: winner take all? distributed by percentage of popular tallies? winner of the popular vote from each Congressional district?

If no one presidential candidate is able to secure the requisite 270 electoral college votes, then the Constitution has a process for that circumstance as well. A recent blog post about "The National Archives and the Electoral College" explains the current process per the United States Constitution and the historical controversies that surrounded the Elections of 1800, 1824, 1876 and 2000 far better than I can. 

South Carolina played a key role in the outcome of the Election of 1800. It was hard fought between John Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746-1825)  representing the Federalist Party and Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, representing the Democrat-Republican Party. (Yes, that really was a political party.)  

Back then, the Constitution's process for electing the President and Vice-President of the United States was quite different than now.  Jefferson and Burr tied with 74 electoral votes each; Adams received 65 electoral votes; while C.C. Pinckney had 64 electoral votes. The election was sent to the House of Representatives where each state's delegation would have to agree to vote for one candidate. It took 36 ballots - and Alexander Hamilton convincing other Federalists to back Thomas Jefferson rather than Aaron Burr - for Thomas Jefferson to become the 3rd President of the United States.

A Beaufort plantation owner and vice-presidential candidate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746 - 1825), refused to change his support from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson.  It is claimed that Pinckney would have become the Vice-President of the United States under Thomas Jefferson if he had gone back on his word to support John Adams. In 1801 John Adams wrote Christopher Gadsden (a Patriot of Charleston) that: "Pinckney's 'frank, candid and honorable' behavior during the election was consistent with 'the whole tenor of his conduct of life.'" (Griffith, "He Gave His Word, 2012, p. 16.)

Read about the ins-and-outs of C.C. Pinckney's role in the Election of 1800 in these Library resources:

 "He Gave His Word: Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and the Presidential Election of 1800," by Steve C. Griffith, Jr.  Carologue Magazine (Fall 2012) vol. 28, no. 2: pp. 10 - 16.

"Eleanor Park Lewis to Mrs. C.C. Pinckney," South Carolina Historical Magazine, vol. 63, no. 1: pp. 12 - 17.  

"Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 1746 - 1825" in the South Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina Press, 2006, pp. 727 - 728. 

Charleston in the Age of the Pinckneys by George C. Rogers, University of South Carolina Press, 1980. 

 
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Founding Father by Marvin R. Zahniser, Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va., by the University of North Carolina Press, 1967. 

 
 A Founding Family: The Pinckneys of South Carolina by Frances Leigh Williams, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.

 
Biography of an Island: General C.C. Pinckney's Sea Island Plantation by Merrill G. Christophersen, Westburg Associates Publishers, 1976.

Reminder: All units of the Library are closed to customers on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. Those libraries that serve as polling stations will be open for voting administered by the Board of Elections but Library staff will not be providing any of our usual and customary customer services. 

Regular hours resume on Wednesday, November 4, 2020.