The Inscrutable South Carolina: Not New Democrats, but Opposed Restrictions on the Vote

South Carolina had four delegates who played a major role in the Convention,  Pierce Butler, Charles Pinckney (Mr. Pinckney), Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (General Pickney) and John Rutledge.  No other state had so many delegates play a major role.  These four had views similar enough to form an ideological pattern.  It rates low on the democratic scale, either by old democratic or new democratic standards, but does not favor the features of a mixed government either.  I have not been able to identify their pattern.  Anyone else’s input in identifying this ideology is welcome. 

The main features supported by the South Carolina delegates were as follows:

Election by legislatures:  Charles Cotesworth Pinckney believed that the people of South Carolina were too rural and scattered to assemble in one place for elections and wanted the House to be elected by the state legislatures or at least leave that open as an option.  Butler considered election by the people "impracticable."  Charles Pinckney considered the people less fit judges than state legislatures.  Rutledge believed representatives chosen by the state legislatures would be more "refined" than ones chosen by the people and more likely to correspond with the sense of the whole community.  Charles Pinckney came out for election of the Senate by state legislatures on similar grounds.  Similarly, most of them favored legislative election of the executive.  Charles Pinckney thought the people would be too easily misled to choose as President and that the large states would always prevail, whereas the legislature would take care to choose someone who would do a good job in executing their laws.  He opposed the Electoral College compared to election of the executive by the legislature.  Rutledge favored election of the executive by the national legislature with only one term allowed.  Butler disagreed; he though election of the executive by the legislature would lead to intrigue and foreign influence and election by the people would be too complex and unwieldy.  He favored electors chosen by state legislatures.

Opposition to property restrictions on the vote:  If this support for election by legislatures does not seem very new democratic, the South Carolina delegation was new democratic in at least one detail -- it opposed property restrictions on the vote.  Butler opposed restricting the vote to freeholders, saying that restrictions on the vote could lead to a "rank aristocracy" like Holland.  Rutledge considered restraining the vote to freeholders "very unadvised" and said it would create divisions among the people and opposition to the Constitution.  Apparently at least one of the Pinckneys agreed, because South Carolina joined every state except Delaware in voting down the proposal.

Property restrictions on office holding:  But if the South Carolina delegates opposed property restrictions on the vote, they favored such restrictions on holding office.  Charles Pinckney seconded  Mason’s motion for the Committee of Detail to set property and citizenship qualifications on the legislature and moved for it to set property qualifications for the executive and judiciary as well, although he though excluding public debtors was going to far.  When, instead, the Committee simply allowed Congress to set its own property qualifications, Charles Pinckney was not satisfied and moved to have specific property restrictions included in the Constitution.  Although he disclaimed wanting any “undue aristocratic influence” and was willing to leave the specific amount open to debate, but he personally favored requiring the President to own $100,000 worth of property clear of debt, federal judges $50,000 and “in like proportion for the members of the Nat’l Legislature.”  The proposal was overwhelmingly rejected.  Rutledge seconded the proposal.  General Pinckney move that Senators, as representatives of the nation's wealth, not be paid in order to ensure that they were rich.  Rutledge served on the Committee of Detail that allowed Congress to set its own property restrictions and explained that the Committee had been unable to come up with property qualifications because they feared that too high qualifications would be unpopular and too low qualifications would be “nugatory.”  He also moved to have the President not receive pay, presumably to ensure that he was rich.  Butler did not address property restrictions on office holding, but he favored requiring a long residency in the United States for naturalized immigrants to hold office, although he was himself an immigrant (from Ireland).

Representation by wealth:  Perhaps part of the reason the South Carolina delegates favored strict property requirements on office holders was that they favored representation by wealth.  Butler and Rutledge wanted representation in the House to be by quotas of contribution, since money was power.  Butler also wanted the Senate to be apportioned by wealth.  “He contended strenuously that property was the only just measure of representation.  This was the great object of Govern’t: the great cause of war; the great means of carrying it on.”   Likewise, Rutledge stated that, “Property was certainly the principal object of Society.”  General Pinckney argued for an established rule of wealth  to be used in apportioning representation and believed that the South should have representation beyond its numbers because of its wealth.  The only exception was Charles Pinckney, who seconded  a proposal to base representation on all free and three-fifths of all slave population.  Yet, not too surprisingly, he later changed his mind and asked that all slaves be included in representation on the grounds that slaves were a source of wealth.

Distrust of the west:  This is a less strongly marked tendency, but it is closely linked to representation by wealth.  Rutledge in particular feared that making representation proportional to population would subject the Atlantic to the western states.  Butler also called for a "balance" between old and new states, which appeared to mean that the Western states should have less representation than their numbers because they had less wealth and would contribute less tax revenue.