A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Pinckney, Maria
PINCKNEY, MARIA,
This lady (in every sense of the venerated title) was the eldest daughter of Gen. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina; her mother, a sister of the Hon. Arthur Middleton, of Middleton Place, South Carolina, another of the signers of American independence. Education, together with excellent natural abilities, combined to form Miss Pinckney's very superior character; while the promptings of a truly benevolent heart always directed her hand to relieve the necessitous, and in every instance to promote the welfare of others, making generous allowance for all human frailty. Warm were her friendships, and never did a shadow of caprice disturb their harmony, or mar the happiness of domestic life. Religiously and morally, she was a bright example unto death. Miss Pinckney was peculiarly impressed with love of country, but more especially her native state; she therefore deeply felt and weighed every movement derogatory, in her opinion, to its interests; so that, when South Carolina exhibited nullification principles, she took a strong and leading stand in favour of those principles, presenting to the public a very energetic and well-written work upon the subject. Its point was so full of effect as to cause an eminent statesman at Washington to exclaim, "That the nullification party of South Carolina was consolidated by the nib of a lady's pen."
Perhaps Miss Pinckney might have fairly taken for the motto of her publication—viewing the partial imposition of certain taxation in the light in which the party and herself beheld it—her father's never-to-be-forgotten, patriotic sentiment, in reply to the unjust demand made upon the United States by France—"Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute." Miss Pinckney died a few years ago.