This paper examines the contributions of Charles Pinckney III to the U.S. Constitution. When the minutes of the Constitutional Convention were released 30 years after the convention, the Pinckney Plan had been lost. The Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, who had opened the minutes, asked Pinckney to submit his draft for publication. Pinckney had several drafts of the plan that he had proposed. He sent one copy to Adams, and that copy was also published in the Journal of Convention (1819). It received wide acceptance as being genuine. While 16 of the original members were living in 1818, James Madison was the only one to question the validity of the draft. Charles Pinckney favored dividing the powers of the government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches and ensuring that governmental powers would operate directly upon the people and not upon the states. Approximately 28 provisions of the Constitution can be connected to the Pinckney Plan submitted to the convention May 29, 1789. (SM)