Andrew Butler

Andrew Pickens Butler
United States Senator from South Carolina
In office December 4, 1846 – May 25, 1857
Preceded by	George McDuffie
Succeeded by	James H. Hammond
Member of the South Carolina Senate from Edgefield District
In office November 26, 1832 – December 5, 1833
Member of the South Carolina House of Representatives from Edgefield District
In office November 22, 1824 – December 17, 1831
Personal details
Born	(1796-11-18)November 18, 1796 Edgefield, South Carolina, U.S.
Died	May 25, 1857(1857-05-25) (aged 60) Edgefield, South Carolina, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Susan Ann Simkins Rebecca Harriett Hayne
Profession	Politician, Lawyer, Judge

Andrew Pickens Butler (November 18, 1796 – May 25, 1857) was a United States Senator from South Carolina and one of the authors of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Biography

Butler was a son of William Butler (1759–1821) and Behethland Butler (1764-1853), and was born in Edgefield County, South Carolina. His early education was at Moses Waddel's Willington Academy. He graduated from South Carolina College, now the University of South Carolina. He was admitted to the South Carolina bar in 1818.

Butler was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives as a young man, and in 1824 was elected to the South Carolina Senate. He served two terms and part of a third in the state senate before being appointed judge of the session court in 1833.

Daguerreotype of Senator Andrew P. Butler, 1849

In 1835, Butler was appointed judge of the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas. He was appointed to the United States Senate in 1846 as a States' Rights Democrat. He was re-elected by the South Carolina legislature to a full term in 1848 and he served in the Senate for the remainder of his life. He was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during much of that time.

Butler was an ardent advocate of slavery. He was co-author with Stephen A. Douglas of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. This act provided for westward expansion, but in order to gain Southern support, it repealed the Compromise of 1820 by allowing voting residents of new states the right to choose on allowing slavery.

Butler's Senate career is noted for an event at which he was not present. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, during his "Crime Against Kansas" speech in May 1856, denigrated South Carolina and abused Butler personally in terms considered to exceed parliamentary propriety. Sumner likened Butler to Don Quixote and said Butler: "has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight. I mean the harlot, Slavery."

South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks, a relative of Butler, considered this an attack on his family honor. Two days after the speech, Brooks brutally beat Sumner on the Senate floor with a gutta-percha cane while fellow South Carolina Rep. Laurence Keitt brandished a pistol to prevent other senators from intervening, even as Sumner lay defenseless on the floor and Brooks continued to beat him. Butler later remarked that if present during the speech, he would have called Sumner to order, hoping to prevent further offense.

Butler's death at age 60 was attributed to dropsy.^[1] He was buried in the Butler Family Cemetery near Saluda.^[2]

Evaluation

Butler's cenotaph at the Congressional Cemetery

U. R. Brooks noted that biographical material to write from was scanty, and that Butler's power lay in his own presence with "grand gifts of eloquence, action, pathos, and convincing argument." Ellet wrote

"Senator Andrew Pickens Butler was conceded to be the most unique and original intellect in the Senate. His face, though not handsome, was sturdily expressive, with massive features and 'troubled, streaming, silvery hair, that looked as though it had been contending with the blasts of winter'.... His power as a speaker stood acknowledged in the admiration of both Houses.... Like all men of impetuous impulse, he was very restless; one moment pacing to and fro the space behind the Speaker's desk, another giving the grasp of his hand to some younger Senator, the next taking active part in the debates of the day.... The moment a question was submitted to him, his mind instinctively applied all the great principles."

Legacy

Butler County, Kansas is named for him.^[3] His brother William Butler (1790-1850) and his nephew Matthew Calbraith Butler also served in the United States Congress.

Notes

References

• Ellet, Elizabeth (1869). Court Circles of the Republic. Various Reprints. ISBN 0-405-06910-3.  pp. 471, 472, 485
• Brooks, U. R. (1908). South Carolina Bench and Bar. The State Company.  pp. 9–20
• Benson, T. Lloyd (2004). The Caning of Senator Sumner. Thomson Wadsworth. ISBN 0-15-506347-2. 

External links

• Andrew Butler at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Andrew Butler at Find a Grave with cenotaph at Congressional Cemetery here

United States Senators from South Carolina Class 2 P. Butler Hunter Pinckney Sumter Taylor W. Smith R. Hayne Calhoun Huger Calhoun Elmore Barnwell Rhett De Saussure Evans A. Hayne Chesnut Robertson M. Butler Tillman Benet Pollock Dial Blease Byrnes Lumpkin Peace Maybank Daniel Thurmond Wofford Thurmond Graham Class 3 Izard Read Colhoun P. Butler Gaillard Harper W. Smith Miller Preston McDuffie A. Butler Hammond Sawyer Patterson Hampton Irby Earle McLaurin Latimer Gary E. Smith Hall Johnston Russell Hollings DeMint Scott

Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary Chase Crittenden Burrill Smith Van Buren Berrien Rowan Marcy Wilkins Clayton Grundy Wall Berrien Ashley Butler Bayard Trumbull Edmunds Thurman Edmunds Hoar Pugh Hoar Platt Clark Culberson Nelson Brandegee Cummins Norris Ashurst Van Nuys McCarran Wiley McCarran Langer Kilgore Eastland Kennedy Thurmond Biden Hatch Leahy Hatch Leahy Hatch Specter Leahy Grassley