Background
Pierce Butler was born on July 11, 1744 in County Carlow, Ireland, the third son of Sir Richard Butler, Baronet, Member of Parliament for County Carlow 1729-61, and of Henrietta (Percy) Butler (Burke's Peerage).
Pierce Butler was born on July 11, 1744 in County Carlow, Ireland, the third son of Sir Richard Butler, Baronet, Member of Parliament for County Carlow 1729-61, and of Henrietta (Percy) Butler (Burke's Peerage).
Pierce Butler became major of H. M. 29th Regiment, but in 1773 he resigned his commission and devoted himself to planting and politics. In 1779 he was adjutant-general of the state. From 1778 to 1782 and from 1784 to 1789 he was a representative in the state legislature.
His failure to act with the planter-merchant group in state politics may have been due to the enmity of Christopher Gadsden, to his political ambition, or to his independent, impulsive nature. Whatever his motives, this wealthy, somewhat dictatorial aristocrat championed the inadequately-led democracy of the back country, and pushed its enterprises for the reform of representation, removal of the state capital, and revaluation of property.
In 1786 he was elected by the legislature to commissions to fix the boundaries of the state. On March 6, 1787, he was elected delegate to the Congress of the Confederation, and two days later to the Federal Convention. There his proposals were for a strong central government, with property as part of the basis for representation. He was author of the fugitive-slave clause. He returned to South Carolina in time to defend the Constitution in the Assembly, but did not sit in the ratifying convention.
He was elected to the United States Senate as a Federalist in 1789, and was reëlected in 1792, but refused to observe party lines. During the first session he voted for the funding bill and the assumption of state debts, but opposed the tariff and judiciary bills. He later opposed the Jay treaty.
In October 1796 he resigned and repaired to his state, apparently intending to become candidate for governor.
At the time of the election, however, though the Federalist Harper said that he was still strong in the back country and had "no inconsiderable support" in the tidewater, he refused to allow his name to be used.
But in 1802 he was elected to fill an unexpired term in the Senate. He denounced the Twelfth Amendment, and charged that the Republican party was abusing its powers as the Federalists had done. In January 1806 he resigned.
Butler came out of retirement briefly in 1816 to become a director of the Second Bank of the United States. Declining health forced him to refuse a second term. After an extended illness, Butler died on February 15, 1822, and was buried in Philadelphia’s Christ Church Cemetery.
His services were rewarded by his election as South Carolina’s first United States senator, and he took his seat in New York in June 1789. During his term Butler allied himself with the Federalist Party, supporting the financial program of Alexander Hamilton.
After his reelection to the Senate in 1792, Butler’s growing sectional interests sparked a reversal in his political allegiances. Breaking with the Federalists, Butler became a vocal Jeffersonian and was mentioned as a possible vice-presidential choice in 1796. Butler resigned from the Senate on October 25, 1796, but returned in 1802 to fill the unexpired term of John Ewing Colhoun. But Butler soon fell out with the Jeffersonians as well.
Believing that the Jeffersonians had strayed too far from their principles, he resigned his Senate seat in 1804. Butler had hoped that the nation had changed its political “diet” by electing Thomas Jefferson in 1800, but he declared that Jefferson’s administration was “pork still with only a change of sauce. ” So deep was his rift with the administration that he even gave refuge to Jefferson’s disgraced vice president, Aaron Burr, after Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in their famous duel at Weehawken, New Jersey.
Quotations: “Money is strength, ” he argued, “and every state ought to have its weight in the national council in proportion to the quantity it possesses. ”
Quotes from others about the person
Concern for South Carolina interests also was a Butler priority, with one Senate colleague, William Maclay of Pennsylvania, calling him “the most local and partial creature I ever heard open a mouth. ”
Following his departure from the U. S. Senate, Butler concentrated on his numerous landholdings. Beginning in the 1790s, Butler had acquired large tracts of land, especially in Ninety Six District as well as along the coastal region of Georgia. By 1809 Butler was one of the South’s wealthiest planters. His six Georgia plantations produced large crops of rice and cotton through the labor of some 540 slaves. By his death, Butler owned more than 1, 000 slaves and his estate was valued at more than $1 million.
On January 10, 1771 Pierce Butler married Mary, the daughter of Thomas Middleton, of Prince William's Parish, in South Carolina, and there made his home thenceforward.