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House of Represen- tatives. House Trivia Timeline. Featured Resources for National History Day Office Continental Congress, Senator. Congress es Continental, 1st — , 2nd — , 3rd — , 4th — , 7th — , 8th — As a planter and merchant, he understood that economic growth and the international respect to support trade depended upon a strong central government.
At the same time, he energetically supported the special interests of his region. He introduced the Fugitive Slave Clause Article 4, Section 2 , which established protection for slavery in the Constitution.
By the time of the Constitutional Convention, some northern states had already abolished slavery, and others soon did so, leaving the new country largely divided between the slaveholding South and the free labor North. Similarly, Butler supported counting the full slave population in the states' totals for the purposes of Congressional apportionment, but had to be satisfied with the compromise to count three-fifths of the slaves toward that end. While supporting an institution integral to the Southern economy, Butler displayed inconsistencies that would bother associates throughout the rest of his political career.
For example, Butler favored ratification of the Constitution, yet did not attend the South Carolina convention that ratified it. Later, he was elected by the Georgia state legislature to three separate terms in the United States Senate, but made abrupt changes in party allegiances during this period. Beginning as a Federalist, he switched to the Jeffersonian party in In he declared himself a political independent. Simons plantations in September Burr was, at the time, laying low after shooting Alexander Hamilton in the July duel.
The states of New York and New Jersey had each indicted the Vice President for murder in the wake of the post-duel controversy. Burr had traveled during August,to Butler's plantation under the pseudonym Roswell King, which was Butler's overseer's name. During Burr's stay in early September, one of the worst hurricanes in history hit the area, and we have Burr's first-hand description, documenting both his stay and this event.
After these successive changes, voters did not elect him again to national office. They elected him three more times to the state legislature as an easterner who spoke on behalf of the west.
Butler retired from politics in He spent much time in Philadelphia, where he had previously established a summer home, and where his oldest daughter Sarah lived with her family.
She had three surviving sons before her father died, two of whom would become his heirs by irrevocably taking his surname. More than a decade before he died, he disinherited his only surviving son Thomas Butler, together with his French-born wife and children. Continuing his business ventures, Butler became one of the wealthiest men in the United States, with huge land holdings in several states.
Like other Founding Fathers from his region, Butler also continued to support the institution of slavery. Some historians claim that he privately opposed slavery, and especially the international slave trade, but he tried to protect the institution as a politician because of its importance to the Soutern economy. But, unlike Washington or Thomas Jefferson , for example, Butler never acknowledged the fundamental inconsistency in simultaneously defending the rights of the poor and supporting slavery.
Associates referred to him as "eccentric" and an "enigma. He wanted to maintain a strong central government, but a government that could never ride roughshod over the rights of the private citizen. He opposed the policies of the Federalists under Alexander Hamilton because he believed they had sacrificed the interests of westerners and had sought to force their policies on the opposition.
He later split with Jefferson and the Democrats for the same reason. Butler emphasized his belief in the role of the common man. Late in life he summarized his view: "Our System is little better than [a] matter of Experiment As a representative of South Carolina in the Continental Congress as well as the Constitutional Convention and the Senate, Butler defended slavery for personal and political reasons although he harbored personal doubts about the African slave trade, specifically.
He is said to have introduced a Fugitive Slave Clause in the constitution, but later the authorship came under question. A first generation immigrant from Ireland, Butler came to America originally as a British officer. Remaining an officer in the British army as late as , Butler was charged with keeping the growing colonial resistance in check, even with his unit firing shots in the infamous Boston Massacre which intensified the confrontation between British and Colonial troops.
Finally, this Patriot, always a forceful and eloquent advocate of the rights of the common man during the debate over the Constitution, was also the owner of a sizable number of slaves.
The unifying force in this fascinating career was Butler's strong and enduring sense of nationalism. An Irish nobleman, he severed his ties with the old world to embrace the concept of a permanent union of the thirteen states.
His own military and political experiences then led him to the conviction that a strong central government, as the bedrock of political and economic security, was essential to protect the rights not only of his own social class and adopted state but also of all classes of citizens and all the states. Traditionally British aristocrats directed younger sons into the military or the church, and Butler's father was no exception. In the honored fashion of the times, he bought his son a commission in the 22d Regiment of Foot today's Cheshire Regiment.
Butler demonstrated both military skill and the advantages of powerful and wealthy parents in his subsequent career in the British Army.
His regiment came to North America in to participate in the French and Indian War and served in the campaigns that resulted in the capture of Canada from the French.
Butler later transferred to the 29th Foot today's Worcestershire and Sherwood Forresters Regiment , before returning to Ireland in The overwhelming success of the forces of the British Empire and its allies ended French territorial claims in North America and brought about profound changes in the nature of the mother country's relationship with its American colonies.
To occupy Canada and other new lands won during the war, Parliament for the first time ordered the permanent stationing of large British garrisons in North America.
Because the government had incurred heavy war debts, Parliament chose to support these troops by levying new taxes on the colonists. Americans generally disagreed with Parliament over the need for the garrisons, arguing that their local militias could handle the defense of the colonies. They also opposed the new taxes that began with the Stamp Act of Butler's regiment was serving on garrison duty in Nova Scotia at the time, but he could not long escape becoming embroiled in the growing controversy.
In the intensity of protests over Parliament's taxes in Massachusetts led London to order the 29th Foot, along with a second infantry regiment, to Boston to maintain the King's peace. In , the year after the "Massacre," Butler, now a major, married Mary Middleton, the daughter of a wealthy South Carolina planter and colonial leader. Marriage led him to seek new directions, for when the 29th received orders to return to Great Britain in , he decided to leave the army. He sold his commission and used the proceeds to purchase a plantation in the coastal region of South Carolina, adapting to the lifestyle of a southern landowner with apparent ease.
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