Andrew Butler
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Andrew Pickens Butler (November 18, 1796 - May 25, 1857) was an American politician and slaveowner who served as Senator for South Carolina from 1846 - 1857.
Biography edit
Butler was born in Edgefield, South Carolina, in 1796. He was elected to the United States Senate on the Democratic ticket, running on a pro-slavery platform. He was an ardent advocate of slavery as it existed in America, arguing for the preservation and expansion of slavery.
In 1854, the United States gained control of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Both of these territories fell above the 36°30′ parallel, which meant that under the terms of the 1820 Missouri Compromise slavery would be banned in those territories. In response, Butler and fellow Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act overruling the Missouri Compromise and declaring that all new territories would be able to choose whether to legalize slavery through popular vote, with the intent of using this to spread slavery all across the American continent via westward expansion. Butler and Douglas succeeded in pushing the act through Congress despite opposition from the anti-slavery Republican and Free Soil parties. This triggered the civil conflict known as Bleeding Kansas when Southern pro-slavery militias moved into Kansas to try and rig the voting through violence and voter fraud, resulting in conflict between these militias and Northern anti-slavery militias until Kansas voted not to allow slavery in 1859. During the conflict, anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner delivered a speech ridiculing Butler and Douglas as pimps in love with the harlot slavery and raping the virgin Kansas, resulting in Butler's cousin Preston Brooks beating Sumner half to death on the Senate floor.
Butler died of edema in 1857 and was buried in the Butler Family Cemetery in Saluda. He was succeeded as Senator for South Carolina by James Henry Hammond.