Butler

Butler, Alban, 1710-73, English Roman Catholic priest, compiler of lives of the saints. He was educated at Douai and was president of the English seminary at Saint-Omer. His monumental work, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints (4 vol. in 7, 1756-59), was the basis for the enlarged edition, The Lives of the Saints (12 vol., 1926-38), and for the completely revised work, Butler's Lives of the Saints (ed. by Herbert Thurston, S.J., and Donald Attwater, 4 vol., 1956), which is a standard, popular reference book.

Butler, Benjamin Franklin, 1795-1858, American political leader and cabinet officer, b. Columbia co., N.Y. Butler, like his former law associate, Martin Van Buren, was a member of the Albany Regency, and he devoted himself and his considerable power to reform politics. He was Attorney General (1833-37) under President Jackson and for a time held (1836-37) that post and the office of Secretary of War concurrently. He also served (1837-38) as Attorney General under President Van Buren, but he refused later cabinet appointments. He helped to revise (1825) the New York State statutes and organized what is today the law school of New York Univ.

Butler, Benjamin Franklin, 1818-93, American politician and Union general in the Civil War, b. Deerfield, N.H. He moved to Lowell, Mass., as a youth and later practiced law there and in Boston. He was elected to the state legislature in 1852 and 1858 and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1859 and 1860. Butler was a Democrat but a strong Unionist. At the beginning of the Civil War his contingent of Massachusetts militia was one of the first to reach Washington. He restored order (May, 1861) in secessionist Baltimore and was given command at Fort Monroe. He commanded the troops that accompanied Admiral Farragut in taking New Orleans and was made military governor of the city. There his highhanded rule (May-Dec., 1862) infuriated the people of New Orleans and the South and earned him the name "Beast." The government, severely criticized both at home and abroad for his actions, finally removed him. In May, 1864, as commander of the Army of the James, Butler was defeated by Beauregard at Drewry's Bluff and was bottled up at Bermuda Hundred until Grant crossed the James in June. After he failed to take Fort Fisher in Dec., 1864, he was removed from active command. From 1867 to 1875 Butler, by then a rabid radical Republican, was in Congress. He was one of the House managers who conducted the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson, and he ardently advocated the party's Reconstruction policy. He was said to have great influence with President Grant. Butler was (1877-79) an independent Greenbacker in Congress. After several unsuccessful attempts to secure the governorship of Massachusetts, he was elected by the Greenbackers and Democrats in 1882. In 1884 he received the nominations of the Anti-Monopoly and Greenback parties for President. Regarded by many as an unprincipled demagogue of great ability, Butler aroused intense antagonisms and was nearly always in controversy.

Butler, James: see Ormonde, James Butler, 12th earl and 1st duke of.

Butler, John, 1728-96, Loyalist commander in the American Revolution, b. New London, Conn. He served in the French and Indian Wars and distinguished himself especially by leading the Native Americans in the successful British attack (1759) under Sir William Johnson against Niagara. Electing the British side after the Revolution broke out, he became a deputy to Guy Johnson at Niagara and worked to keep Native Americans friendly to the British. In the Saratoga campaign (1777) he and indigenous troops accompanied Gen. Barry St. Leger in the unsuccessful expedition down the Mohawk valley. Later he organized a Loyalist troop called Butler's Rangers, and with them he and his son, Walter Butler, attacked the frontier settlements. John Butler in 1778 raided the Wyoming Valley, defeated Zebulon Butler, took Forty Fort, and then was unable to keep his Native American allies from perpetrating the Wyoming Valley massacre. Later that year Walter Butler and Joseph Brant led a similar raid on Cherry Valley, and this also ended in a massacre. The name of Butler was thereafter anathema to the patriots. John Butler was defeated (1779) by the expedition of Gen. John Sullivan at Newtown near the present Elmira, N.Y.; later in the war Butler joined with Sir John Johnson in frontier raids.

Butler, Joseph, 1692-1752, English bishop and exponent of natural theology. Butler held a series of church offices, ending his career as bishop of Durham. His principle writings are Fifteen Sermons (1726), in which he set forth his moral philosophy, and The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (1736), aimed at combating the influence of deism in England. Both works became standard references in the education of Anglican and other clergy until the late 19th cent. In ethics, Butler was part of the 17th and 18th cent. attempt to find a foundation for morals without appeal to the divine will; he insisted on the complexity of human nature against one-sided accounts by Thomas Hobbes and Anthony Ashley Cooper (see Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3d earl of). In his natural theology he attempted to show that revealed religion was no less probable than the limited affirmations made of God by the deists.

Butler, Nicholas Murray, 1862-1947, American educator, president of Columbia Univ. (1902-45), b. Elizabeth, N.J., grad. Columbia (B.A., 1882; Ph.D., 1884). Holding a Columbia fellowship, he studied at Paris and Berlin, specializing in philosophy. Beginning in 1885 he was made successively assistant, tutor, and adjunct professor of philosophy at Columbia. He became (1886) president of the Industrial Education Association, reshaped it into what is today Teachers College, Columbia, and was (1889-91) the institution's first president. He was intimately associated with John W. Burgess in the struggle to create a university organization and was largely responsible for the expansion of Columbia College into Columbia Univ. In 1890 he became professor of philosophy and education and dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and in 1901 acting president of Columbia. The next year he formally succeeded Seth Low as president. He instituted the Summer Session, University Extension (now the School of General Studies), the School of Journalism, the Medical Center, and other units that are an integral part of the present-day university.

An advocate of peace through education, Butler helped to establish the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, of which he was a trustee and later president (1925-45). His efforts in behalf of disarmament and international peace won him international prestige, and he shared with Jane Addams the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize. Prominent in national, state, and New York City politics, he remained a regular Republican party member despite differences with its platforms. Though a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt, he refused to join the Progressive movement of 1912, and that year Butler received the Republican electoral votes for vice president after the death of Vice President James S. Sherman, the regularly nominated candidate. He later was the leading Republican advocate of the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, urged economy in government, and supported local reform movements. He was (1928-41) president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

His books include Education in the United States (1910), The International Mind (1913), The Meaning of Education (rev. ed. 1915), Scholarship and Service (1921), The Faith of a Liberal (1924), The Path to Peace (1930), Looking Forward (1932), Between Two Worlds (1934), and The World Today (1946).

Butler, Pierce, 1866-1939, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1923-39), b. Dakota co., Minn. Admitted (1888) to the bar, he practiced in St. Paul, specialized in railroad law, and became an expert in railroad-valuation cases, serving (1913-22) both the U.S. and Canadian governments. On the Supreme Court, to which he was appointed by President Harding, he was generally considered a conservative.

Butler, Richard Austen, 1902-82, British politician. Educated at Cambridge, he entered Parliament in 1929 as a Conservative. As minister of education (1941-45), he piloted through Parliament the Education Act of 1944, which provided free primary and secondary education for all. He was minister of labor in 1945, before the Conservatives lost power. He later held almost every senior cabinet position except prime minister. He was chancellor of the exchequer (1951-55), home secretary (1957-62), deputy prime minister and first secretary of state (1962-63), and foreign secretary (1963-64). He was leader of the House of Commons (1955-61) and lord privy seal (1955-59). Retiring from politics, he accepted a life peerage as Baron Butler of Saffron Walden in 1965 and was master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1965 to 1978.

Butler, Samuel, 1612-80, English poet and satirist. During the Puritan Revolution he served Sir Samuel Luke, a noted officer of Cromwell. After the restoration of Charles II, he wrote his famous mock-heroic poem Hudibras (pub. in 3 parts, 1663, 1664, 1678), an envenomed satire against the Puritans in which Luke was the model for the butt Sir Hudibras. He was also the author of other verse satires, some of them not published until the 20th cent.

Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902, English author. He was the son and grandson of eminent clergymen. In 1859, refusing to be ordained, he went to New Zealand, where he established a sheep farm and in a few years made a modest fortune. He returned to England in 1864 and devoted himself to a variety of interests, including art, music, biology, and literature. Besides exhibiting some of his paintings (1868-76) at the Royal Academy, he composed several works in collaboration with Henry Festings Jones, among them the Handelian Narcissus: A Dramatic Cantata (1888). His Erewhon, in which he satirized English social and economic injustices by describing a country in which manners and laws were the reverse of those in England, appeared in 1872. It brought Butler immediate literary fame. Erewhon Revisited was published in 1901. Butler opposed Darwin's explanation of evolution, finding it too mechanistic, and he expounded his own theories in Evolution Old and New (1879), Unconscious Memory (1880), and Luck or Cunning as the Main Means of Organic Modification? (1887). In his single novel, the autobiographical The Way of All Flesh (1903), he attacked the Victorian pattern of life, in particular the ecclesiastical environment in which he was reared. Brilliantly ironic and witty, The Way of All Flesh is ranked among the great English novels. Butler's notebooks were published in 1912.

Butler, Thomas: see Ossory, Thomas Butler, earl of.

Butler, Walter, 1752?-1781, Loyalist officer in the American Revolution, b. New York State; son of John Butler. He was an officer in his father's Loyalist troop, Butler's Rangers. He was captured (1777) by the patriots and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted. He escaped and in 1778 led the Rangers in a raid. This ended with the Cherry Valley massacre, for which his Native American commander, Joseph Brant, blamed Butler. Walter Butler was killed in a skirmish with patriot troops under Marinus Willet in the Mohawk valley.

Butler, William Orlando, 1791-1880, American general and political leader, b. Carrollton, Ky. He served in the War of 1812 and distinguished himself in the battle of New Orleans. He was a Congressman from 1839 to 1843. In the Mexican War he was a major general of volunteers and was second in command to Zachary Taylor at Monterrey, where Butler was wounded. After the fighting ended he succeeded Winfield Scott as commander in chief and superintended the evacuation of the U.S. soldiers from Mexico. In 1848 he was vice presidential candidate on the unsuccessful Democratic ticket headed by Lewis Cass. Although a slaveholder, he opposed secession and supported the Union cause in the Civil War.

Butler, Zebulon, 1731-95, American colonial leader, b. Ipswich, Mass. After serving in the French and Indian Wars, Butler led a group of Connecticut settlers to the Wyoming Valley in N Pennsylvania. He was military leader of the Connecticut settlers in the Pennamite Wars and served as director of the Susquehanna Company. Butler represented (1774-76) the Wyoming Valley in the Connecticut assembly. A colonel in the Revolution, he was defeated (1778) by Loyalists under John Butler and fled to Forty Fort; the Wyoming Valley massacre followed. Butler escaped and later was military commandant of the region.

Butler, city (1990 pop. 15,714), seat of Butler co., W Pa.; inc. as a borough 1817, as a city 1917. It is located in an area with coal, natural gas, oil, and limestone resources. Glass and plastic products, machinery, and abrasives are made. Moraine State Park is there.

(born Dec. 30, 1869, Swanmore, Hampshire, Eng.—died March 28, 1944, Toronto, Ont., Can.) British-born Canadian writer and lecturer. He immigrated to Canada with his parents at age six. Though he taught economics and political science at McGill University (1903–36) and wrote extensively on history and political economy, his true calling was humour. His fame rests on his many books of lighthearted sketches and essays, beginning with Literary Lapses (1910) and Nonsense Novels (1911). His humour is typically based on a comic perception of social foibles and the incongruity between appearance and reality in human conduct.

Learn more about Leacock, Stephen (Butler) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Dec. 4, 1835, Langar Rectory, Nottinghamshire, Eng.—died June 18, 1902, London) British novelist, essayist, and critic. Descended from distinguished clergymen, he grappled for many years with Christianity and evolution, first embracing, then rejecting, Charles Darwin's theories in his writings. He is best known for The Way of All Flesh (1903), his autobiographical novel that tells, with ruthless wit and lack of sentiment, the story of his escape from the suffocating moral atmosphere of his home circle. In his lifetime his reputation rested on the utopian satire Erewhon (1872), which foreshadowed the end of the Victorian illusion of eternal progress.

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(born Oct. 19, 1610, London, Eng.—died July 21, 1688, Kingston Lacy, Dorset) Anglo-Irish statesman. Born into the prominent Butler family of Ireland, he succeeded to the earldom of Ormonde in 1632. In service to the English crown in Ireland from 1633, he fought against the Catholic rebellion from 1641. He concluded a peace with the Catholic confederacy in 1649, then rallied support for Charles II, but he was forced to flee when Oliver Cromwell landed at Dublin. He was Charles's adviser in exile (1650–60). After the Restoration he was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland (1662–69, 1677–84), where he encouraged Irish commerce and industry. He was created a duke in 1682.

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(born April 2, 1862, Elizabeth, N.J., U.S.—died Dec. 7, 1947, New York, N.Y.) U.S. educator. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He was the founding president of what is today Columbia's Teachers College (1886–91). As president of Columbia University itself (1901–45), he led the institution to world renown. Early in his career he criticized prevailing pedagogical methods, but later he turned on pedagogical reform itself, decrying vocationalism in education and behaviorism in psychology. A champion of international understanding, he helped establish the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 and served as its president (1925–45). In 1931 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Jane Addams.

Learn more about Butler, Nicholas M(urray) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Dec. 30, 1869, Swanmore, Hampshire, Eng.—died March 28, 1944, Toronto, Ont., Can.) British-born Canadian writer and lecturer. He immigrated to Canada with his parents at age six. Though he taught economics and political science at McGill University (1903–36) and wrote extensively on history and political economy, his true calling was humour. His fame rests on his many books of lighthearted sketches and essays, beginning with Literary Lapses (1910) and Nonsense Novels (1911). His humour is typically based on a comic perception of social foibles and the incongruity between appearance and reality in human conduct.

Learn more about Leacock, Stephen (Butler) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born May 18, 1692, Wantage, Berkshire, Eng.—died June 16, 1752, Bath, Somerset) British bishop and moral philosopher. He became dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1740 and bishop of Durham in 1750. His works defended revealed religion against the rationalist thinkers of his time. His The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (1736) attacked the doctrine of Deism, according to which knowledge of God is acquired through reason rather than revelation. His Of the Nature of Virtue, appended to the Analogy, presented a refutation of hedonism and of the notion that self-interest is the ultimate principle of good conduct.

Learn more about Butler, Joseph with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Oct. 19, 1610, London, Eng.—died July 21, 1688, Kingston Lacy, Dorset) Anglo-Irish statesman. Born into the prominent Butler family of Ireland, he succeeded to the earldom of Ormonde in 1632. In service to the English crown in Ireland from 1633, he fought against the Catholic rebellion from 1641. He concluded a peace with the Catholic confederacy in 1649, then rallied support for Charles II, but he was forced to flee when Oliver Cromwell landed at Dublin. He was Charles's adviser in exile (1650–60). After the Restoration he was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland (1662–69, 1677–84), where he encouraged Irish commerce and industry. He was created a duke in 1682.

Learn more about Ormonde, James Butler, 12th earl and 1st duke of with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Dec. 4, 1835, Langar Rectory, Nottinghamshire, Eng.—died June 18, 1902, London) British novelist, essayist, and critic. Descended from distinguished clergymen, he grappled for many years with Christianity and evolution, first embracing, then rejecting, Charles Darwin's theories in his writings. He is best known for The Way of All Flesh (1903), his autobiographical novel that tells, with ruthless wit and lack of sentiment, the story of his escape from the suffocating moral atmosphere of his home circle. In his lifetime his reputation rested on the utopian satire Erewhon (1872), which foreshadowed the end of the Victorian illusion of eternal progress.

Learn more about Butler, Samuel with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born April 2, 1862, Elizabeth, N.J., U.S.—died Dec. 7, 1947, New York, N.Y.) U.S. educator. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He was the founding president of what is today Columbia's Teachers College (1886–91). As president of Columbia University itself (1901–45), he led the institution to world renown. Early in his career he criticized prevailing pedagogical methods, but later he turned on pedagogical reform itself, decrying vocationalism in education and behaviorism in psychology. A champion of international understanding, he helped establish the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910 and served as its president (1925–45). In 1931 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Jane Addams.

Learn more about Butler, Nicholas M(urray) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born May 18, 1692, Wantage, Berkshire, Eng.—died June 16, 1752, Bath, Somerset) British bishop and moral philosopher. He became dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1740 and bishop of Durham in 1750. His works defended revealed religion against the rationalist thinkers of his time. His The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (1736) attacked the doctrine of Deism, according to which knowledge of God is acquired through reason rather than revelation. His Of the Nature of Virtue, appended to the Analogy, presented a refutation of hedonism and of the notion that self-interest is the ultimate principle of good conduct.

Learn more about Butler, Joseph with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born , Nov. 5, 1818, Deerfield, N.H., U.S.—died Jan. 11, 1893, Washington, D.C.) U.S. army officer. A prominent attorney in Lowell, Mass., Butler served two terms in the state legislature (1853, 1859). In the American Civil War he commanded Fort Monroe, Va., where he refused to return fugitive slaves to the Confederacy, calling them “contraband of war,” an interpretation later upheld by the government. He oversaw the occupation of New Orleans in 1862 but was recalled because of his harsh rule. He led the Union army in Virginia, but after several defeats he was relieved of his command in 1865. In the U.S. House of Representatives (1867–75, 1877–79), he was a Radical Republican prominent in the impeachment trial of Pres. Andrew Johnson. He switched parties in 1878 to support the Greenback movement and later served as governor of Massachusetts (1882–84).

Learn more about Butler, Benjamin F(ranklin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born , Nov. 5, 1818, Deerfield, N.H., U.S.—died Jan. 11, 1893, Washington, D.C.) U.S. army officer. A prominent attorney in Lowell, Mass., Butler served two terms in the state legislature (1853, 1859). In the American Civil War he commanded Fort Monroe, Va., where he refused to return fugitive slaves to the Confederacy, calling them “contraband of war,” an interpretation later upheld by the government. He oversaw the occupation of New Orleans in 1862 but was recalled because of his harsh rule. He led the Union army in Virginia, but after several defeats he was relieved of his command in 1865. In the U.S. House of Representatives (1867–75, 1877–79), he was a Radical Republican prominent in the impeachment trial of Pres. Andrew Johnson. He switched parties in 1878 to support the Greenback movement and later served as governor of Massachusetts (1882–84).

Learn more about Butler, Benjamin F(ranklin) with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Butler is a town in and the county seat of Choctaw County, Alabama, United States. The population was 1,952 at the 2000 census, at which time it was a city.

Geography

Butler is located at (32.091526, -88.220684).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city had a total area of 5.6 square miles (14.5 km²), all of it land.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 1,952 people, 823 households, and 547 families residing in the city. The population density was 348.6 people per square mile (134.6/km²). There were 945 housing units at an average density of 168.8/sq mi (65.2/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 81.56% White, 17.88% Black or African American, 0.26% Native American, and 0.31% from two or more races. 0.61% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 823 households out of which 30.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.0% were married couples living together, 14.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.5% were non-families. 32.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.21 and the average family size was 2.78.

In the city the population was spread out with 22.1% under the age of 18, 7.1% from 18 to 24, 25.2% from 25 to 44, 25.0% from 45 to 64, and 20.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 84.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 76.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $35,302, and the median income for a family was $43,056. Males had a median income of $38,750 versus $20,700 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,221. About 13.3% of families and 14.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.4% of those under age 18 and 8.0% of those age 65 or over.

Notable native

• Johnny Ruffin - A retired Major League Baseball pitcher. He played for the Cincinnati Reds, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Florida Marlins.
• Ty Herndon - A Country Singer Musician who is most known for his singles "What Mattered Most", "A Man Holding on to a Woman Letting Go", "Steam", and "I Want My Goodbye Back".

References

External links

• Coastal Gateway Regional Economic Development Authority
• Butler, AL profile at Choctaw County Public Library