Benjamin Franklin Butler (politician, 1795)

Benjamin Franklin Butler

Benjamin Franklin Butler (born December 17, 1795 in Columbia County , New York , † November 8, 1858 in Paris ) was an American lawyer and politician who served in the United States Cabinet under Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren as Attorney General belonged to.

Studies and professional career

After finishing school, Oliver Cromwell's descendant studied law with Martin Van Buren . After being admitted to the bar, he joined his law firm as a partner in 1817. From 1821 to 1824 he served as a district attorney in Albany County before he was one of three state commissioners to revise the New York state statutes in 1825 .

In 1831 he was instrumental in founding New York University and held various offices there from the start. In 1837 he was appointed professor at their law school .

Political career

Butler began his political career in 1827 with the election to the New York State Assembly , of which he was a member until 1833. He then briefly worked as a New York commissioner for the determination of the state border with New Jersey .

On November 15, 1833, US President Andrew Jackson appointed him as Attorney General in his cabinet . He also held this position under Jackson's successor Martin Van Buren until he was replaced by Felix Grundy on June 4, 1838. From October 1836 to March 1837 he was also the successor of Lewis Cass ad interim Minister of War .

Following this, he was United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1845 to 1848, first until 1841 and then as the successor to Ogden Hoffman .

Butler died in Paris while on a European trip . Founded in 1836 in Cherokee County , North Carolina , Fort Butler , which played an important role in the later resettlement of the Cherokee during the Trail of Tears , was named after him.

Publications

• Outlines of the Constitutional History of New York . New York 1847

literature

• Butler, Benjamin Franklin . In: James Grant Wilson, John Fiske (Eds.): Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography . tape 1 : Aaron - Crandall . D. Appleton and Company, New York 1887, p. 477 (English, Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).

Web links

• Benjamin Franklin Butler at The Political Graveyard
• Benjamin Franklin Butler in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)
• Biography on the homepage of the Ministry of Justice
• Biography in the US legal dictionary