Pierce Butler - Later Years, Post-politics

Later Years, Post-politics

Butler retired from politics in 1805. 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 followed his own path to produce the maximum of liberty and respect for those individuals whom he classed as citizens. 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 matter of Experiment.... much must depend on the morals and manners of the people at large."