Butler, Pierce

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

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Pierce Butler served as associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1923 to 1939. Known for his conservative views, Butler advocated a laissezfaire (French for "let [people] do [as they choose])" philosophy that sought to minimize government interference in the economy. In the 1930s, when FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT's NEW DEAL policies sought to increase the power of government in U.S. life, Butler voted against the constitutionality of every New Deal measure that came before the Court. By the end of his tenure, Butler was one of the few conservatives on an increasingly liberal Supreme Court, and he became distraught by changes in the Court's interpretation of the Constitution. "This is not government by law, but by caprice," he wrote in a 1939 dissent. "Whimseys may displace deliberate action by chosen representatives and become rules of conduct. To us the outcome seems wholly incompatible with the system under which we are supposed to live" (United States v. Rock Royal Co-op, 307 U.S. 533, 59 S. Ct. 993, 83 L. Ed. 1446). Butler dissented in several Supreme Court decisions that overturned laws discriminating against African Americans, and he rarely supported the rights of those with dissenting or radical opinions in society. He did, however, argue consistently for the rights of those accused of crimes.

Those who knew him commented on Butler's stubbornness and occasional bullying, traits that often made his relations with others on the Court less than amicable. Once, after persuading all on the Court but Justice OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR., of the rightness of his opinion on a particular matter, Butler said to Holmes, "I am glad we have finally arrived at a just decision." "Hell is paved with just decisions," Holmes responded. Commenting on Butler's conservatism, Holmes characterized Butler as a "monolith" with "no seams the frost can get through." Butler resolutely stuck to his conservative principles even in the depths of the Depression. Something of those views is found in remarks he made in 1916: "Too much paternalism, too much wet-nursing by the state, is destructive of individual initiative and development. An Athlete should not be fed on predigested food nor should the citizens of tomorrow be so trained that they will expect sustenance from the public 'pap.' "

Many of Butler's later views were shaped by his frontier childhood. Butler was born on St.

Pierce Butler.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Patrick's Day, March 17, 1866, in a log cabin in Dakota County, Minnesota. His parents had emigrated from County Wicklow, Ireland, to escape the potato famine of 1848, and eventually established their farm only a few miles from Carleton College, in Northfield, Minnesota, where Butler was admitted in 1883. To help pay his college expenses, he worked in a local dairy. He graduated from Carleton in 1887 with both a bachelor of arts degree and a bachelor of science degree.

After college, Butler moved to St. Paul and studied law at the firm of Pinch and Twohy. He passed the Minnesota bar in 1888 and established a law practice with an associate, Stan Donnelly. In 1891, Butler became assistant to the county attorney for Ramsey County, and in 1893 and 1895 he was elected, as a Democrat, to the office of county attorney, the only elective public office he ever held. While in office, he secured more criminal convictions than any county attorney had done before. Butler ran for the state senate in 1906 but was narrowly defeated. In 1908, he was elected president of the Minnesota State Bar Association. In St. Paul, Butler also met his future wife, Annie Cronin, whom he married in 1891. The couple had eight children.

"ABHORRENCE, HOWEVER GREAT, OF PERSISTENT AND MENACING CRIME WILL NOT EXCUSE TRANSGRESSION IN THE COURTS OF THE LEGAL RIGHTS OF THE WORST OFFENDERS."

?PIERCE BUTLER

In 1893, Butler helped establish a St. Paul law firm that evolved into Butler, Mitchell, and Doherty, one of the most successful corporate law firms of its time in what was then called the Northwest. The firm had several railroads as its major clients, including those of James J. Hill,

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one of the great rail barons. During his career, Butler earned a reputation as the foremost railroad lawyer in the Northwest. His work in railroad litigation eventually brought him...