Lot 908
Pierce Butler, Signer of U.S. Constitution, Delegate from South Carolina., ALS, one-page letter signed "P. Butler" and dated "Jun 24. 1812", letter encloses "…statement of some payments made in Charleston on acct of the Claimant of the Salvador Lands…"; letter lower part of letter separated, Fine and rare.Estimate $500 - 750.
Pierce Butler (1744-1822) was a South Carolina rice planter, slaveholder, politician, an officer in the Revolutionary War, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as a state legislator, a member of the Congress of the Confederation, a delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and a member of the United States Senate.
As one of the largest slaveholders in the United States, he defended American slavery for both political and personal motives, even though he had private misgivings about the institution and particularly about the African slave trade. He introduced the Fugitive Slave Clause into a draft of the U.S. Constitution, which gave a federal guarantee to the property rights of slaveholders. He supported counting the full slave population in state totals for the purposes of Congressional apportionment.