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National Farmers’ Alliance president and United States Senator Marion Butler was born on May 20, 1863 near Clinton, the eldest of Wiley and Romelia Butler’s six children. His father was a small farmer. As a young man, he shared in his family’s struggles during the post-Civil War era. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1885, and his education would serve him in good stead in his later political career. Intent on becoming an attorney, Butler returned to the school to study law, but his academic pursuits were cut short by the death of his father in the 1890s. He then returned to Sampson County to manage the family farm.
Butler entered politics shortly after returning home. The Farmers’ Alliance, a growing agrarian organization, came into North Carolina from the Southwest. Attracted by the Alliance’s espousal of farmers’ rights, Butler joined, and quickly became head of the Sampson County Farmers’ Alliance. In 1890, at the age of twenty-seven, Butler was elected to the state senate as an Alliance Democrat. The following year he became president of the Alliance’s North Carolina organization. After the death of Leonidas L. Polk in 1892, Butler became vice-president of the National Farmers’ Alliance in 1893 and was elected president in 1894. He also was chosen to be chairman of the state Populist Party in 1893.
Although Butler and the Farmers’ Alliance were strong supporters of free silver and other reforms, the Democratic Party nominated the more traditionally-minded Grover Cleveland in 1892. Cleveland supported none of the measures put forth by the Alliance. When the Democratic Party ruled that no member could vote Democratic in the state and local elections without voting likewise in the presidential race, the Farmers’ Alliance in North Carolina abandoned the traditional “white-man’s party,” favoring the burgeoning Populist Party.
During the state elections of 1894, the Populist Party “fused” with the Republicans to challenge Democratic control. Butler led the Populists and Republicans in sweeping both houses of the legislature, while he and was elected in 1895 to the United States Senate. The following year, Butler gained national prominence by formulating the compromise that allowed the Populists to place Democrat William Jennings Bryan on their presidential ticket alongside Populist vice-presidential candidate Thomas E. Watson. Nevertheless, Bryan lost the election in 1896, and the Populists and Democrats again parted ways.
During the 1898 and 1900 elections, the Democrats, led by Charles B. Aycock and Furnifold M. Simmons, regained control of the state legislature, and Butler lost his Senate seat. He remained national chairman of the Populist Party until 1904, when he became a Republican. Butler left politics shortly thereafter and resumed the study of law. He remained in Washington, D.C., where he practiced law and was a successful businessman. He died on June 3, 1938, in a hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland. Butler left a wife, Florence, and five children. He is buried in the old Clinton Town cemetery, where the two large brick columns at the entrance were donated in memory of Marion Butler and his brother Wiley.
References:
Robert S. Boyette, "Marion Butler: A Reluctant Populist" (East Carolina University honors paper, 1977)
Robert F. Durden, “Butler, Marion,” William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, I, 291-292
James L. Hunt, Marion Butler and American Populism (2003)
James L. Hunt, “Marion Butler: The Making of a Populist,” North Carolina Historical Review (January, April, July 1985), 53-77, 179-202, 317-343.
Joel W. Rose, essay about Butler in the April 1, 2009 Huckleberry Historian (publication of the Sampson County Historical Society)
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