Benjamin Butler
Massachusetts general and Radical congressman famed for confiscation policy and impeachment zeal.
Overview
Butler commanded the occupation of New Orleans, where his sheltering of escaped slaves as contraband of war coined a legal category, then entered the House in 1867 and served until 1875 and again from 1877 to 1879. A Radical Republican, he pressed confiscation of rebel property, backed votes for freedmen and eventually for women, and as lead impeachment manager prosecuted Andrew Johnson in 1868. He wrote the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act enforcement provisions. Shifting to Greenback and labor politics, he was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1882 and ran for president in 1884.
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