Benjamin Franklin Butler, former Attorney General of the United States, dies in Paris

Benjamin Franklin Butler of New York, Attorney General of the United States during the Jackson and Van Buren administrations, died on this day in Paris, aged sixty-two. He had slowly moved away from the Democratic Party since 1848, supporting the Free Soil Party in New York, speaking against the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and, finally, voting for John Fremont in 1856. (By John Osborne)