American journalist, born in Washington, Dutchess County, NY, on the 11th of January 1816; died in Rochester, NY, on the 20th of November 1874. He was educated at Rochester high school, engaged in various pursuits, and in 1845 assumed editorship of the Rochester Advertiser, the oldest daily newspaper in the United States, west of Albany. The paper was Democratic in politics, and as the question came up in Congress at this time whether slavery should be allowed in the territory newly acquired from Mexico, Mr. Butts took the ground that the people of the territory should settle the matter themselves. “Popular Sovereignty,” or “Squatter Sovereignty,” was the principle, and the phrase originated in Mr. Butts’s paper (Feb. 8, 1847), although Daniel S. Dickinson, Lewis Cass and Stephen A. Douglas respectively claimed the honor. Mr. Butts sold the Advertiser in 1848, and for four years was engaged in the service of the “House Printing Telegraph Company” and in the construction of lines which converged at St. Louis. In the latter part of 1852 he purchased an interest in the Rochester Union. Five years later the Advertiser was incorporated with it, and Mr. Butts continued as editor until 1864, when he permanently retired. He was an organizer, and for years one of the managers, of the Western Union Telegraph Company. His volume on Protection and Free Trade, with a memoir, was published after his death.
