John Marshall Butler
John Marshall Butler (July 21, 1897 – March 14, 1978) was an American lawyer and a Republican who served as the United States Senator from Maryland from 1951 to 1963.
He was born in Baltimore to John Harvey and Eunice West Butler. As a young man he worked as a paperboy and in a mattress factory. He served in World War I as a private in the 110th Field Artillery, 29th Division, from 1917 to 1918. After the war, he studied at Johns Hopkins University (1919–1921) and then joined his father’s real estate business. He earned a law degree by studying at night at the University of Maryland School of Law, graduating in 1926. Butler practiced law in Baltimore and worked for the firm Venable, Baetjer & Howard until 1950. He also served on the Baltimore City Service Commission from 1947 to 1949.
In 1950, Butler was elected to the Senate. In the Republican primary he lost the popular vote to D. John Markey (51%–49%), but won the nomination after getting more support at the state convention. He then defeated the four-term Democrat Millard Tydings in the general election (53%–46%). After the election, Tydings asked the Senate to disqualify Butler because of tactics used by the McCarthy group in the campaign. A Senate subcommittee found that Butler’s campaign had used “despicable methods” and fined one aide $5,000, but Butler was not expelled. Butler admitted paying the pamphlet printer and called the falsified photo of Tydings with a Communist leader a misguided mistake.
As a senator, Butler was known as a staunch conservative. He sponsored the Communist Control Act of 1954, which aimed to outlaw the Communist Party. He also proposed measures to limit the federal courts’ power and supported similar ideas in 1955 and 1958. He was one of 22 senators who voted against censuring Joseph McCarthy in 1954. He supported returning offshore oil lands to the states and voted for the Bricker Amendment, which sought to restrict federal powers over foreign policy.
Butler was re-elected in 1956, defeating Democrat George P. Mahoney (53%–47%). He chose not to run for a third term in 1962. He did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto and voted for the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, but he did not vote on the 24th Amendment. In 1959 he was the lone Republican senator to vote against Hawaiian statehood.
After leaving the Senate, Butler returned to Baltimore. He died at age 80 from a heart attack in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, while returning from a vacation, and was buried at Druid Ridge Cemetery in Pikesville.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:18 (CET).