Pierce Butler (March 17, 1866 – November 16, 1939) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1923 until his death in 1939. He was a staunch conservative and was regarded as a part of the Four Horsemen, the conservative bloc that dominated the Supreme Court during the 1930s. A devout Catholic, he was also the sole dissenter in the later case Buck v. Bell, though he did not write an opinion. Early life and education Butler was born in Northfield, Minnesota to Patrick and Mary Ann Butler. Born in a log cabin, he was the sixth of nine children. All but his sister lived to adulthood. His parents were Catholic immigrants from County Wicklow, Ireland, who had met in Galena, Illinois. They had left the same part of Ireland because of the Great Famine. Butler graduated from Carleton College, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. He received both a degree in the arts and a degree in science. He then read the law for one year before being admitted to the bar in 1888. He married Annie M. Cronin in 1891. Legal career He was elected as county attorney in Ramsey County in 1892, and re-elected in 1894. Butler joined the law firm of How & Eller in 1896, which became How & Butler after the death of Homer C. Eller the following year. He accepted an offer to practice in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he took care of railroad-related litigation for James J. Hill. He was highly successful in representing railroads. In 1905 he returned to private practice and rejoined Jared How. He had also served as a lawyer for the company owned by his five brothers. In 1908, Butler was elected President of the Minnesota State Bar Association. From 1912 to 1922, he worked in railroad law in Canada, alternately representing the shareholders of railroad companies and the Canadian government; he produced favorable results for both. When he was nominated for the United States Supreme Court in 1922, Butler was in the process of winning approximately $12,000,000 for the Toronto Street Railway shareholders. Supreme Court justice Nomination and confirmation On December 5, 1922, Butler was nominated by President Warren G. Harding as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, to succeed William R. Day. Although he was supported by Chief Justice William