But he had his eye on a still higher prize. He hoped to compass the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. That nomination depended on his conciliating the old Democratic, rebel element at the South, then powerful in National Democratic councils. He made an attack upon the administration of the State Almshouse at Tewksbury, in which he declared that "the selling and tanning of human skins was an established industry in Massachusetts." He charged the Commonwealth with desecrating the graves and selling the bodies of deceased inmates of her public institutions for money. General Butler's charges were refuted to the public satisfaction by the simple certificate of Mrs. Clara Leonard, a member of the State Board of Lunacy and Charities, who knew all about the matter, and in whose high integrity and capacity to decide the question everybody had implicit confidence. There was an investigation, and Butler signally failed to sustain himself. One incident at the hearing revealed perfectly his character and that of his affected sympathy for downtrodden humanity. Some human remains were brought into the presence of the committee, which it was alleged had come from the almshouse. Butler was in an angry mood at something that had occurred and called out peremptorily: "Give me the skin that came off the nigger." I will not undertake myself to impute the motive which inspired this attack upon his own State. Whether it were anger inspired by the knowledge of the estimate in which the majority of her people held him; whether it were a gross nature with blunted sensibilities; whether these expressions were uttered in haste or anger, I will not say. The Honorable William P. Frye, an able and justly distinguished Representative and Senator from Maine, with an intimate knowledge of General Butler, which came from a long association in the public service, charged General Butler in a public speech in Massachusetts, in the autumn of 1883, in my hearing, what he repeated at many places elsewhere in the Commonwealth--that Butler had made this foul charge against Massachusetts in order that he might win the favor of the slave-holding and rebel Democratic elements of the South by catering to their prejudices against her. If that be true, this charge of General Butler's is the most disgraceful single utterance that ever came from American lips. If it be not true, what must be the nature of which the gentle, charitable and kindly Senator Frye could believe it true after an intimate knowledge so many years? General Butler was disappointed in his expectation of Democratic support in the country at large. He had thereafter no rest in politics for the sole of his foot. The remainder of his life was spent in speculation and manufacturing enterprises.