Sunday, June 2, 2019

James W. Barbour to John J. Crittenden, May 31, 1820

Bardoursville, May 31, 1820.

Dear Sir, — I had intended to have written to you by Judge Logan, who left us before the adjournment without any anticipation, on my part, that he meant to do so. I most cordially wish that you may very soon realize your golden prospects, as well for yourself as for your country. Take care, however, that your limits do not recede as you advance upon them. Enough has never yet been accurately bounded. Independence is a jewel of inestimable price, and should be forever kept in view, at least by the head of a family. In pursuing it, you give high proofs of prudence. That you will soon reach it I have no doubt. The session closed with the catastrophe of the tariff; not quite as important as the Missouri question, but probably the undisputed progeny of the policy that seeks to promote the interest of one portion of the Union at the expense of another. Deprived, however, of much of its consequence, from the circumstance that it was not so sectional in the support given it. Had Tompkins been elected governor of New York, there would have been considerable commotion among the aspirants to the two great offices. His defeat was a perfect damper. They are, for the present, in the language of diplomacy, placed “ad referendum. In a year or two they will be, like Falstaff's reasons, as thick as blackberries. The old Revolutionary generation has passed away. The new presents so many who are really equal, or think themselves so (which is the same thing), that every section of the Union will have its claims, except Virginia. She, by common consent, is to repose on the recollection of what she has done. I fear, however, that the slave question will be revived in all its fury, and will be sufficient to bar the door against either a Southern or Western man. Time, however, will decide these things. It is not my nature to anticipate evil. I inclose you thirty dollars, as the fee in my case. Let me hear from you as soon as possible after its decision, or in the mean time, if convenient.

Your friend,
J. W. Barbour.

SOURCE: Mrs. Chapman Coleman, The Life of John J. Crittenden, Volume 1, p. 47-8

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