WASHINGTON, April
21, 1851.
SIR, Your letter
of the 12th inst. was received yesterday, and read with painful surprise.
It is marked with such a spirit of rebuke and irritation that I hardly know how
I ought to understand or reply to it. You have almost made me feel that any
explanation under such circumstances would be derogatory. But, sir, suppressing
all these feelings, and preferring in this instance to err, if at all, on the
side of forbearance, I have concluded to address you a calm reply and explanation
of the subject that has so much irritated and excited you.
Know, then, that I
did receive the
letter you addressed to me last winter requesting my assistance in
procuring for your son the appointment of cadet in the Military Academy at West
Point.
All such
appointments, except ten, are so regulated by law that they must be made, one
from each congressional district, on the nomination and recommendation of the
representative of that district.
There was no vacancy
in your district, and, of course, the only hope for your son was to obtain for
him one of the ten extraordinary appointments at the disposal of the President.
The power of conferring these is understood to have been given to the President
for the benefit of the sons of officers of the army and navy, and especially of
those whose fathers had perished in the service of their country; and although
these appointments have not, in practice, been always confined to this
description of persons, their claims have been generally favored and preferred.
The number of such applicants has been greatly increased by the Mexican war,
and their competitors from civil life are still more numerous.
From this general
statement may be inferred the uncertainty and difficulty of procuring one of
these appointments.
In the winter of
1849 and '50 I had, at the instance of my old friend, Gabriel Lewis, of
Kentucky, very earnestly recommended a grandson of his to General Taylor for
one of these appointments. He did not get it, and it was then determined by his
family, with my advice and my promise to give what assistance I could, to renew
or continue his application for another year, and I had, accordingly, again
recommended him for one of the appointments that were to be made this spring.
Such was the
condition of things and such my situation and engagement when your first letter
was received. Notwithstanding all the difficulties in the way, I was not
without the hope of serving you, for the sole reason, perhaps, that I wished to
do so, and wished to obtain the appointment for your son. To learn something of
the prospect of success, I conversed several times with the Secretary of War on
the subject. He could only tell me that no selections would be made, that the
subject would not be considered till the time had arrived for making the
appointments, and that the number of applicants was very great, amounting to
hundreds,—I think he said fifteen hundred.
I ought, perhaps, to
have acknowledged the receipt of your letter and have given you all this
information; and most certainly I would have done it if I had had the least
apprehension of the grave consequences that have followed the omission. It did
not occur to me that any punctiliousness would be exacted in our
correspondence.
But, besides all
this, and to say nothing of the daily duties of my office, and my almost
constant attendance upon the Supreme Court, then in session, I had nothing
satisfactory or definite to write. I waited, therefore, willing to avail myself
of any circumstance or opportunity that time or chance might bring forth to
serve you and to procure an appointment for your son as well as for the
grandson of Mr. Lewis. I could find no such opportunity—no opportunity even for
urging it with the least hope of success.
The appointments
have all been recently made, and, with few exceptions, confined to the sons, I
believe, of deceased officers, to the exclusion, for the second time, of the
grandson of my friend Lewis, who has been on the list of applicants for two
years, with all the recommendation I could give him.
I should have taken
some opportunity of writing to you on this subject, even if your late letter
had not so unpleasantly anticipated that purpose.
This, sir, is the
whole tale. It must speak for itself. I have no other propitiation to offer. I
am the injured party. When you become conscious of that, you will know well
what atonement ought to be made and how it ought to be made. Till then, sir,
self-respect compels me to say that I will be content to abide those unfriendly
relations which I understand your letter to imply, if not proclaim.
I can truly say that
I have written this "more in sorrow than in anger." I have intended
nothing beyond my own defense and vindication, and if I have been betrayed into
a word that goes beyond those just limits and implies anything like aggression,
let it be stricken out.
J. J. CRITTENDEN.
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