WASHINGTON, December 8, 1851.
MY DEAR SIR,—I
received to-day your letter of the 3d inst. You know precisely how much and how
little I have had to do in the presentation of myself as a candidate for the
Senate of the United States. I think I may say that it has been the action of
my friends; and since the contest began, I have looked passively upon it. I had
left it to my friends,—friends deserving all my confidence,—and there I will,
as you advise, leave it. It would be ungrateful as well as unjust in me now to
thwart or cross them in the midway of a controversy, in which, for my sake,
they have involved themselves, and about which I really know so little. I know
that whatever they have done has been done in sincerity of friendship for me,
and I will abide by it to the last. As they pitch the battle so let it be
fought.
But in this contest
it is always to be remembered that you are contending against friends, who, by
accident or circumstances, have been made opponents for the present, and to
whom a liberal and generous treatment is due. You, who are upon the ground, well
know how to distinguish between such opponents and those who prove themselves
to be enemies. I wish that all of you who are supporting me will remember,
also, that you are not supporting an exacting friend, but one who would not be
outdone in liberality, generosity, or conciliation; one who would rather suffer
anything himself than see his generous friends involved in difficulties or
perils on his account. I hope that they will act accordingly in this matter.
But whatever they shall do or determine, that will I abide by, that will I
maintain as right, and go to all honorable extremity with them in defending and
making good.
I wrote to Mr. T. F.
Marshall before the receipt of your letter, and before I read his letter in the
Louisville Journal. I wrote upon the information of his course derived from the
newspapers.
Somehow or other I
cannot be a man of words on such occasions, but my whole heart is full almost
to bursting at acts of free and manly friendship and devotion. I love Tom
Marshall. Oh, if he will be but true to himself, how I would strive for his
advancement! How I would love to strive for it!
I was touched to the
heart, too, at what you tell me about my old friend (for such I may now call
him) Ben Hardin. I felt like breaking at the root when I heard that he was
against me, for in the days of our youth—of our growth—we were together, and
have passed thus far through life in more of amity and good will than falls to
the lot of most men occupying our position. Upon reading what you wrote me my
eyes were not dry. Time gives a sort of sacredness to the feelings that arise
from old associations and friendships. I wish I could live long enough, or had
the means of repaying, Orlando [Brown], all the debts Ï owe my friends. But
therein I am a bankrupt indeed.
Do give my grateful
regards to my friends Caldwell and Cunningham, and to all the friends that in
my absence have stood by me; my heart is full of thankfulness. And I really
hope and believe that many of those who have taken part against me have been
influenced to do so by circumstances that do not affect their good opinion and
kind feelings towards me. I bear no ill will to them.
SOURCE: Ann Mary
Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With
Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 24-5
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