John J. Crittenden to Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, April 21, 1851

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.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 385-7

Robert Jefferson Breckinridge to John J. Crittenden, May 3, 1851

LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, May 3, 1851.

Hon. J. J. CRITTENDEN.

DEAR SIR,—I regret very much to perceive by your letter of the 21st ultimo that you considered my letter to you of the 12th April wanting in proper respect to you, and prompted by irritation on my part. I retained no copy of that letter; but, assuredly, I know very little of myself if it contained the evidences of either of those states of mind.

For the first time in my life I had condescended to solicit, from any human authority, anything, either for myself or any member of my immediate family, though many hundreds of times I have done what I could for others. It was particularly distressing to me that I had been seduced into such a position by the extreme kindness of an old personal friend (Mr. Duncan), as I explained in my first letter to you, and, by some ridiculous notion, that the present administration might consider itself any ways connected with that of General Taylor, so as to feel disposed to fulfill any expectations it may have raised.

Unless my memory deceives me, my first letter, making the application, intimated to you that I was not sure it was proper in me to write you such a letter, and asked you to excuse the impropriety, if indeed one existed. Such, I remember well, was the state of my mind, and I think I expressed it. The only notice ever taken of that letter, by you, is the allusion to it in your letter before me. What took place in the mean time may be uttered in a sentence, and need not be repeated here.

Under all the painful, and to me altogether unprecedented, circumstances of a very humiliating position, I thought it due to you to express my regret at having implicated you, in any degree, in such an affair by my letter of application to you; and I thought it due to myself to express to you, under such circumstances, my regret at allowing myself, in a moment of parental weakness, to embark in a matter which, in all its progress and its termination, was especially out of keeping with the whole tenor of my life and feelings. If my letter, to which yours of the 21st April is an answer, expresses more or less than these things, it is expressed unhappily and improperly. If, during the progress of the affair, you had judged it necessary or proper to have treated it differently, or had had it in your power to do so, I should not have been more bound to feel obliged by any other or further service than I am now bound to feel obliged, by such as your letter informs me you were good enough to render me, under circumstances which, it is now obvious, must have been embarrassing to you, and which, if I had known, I would have instantly released you from. But all this, as it appears to me, only the more painfully shows how inconsiderate my first application to you was, and how needless it was for my subsequent expression of regret for having made it to be taken in an offensive sense.

The sole object of this letter is to place the whole affair on the footing which, in my opinion, it really occupies.

Certainly I had no right to ask anything of the sort I did ask at your hands. But assuredly having been weak enough to ask it, and having, in the course of events, had full occasion to perceive that weakness, I had the right without offense to express sincere regret for what I had inconsiderately done,—to the needless annoyance of yourself and others, and to the wounding of my own self-esteem.

Permit me, in conclusion, to say that altogether the most painful part of this affair, to me, is that I should have given offense to a man who, for nearly if not quite thirty years, I have been accustomed to regard with feelings of the greatest esteem, admiration, and confidence, and for whom, at any moment during those thirty years, I would have periled everything but my honor to have served him; such a man will know how to appreciate the workings of a nature perhaps oversensitive and overproud, in the midst of unusual and oppressive circumstances. If not, it is better to forget all than lose our own self-respect.

As to Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Conrad, strange as it may seem to you, I would never, under ordinary circumstances, have asked either of them for any favor whatever. I rather considered myself asking you and Mr. Clay and Judge Underwood and Judge Breck and a few other old friends to whom I brought myself to the point—not without great difficulty—of saying what I did. This may seem very absurd to you; perhaps it is so; it is nevertheless the truth; and most certainly I did not suppose that any administration of which yourself and Mr. Clay and Judge Underwood and Judge Breck were avowed, if not confidential, supporters, would, under the entire circumstances of this case, have it in its power to refuse so paltry a boon; and after seeing the published list of successful applicants, from which alone I learned the fate of my application, I saw still less reason to comprehend such a result. As to yourself, three particulars separated your case from that of the other friends I have named: 1st. I loved you most, and relied most on you. 2d. I the most distrusted the propriety of writing to you, on account of your connection with the cabinet. 3d. From you alone I had no word of notice; and for these two last reasons, the more felt that an explanation was demanded of me as due both to you and myself.

If you have had patience to read this letter, it is needless for me to say more than that I still desire to be considered your friend.

R. J. B.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 387-9

Robert Jefferson Breckinridge to John J. Crittenden, November 23, 1850

LEXINGTON, Nov. 23, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—More than a year ago our friend Garnett Duncan made application to the President and to the Secretary at War for a cadet's warrant at West Point for my oldest son. He did this spontaneously as an act of personal regard, and perhaps as some expression of his sense of things of other days. I had other friends whose influence might have aided him; but in the same spirit that actuated him, I told him I would do nothing; so that if he succeeded, he should have all the gratitude of the lad and all the pleasure of the good deed. He failed. But the President and the Secretary both promised to put the lad's name on the list, and held out strong hopes, if not a certain assurance, of his appointment a year from that time, to wit, now.

Now, my dear sir, if this appointment can be had, I shall be very glad; my boy will be gratified in the strongest and almost the earliest wish of his heart, and I trust the country may be gainer thereby in the end. The lad is now a little past sixteen years of age; he is a member of the Sophomore class at Danville, and is of robust constitution, fine talents, and earnest, firm, and elevated nature. It is to gratify him in a strong, nay, a vehement, passion that I desire this thing. For myself I never did, never will, solicit anything from any government. The ancestors of this lad, paternal and maternal, have done the State some service. You know all about all I could with propriety say.

If there is any impropriety in my thus addressing you, I pray you to excuse it; if there is none, and this thing can be accomplished, it will be only another proof of your goodness and another ground of the grateful and affectionate friendship of Yours ever,

R. J. B.

Hon. J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 384

Robert Jefferson Breckinridge to John J. Crittenden, April 12, 1851

LEXINGTON, KY., April 12, 1851.

DEAR SIR,—You may, perhaps, recollect that I was inconsiderate enough to address a letter to you during the last winter on the subject of a warrant to West Point for one of a numerous family of sons, under circumstances which I erred, perhaps, in supposing were somewhat peculiar, and with claims upon the country, personal and hereditary, which I no doubt greatly overrated in my desire to gratify the ardent wishes of a beloved child.

I was not fortunate enough to receive any answer to that letter; and although the application was warmly supported by both the senators from this State and several members of Congress from this and other States, being myself without political influence, it failed, as I ought to have foreseen it must. I feel it to be due to you and to myself to say that I regret very much having, in a moment of parental weakness, committed so great an error, and by this declaration atone, at least to my own feelings, for the only instance, through a life now not very short, in which I have asked from any one anything for myself or any member of my family. Praying you to excuse what I so much regret, I am, very respectfully,

Your friend and servant,

R. J. B.

Hon. J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 385

Henry Clay to John J. Crittenden, September 13, 1823

Ashland, September 13, 1823.

Dear Crittenden, — I received your letter by Mr. Davis. I participate most cordially with you in the just solicitude which the dispute between Messrs. Breckenridge and Wickliffe awakens. When it was first mentioned to me, considering the peculiar circumstances and the character of one of the parties, I feared that all private interference would be unavailing, and that the best course would be an appeal to the civil authority, with its chances of delay, — cooling of the passions, and possible ultimate accommodation. Supposing the intercession of the civil power, would not Mr. W. be relieved from the necessity of having the interview, and Mr. B. be stripped of any ground to carry into effect the alternative, which it is said he menaced? There is, however, no incompatibility between the two courses, which may be tried in succession, or simultaneously, according to circumstances. I have therefore prepared and, on my own part, signed a letter addressed to the parties, and which may be signed by both, or either of you, and the governor. If the relations of one of them to your brother should induce you to withhold your signature, that of the governor may be affixed without yours. I would advise a copy of this letter to be delivered to each of the seconds; and considering that it is uncertain where they may meet, I would suggest that one of the judges of the Court of Appeals or Circuit Courts be applied to for a warrant to bind the parties. The public rumor of their intention to meet will form a sufficient ground for his action. One of the motives which took me to Woodford was to see you. The melancholy event which occurred there of private affliction to you (on which I offer you my sincere condolence) deprived me of that pleasure. My health is not re-established, but is improving, and I begin to feel that I see land, or rather, that I may not get under it.

I am faithfully yours,

Henry Clay.

Hon. J. J. Crittenden.

SOURCE: Mrs. Chapman Coleman, The Life of John J. Crittenden, Volume 1, p. 59

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers: George Thompson, September 29, 1838

Our readers may remember that his excellency Governor Hill, the Reverend Wilbur Fisk, D. D., President of Wesleyan University, the Honorable Charles G. Atherton, one of our free and enlightened delegation in Congress, and sundry other dignitaries in church and state, as well as the Honorable their Graces the Concord mob — while Mr. Thompson was in this country, and soon after our brutality drove him from these guilty shores, — took great liberties with his name, and attempted liberties with his person. We call the attention of these distinguished functionaries to some of their sayings and doings, and will then subjoin some few of the testimonials recently come to us from England, or which will be new to them, we presume, as they would not be likely to encounter them in the course of their more lofty readings.

“This fugitive from justice,” said his excellency Isaac Hill — this “bankrupt in character and in purse,” said his highness the Reverend Doctor Fisk, a gratuitous vindicator of slavery — “a miscreant who had fled from the indignation of an outraged people,” declaimed the pert Mister Atherton — amen to the whole of it, repeated their Graces the mob.

Hear Thomas Fowell Buxton, the Wilberforce of the British parliament — one of the ornaments of philanthropy for all christendom. It was at a great anti-slavery meeting in the city of Norwich, in the neighborhood of where this fugitive from justice had been brought up. He had just spoken on the platform where Buxton and other great men of England sat. “I come here,” says Thomas Fowell Buxton, “to declare my assent to the great doctrine of immediate abolition of the apprenticeship, as well as to hear a speech from George Thompson, with whose sentiments I fully concur, and with whom I hope to labor through years to come, shoulder to shoulder, for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade throughout the world.” “Fugitive from justice” indeed — “bankrupt in character,” with a witness!

Hear Ralph Wardlaw, of Glasgow, one of the ablest, profoundest divines and writers in Europe. After Mr. Thompson's victory in Scotland over Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge of Baltimore, who honored the challenge of this “fugitive from justice” in the very land from which he fled, — fought with him in presence of 1200 of the very flower of the city of Glasgow, and fell before him there — at a public meeting held in Dr. Heugh's chapel in commemoration of this victory, Dr. Wardlaw said of Mr. Thompson, “With the ability, the zeal, the eloquence, the energy, the steadfastness of principle, the exhaustless and indefatigable perseverance of Our Champion, we were more than satisfied.” — “We sent him to America,” said Dr. Wardlaw. “He went with the best wishes of the benevolent, and the fervent prayers of the pious. He remained in the faithful, laborious and perilous execution of the commission entrusted to him, as long as it could be done without the actual sacrifice of life. He returned. We hailed his arrival,” &c. “Fugitive from justice,” says the New Hampshire governor. “We sent him,” says Dr. Wardlaw. “Bankrupt in character,” says the Rev. Dr. Fisk. “He returned,” says Dr. Wardlaw, “and we hailed his arrival.”

And now hear Henry Brougham, in the House of Lords. We put him against the American Brougham, who called George Thompson “miscreant!” against the Honorable Charles G. Atherton, of America. In the House of Lords, July 16th ultimo, in reply to Lord Glenelg, who claimed for the British government the credit of abolishing slavery in the West India islands — Lord Brougham said that “he maintained that, but for the interference of this country by the friends of emancipation and of liberty, there would not to-day have been received such a despatch as had arrived from the governor of Jamaica.” “He would say, ‘Honor to those to whom honor was due.’ He would name such men as Joseph Sturge, John Scoble, William Allen, and other noble-minded and devoted philanthropists — and above all he would name one — one of the most eloquent men he had ever heard either in or out of parliament — he meant the gallant and highly-gifted George Thompson, who had not alone exerted himself in the cause of humanity in this country, but had risked his life in America, in the promulgation of those doctrines, which he knew to be founded in truth.”

Has our dainty-fingered little statesman ever heard of Henry Brougham, of England — that intellectual Titan — that combination of all that is glorious in the history of British genius and learning and eloquence and patriotism; the pride of Westminster hall, the peerless among her peerage, the very star of England, the man whose impress, of all others, this age and coming ages will bear wherever the English language shall be spoken, the man whose mental influence is felt from the palace to the hovel, from the queen to the chimney-sweeper — has the Honorable Mr. Atherton heard of him, and does he call “misereant” the man who receives such eulogium from his lips, in the face of Europe? Fugitive from justice! Is the companion of Brougham and O'Connell and Buxton and Sturge and Scoble and Allen and Wardlaw, a “felon” and a “bankrupt in reputation” in England — a miscreant? What say you, Messrs. Hill, Fisk, Atherton, and mob, will you repeat your words in face of such testimonials as these?

SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 29-31 which states it was published in the Herald of Freedom of September 29, 1838.