Senator John J. Crittenden to Albert T. Burnley, July 19, 1850

July 19, 1850.

DEAR BURNLEY,—I returned from Louisville last evening, where I was suddenly summoned a few days ago to attend the sick and, as was then supposed, dying bed of my son-in-law, Chapman Coleman. I left him much improved, and, as the doctors induced me to hope, out of danger, though still quite ill. This absence delayed the receipt of your telegraphic dispatches, in which you ask me if I will accept the office of Attorney-General, and say that it is important I should answer immediately. A little reflection will show you the difficulty of answering this communication with the telegraphic brevity of a "yes" or "no." Indeed, I find much of the same difficulty in responding to you in any mode. You are upon the spot, and with a nearer and better view of the condition of things. You give me no intimation of your opinions or wishes; nor do you give me to understand that the inquiry was made at the suggestion or by the authority of the President or any other official. I must therefore understand it as more an inquiry of your own, in order, perhaps, to enable you and other friends to press me more effectually for the office. If this be the object and purpose, I could not answer you affirmatively without in substance seeking the office for myself. That I am not willing to do, either in form or substance, directly or indirectly. I would not, for any consideration subject myself to the imputation of endeavoring to force or solicit my way into the cabinet of Mr. Fillmore. There are stations that can be neither agreeably nor usefully occupied except by persons having the personal good will and confidence of the President. My relations with Mr. Fillmore have always been of the most agreeable and amicable character, and I hope they may continue so. It seems to me that if he pleased to desire my acceptance of the office of Attorney-General, the most proper course would be for him to tender it to me; and that the most proper and becoming course for me would be to wait till it was tendered. The tender would then be most honorable to both parties, and certainly most gratefully received by me. I feel that before such an offer it would be indelicate in me to say that I would or would NOT accept. You will appreciate all this without any explanation, and so I shall leave the subject. There is no confidence, Burnley, that I fear to repose in you; and if it should appear to you that there is too much of reserve in this letter to be used towards an old and well-tried friend, I wish you to understand that it is intended to apply to the subject only, and to keep distinct and clear the line of conduct that I sincerely desire to pursue in relation to this matter.

My situation now is not exactly what it was when I declined an invitation to go into the cabinet of General Taylor; and to you, as my friend, my personal friend, I may say that my impression is that I should accept the office if tendered to me; but I will have no agency in seeking or getting it; nor do I wish my friends to place me in any attitude that can be construed into any such seeking; nor do I wish them to give themselves any trouble about the matter. If the offer of the office comes freely and without solicitation, then it comes honorably, and may be taken the more honorably. I think you will now understand me fully, and I have only to add that I am always your friend,

J. J. CRITTENDEN.

To A. T. BURNLEY, Esq.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 374-5

Congressman Charles S. Morehead to Senator John J. Crittenden, March 30, 1850

WASHINGTON, March 30, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—I received your letter of the 19th inst., for which I am very much obliged to you. All that is done here is so fully detailed in the daily papers that I need not attempt to give you an account of it. We are proceeding slowly with the debate on the absorbing topic growing out of our territorial acquisitions. I begin to believe that the whole question will be satisfactorily settled by admitting California as a State and making territorial governments for the residue of the country without the proviso. I regret, however, to state that we can hope for very little, if any, aid from the Whigs of the North in the House. I do not know one man that we can certainly count. There were eight or ten who promised to go with us, but I have reason to believe that the cabinet influence has drawn them off. Ewing and Meredith have evidently much feeling on the subject. Clayton, Crawford, Preston, and Johnson, I understand, will go for territorial bills. It is understood that General Taylor himself would be glad if such bills can be passed without the proviso, and would prefer such a settlement to the non-action policy. I cannot, however, speak from any personal knowledge on this subject. I have no doubt, however, as to the four members of the cabinet I have named. Indeed, it is indispensably necessary that it should be settled on this basis. There is not one single man from any slaveholding State who would agree to any other settlement, and I fear the very worst consequences from any attempt to force through the California bill without a full settlement. Fifty members, under our rules, can prevent the bill from being reported from the committee of the whole, where it now is, to the House. But I believe we have a decided majority for such a settlement as the South demands. There are twenty-nine Democrats from the North pledged to go with us. McClernand, from Illinois, has prepared a bill upon general but private consultation, embracing all the points of difference, and will offer it as a substitute, in a few days, to the California bill. If General Taylor would take open ground for a full settlement, we could get ten or twelve Whigs from the North. I believe he only wants a suitable occasion to do so. I never have in my life had so deep and abiding a conviction upon any subject as at this moment of the absolute necessity of a settlement of this whole question. I am pained to say that I fear that there are some Southern men who do not wish a settlement. We have certainly something to fear from this source, but they are so few that I think we can do without them.

The cabinet, as you might well imagine from the present state of things, receives no support from any quarter. John Tyler had a corporal's guard who defended him manfully, but the cabinet has not one man that I can now name. Each member of the cabinet has a few friends, but I do not know one man who can be called the friend of the cabinet. I apprehend that they are not even friendly to each other. You may have noticed in the Union, if you ever read it, a charge against Ewing for having allowed a very large claim in which Crawford was interested personally to the extent of one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars. It turned out that Mr. Ewing had nothing to do with it; that Whittlesey reported that there was nothing due, and Meredith, in accordance with the opinion of the Attorney-General, allowed it. Now, Ewing, if I am not mistaken (but conjecture on my part, I acknowledge), through his friends is attacking Crawford for having a claim acted on in which he was interested while a member of the cabinet. Upon the whole, I am clearly of opinion that there is but one safe course for General Taylor to pursue, and that is to reconstruct his whole cabinet. I am perfectly satisfied that he cannot carry on the government with his present ministers. Your name and that of Winthrop and of Webster have been spoken of as Secretary of State in the event of a change; but if I had to make a full cabinet I could not do it satisfactorily to myself. I am inclined to think that Mr. Webster would like to be Secretary of State, not from anything I ever heard him say but from occasional remote intimations from his friends. Just at this time his appointment would be exceedingly popular in the South. I wish most sincerely that you were here. We are altogether in a sad, sad condition. There is no good feeling between Mr. Clay and General Taylor, and I am afraid that meddling and busybodies are daily widening the breach. keep entirely aloof, taking especial and particular pains to participate in no manner whatever in the feeling on the one side or the other. I hear all, at least on one side, and try always to reconcile rather than widen the breach. I have sometimes, however, thought that a want of confidence in me resulted from the fact of my being his immediate representative. I may be mistaken—probably am; it may arise altogether from a less flattering consideration. At all events, I have never been able to converse one minute with the President upon politics without his changing the subject, so that when I see him now I never, in the remotest manner, allude to political matters.

[Continued on the next day.]

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 361-3

Senator John J. Crittenden to Albert T. Burnley, April 29, 1850

FRANKFORT, April 29, 1850.

DEAR BURNLEY,—I reached home last night, and found a letter from our friend Orlando Brown, which explains somewhat the causes for which you have been called back to Washington. I trust that you will be able to reconcile all differences and difficulties, and give a right direction to things. It is important to the country, to the administration, and to the interests of the friends that are engaged in the Republic, to whom I am greatly attached.

From what I understand, it is a settled matter that the cabinet is to remain unchanged, and I think you will agree that but little good could be expected from any imaginable new cabinet that could be formed in the midst of the present tumult and discord in the political world, increased by the disruption of the present cabinet. What remains, then, for those who, though dissatisfied with the cabinet, are the friends of General Taylor and his cause, but to yield up that dissatisfaction, and for the sake of old Zack and his cause to go thoroughly to the work in their support? I would not have a gentleman for any consideration to concede his honor or his independence; but still, in public life, where the opinions and feelings of many must be consulted and conciliated, there is a necessity for many concessions. It is a false and unwise pride that would refuse these concessions where they relate to mere questions of expediency or opinion, and are necessary to that union and harmony without which nothing good or great can be accomplished in public affairs. Your own good sense and your generous feelings of attachment to General Taylor would have suggested to you all that I have or could say on this subject, and it is only out of my great solicitude that there should be no break between the President and the Republic that I have written at all. I trust you will do all you can to prevent any such break. I shall feel great impatience and anxiety till I hear from you.

Your friend,

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. 366-7

Senator John J. Crittenden to Orlando Brown, April 30, 1850

FRANKFORT, April 30, 1850.

DEAR ORLANDO,—On my return, last Saturday, from Louisville, where I had been spending some days, I found your letter. I perused it with the most painful interest. My heart is troubled at the discord that seems to reign among our friends. Burnley will be in Washington when this reaches you, and with his good sense and his sincere devotion to General Taylor will be able to settle all difficulties about the Republic, and give to it a satisfactory and harmonious direction. The editors of that paper are the friends of General Taylor, and if his cabinet is not altogether what they could wish, they ought, for his sake and the sake of his cause, to waive all objections on that score. Concession among friends is no sacrifice of independence. The temper to do it is a virtue, and indispensable to that co-operation that is necessary to political success. I do not, of course, mean that any man, for any object, ought to surrender essential principles, or his honor; but in this instance nothing of that sort can be involved. The utmost differences of the parties must consist of personal feelings, or disagreements in opinion about expediencies. If even an old Roman could say, and that, too, with continued approbation of about twenty centuries, that he had rather err with Cato, etc., I think that we, his friends, one and all of us, ought to give to General Taylor the full benefit of that sentiment, and strengthen him thereby to bear the great responsibility we have placed upon him. Cato himself was not more just or illustrious than General Taylor, nor ever rendered greater services to his country. When I read your account of that interview, in which he uttered the indignant complaints extorted from him by contumely and wrong, I felt, Orlando, that scene as you did, when you so nobly described it,—my heart burned within me. It is not with such a man, so situated, that friends ought to stand upon niceties, or be backward in their services. The men of the Republic will not, I am certain. They are men of the right grit, and I assure myself that all will be amicably arranged and settled with them. The course pursued in Congress towards General Taylor and his cabinet will, I think, react in their favor, and out of the very difficulties that surround him he will triumph, as he has triumphed before. This is my hope and my faith. The committees intended to persecute and destroy, will strengthen and preserve, the cabinet, and the slavery question settled, the friends that it has dispersed will return to the standard of old Zack.

I am sorry that you intend to resign your office so soon. I am satisfied that you are useful to General Taylor, and that your leaving Washington will deprive him of a great comfort. There must be something soothing in escaping occasionally from the stated and formal consultations of the cabinet and indulging in the free and irresponsible intercourse and conversation of a trusted friend. Who is to succeed you when you resign? Every one, I believe, feels some particular concern in his successor, as though it were a sort of continuation of himself. If you have not committed yourself otherwise, I should be pleased to see Alexander McKee, the clerk of our county of Garrard, succeed you. You know him, I believe. He is the near relation of Colonel McKee, who fell at Buena Vista, a man of business and a bold and ardent friend of General Taylor. If you are willing and will advise as to the time and course, he will probably visit Washington and endeavor to obtain the office. Let me hear from you on this subject. I think you will yet be offered the mission to Vienna, and that you ought not to decline so fine an opportunity of visiting the Old World.

It seems to me evident that the slavery question must now soon be settled, and that upon the basis of admitting California and establishing territorial governments without the Wilmot proviso. If this fails, great excitement and strife will be the consequence, and all will be charged, right or wrong, to the opposition of the administration to that plan. In the present state of things, I can see no inconsistency in the administration's supporting that plan. It is not in terms the plan recommended by the President, but it is the same in effect, and modified only by the circumstances that have since occurred. General Taylor's object was to avoid and suppress agitation by inaction, and by leaving the slavery question to be settled by the people of the respective territories; but the temper of the times was not wise and forbearing enough to accept this pacific policy. To promote this policy, General Taylor was willing to forego what, under ordinary circumstances, would have been a duty, the establishment of territorial governments. But what has since happened, and what is now the altered state of the case? The agitation which he would have suppressed has taken place, and, instead of the forbearance recommended by him, a course of action has been taken which must lead to some positive settlement, or leave the subject in a much worse condition than it has ever been. Here, then, is a new case presented; and it seems to me that the grand object exhibited in the President's recommendation will be accomplished by the admission of California and the establishment of territorial governments without the Wilmot proviso. The prime object was to avoid that proviso and its excitements by inaction; but any course of action that gets rid of that proviso cannot be said to be inconsistent with the object in view. The only difference is in the means of attaining the same end, and that difference is the result of the altered state of the subject since the date of the President's message. In the attainment of so great an object as that in question, the peace and safety of the Union, it will, as it seems to me, be wise and magnanimous in the administration not to be tenacious of any particular plan, but to give its active aid and support to any plan that can effect the purpose. I want the plan that does settle the great question, whatever it may be, or whosesoever it may be, to have General Taylor's Imprimatur upon it.

I shall expect letters from you with impatience.

Your friend,

J. J. CRITTENDEN.

To O. BROWN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 367-9

Beautiful Scene In Washington, May 2, 1850

Correspondence of the Baltimore Patriot.

WASHINGTON, May 2, 1850

Last night was a glorious night for the lovers of the Union, and hundreds upon hundreds of the ‘lads of the clan’ were congregated together at the hospitable mansion of the Secretary of the Interior, on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter, Ellen B. Ewing to William T. Sherman, of the U. S. Army.  The bride and groom of course were the centre of attraction, and considering their youthfulness, and surrounded by such a numerous assembly of the magnates of the land they acted their parts with ease, simplicity and elegance.  Of the groom, I can only say, having no acquaintance, that fame speaks in the highest terms of him as a young gentleman of high toned honor and spotless integrity.  Of the Metropolitan favorite, the lady-like Ellen, I can speak by the card, and inform you that every quality that constitutes a charming woman, there is not on this broad land her superior.  Affection, pride, show, parade, are all strangers to her, and any one, rich or poor, having an unblemished reputation, is always considered by her, good society.—Her father appears to have taken uncommon pains in her education and in giving a proper direction to every act and thought.

If I wanted to adduce other evidence than that known to the world of the honesty and sterling integrity of Thomas Ewing, aye, even before the Richardson Committee, I would just point them to his daughter, brought up under his own eye as a voucher.  She strongly resembles the Secretary in mind and judgment, but is greatly ahead of him in making friends among the democracy.

The rooms above and below were crowded with ‘belles, and matrons, maids and madams.’  The President was there.  The Vice President was there.  The Cabinet were there.  Judges of the Supreme Court were there.  Senators and members were there.  Sir Henry L. Bulwer, lady and suite, with many of the Diplomatique corps, were there.  Citizens and strangers were there, and

Taylor, Clay, Cass, Benton and others,

Moved along like loving brothers.

The Bride’s cake was a ne plus ultra.—The popping of the champaigne was like the peals of artillery at Buena Vista: and the feast was all the art of Ude could make it, while Mr. and Mrs. Ewing and every member of the family made it [feel] as if they were really at home.

SOURCE:  The Lancaster Gazette, Lancaster, Ohio, Friday Morning, May 10, 1850, p. 2