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