John J. Crittenden to Abraham Lincoln, 29 July 18581
Frankfort– Ky– July 29th 1858Hon: A, Lincoln,Dear Sir,Your letter of the 7th Inst: must have been long delayed on the way, as it was not received till a few days ago.
The acquaintance to which you allude as having once, but long ago, existed between
us, is still freshly remembered by me, & the favorable sentiments of personal regard
& respect with which it impressed, me, I have ever since retained.2
You are entitled to be frank with me, and you will be best pleased, I think, with
frankness on my part— and in that spirit, I will endeavour to reply to your letter.
Mr Douglas & myself have always belonged to different parties, opposed, in politics, to each
other; but it so hapened that at the last session of Congress we concurred & acted together in opposing the enforcement of the Lecompton Constitution upon
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the people of Kansas.3 I regarded that measure as a gross violation of principle and good faith, and fraught
with danger to the country. Mr Douglas's opposition to it was highly gratifying to me. The position taken by him,
was full of sacrafice, & full of hazard, yet he took it, and he defended it, like a man.
For this he had my warm approbation and sympathy— and, when it was understood, that,
for the very course of conduct, in which I had concurred & participated, the angry
power of the Administration & its party was to be employed to defeat his re-election to the Senate, in Illinois, I could not but wish for his success— and his triumph over such a persecution–
I thought that his re-election was necessary as a rebuke to the Administration, and
a vindication of the great cause of popular rights & public justice.
In this statement you will find the origin & state of my present feelings in regard
to Mr Douglas– They sprung up naturally & spontaneously in my mind— were entirely
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unconnected with mere party calculation and most certainly, did not include a single particle of personal unkindness or opposition
to you.4These sentiments in regard to Mr Douglas; & his conduct on the occasion alluded to, were frequently openly & ardently
avowed by me, in many conversations, at Washington and elsewhere– I must confess that I still entertain them, & what ever I do, must
correspond with them– But I have it has so happened, that I have, in fact done very little in the matter– Since the
adjournment of Congress I have not written a single letter to any person in Illinois–
During its session, I do not remember to have written more than three or four, & these
were, in every instance, I believe, written in reply to letters received from In some of these letters, possibly in all, Mr Douglas was alluded to & recommended– This is all that I have done– But I have now
on my table several letters
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from citizens of your State, on the subject to which I could not forbear replying without subjecting myself to
imputations of insincerity or timidity– One of these ^letters,^ for instance, requests me to say whether I did not, at Washington, have a certain
conversation with the writer concerning Mr Douglas &c.[etc] To these letters I must answer in a proper manner– As to the future, Sir, I can not undertake to promise or to impose any restriction upon my conduct— that must be regulated
under whatever circumstances may exist, by my sense of propriety & duty. But this
I can truly say to you, that I have ^no^ disposition for officious intermeddling—5 and that I should be extremely sorry to give offence or cause mortification to you or any of my Illinois friends– Whatever my future
course may be, I trust that I shall so act as to give no just cause of offence to any candid & liberal friend, even tho'[though] he may differ with me in opinion.
I have thus
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explained to you my situation, & the cause & state of my feelings on the occasion,
& now leave the subject to you with every confidence in your justice & liberality–
What I have said in relation to Mr Douglas may be regarded as applying in all material respects to Mr Harris, your present Representative in Congress.6
In the effort to make myself perfectly understood, I have made this letter long &
tedious– Excuse that, & believe me to be,
Very truly & Respectfully, Yr's[Yours] &c[etc.]J J Crittenden
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2Abraham Lincoln first met John J. Crittenden during his lone term in the U.S. House of Representatives. The last known letter between Lincoln and Crittenden prior to his July 7 letter was written by Lincoln on September 2, 1850. In the letter, he supposed that Crittenden would,
"have a slight general recollection of me; though nothing more, I am aware–"
Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 273.
3Crittenden is referencing the conflict within the Democratic Party over the Lecompton
Constitution. During the agitation over whether to admit Kansas as a free or slave
state, pro-slavery Kansans held a constitutional convention in Lecompton from September 7 to November 8, 1857, drafting a constitution guaranteeing slaveholders
already in the territory their property rights and leaving the decision whether to
allow new slaves into the territory to voters in a referendum. Voters could vote for
the “constitution with slavery” or the “constitution without slavery,” but were not
offered the opportunity to accept or reject the constitution as a whole. On December
21, 1857, Kansans voting in the referendum on the Lecompton Constitution--free state
Kansans abstained from participating--cast 6,226 votes for Lecompton with slavery
and 569 for it without slavery amid charges of voter fraud. On January 4, 1858, however,
Kansans voting in elections called by the anti-slavery legislature--pro-slavery Kansans
abstained from participating-- overwhelmingly rejected the Lecompton Constitution.
Despite opposition in Kansas and considerable backlash from Republicans and the anti-slavery
faction in the Democratic Party, President James Buchanan supported the Lecompton Constitution, urging that Kansas be admitted into the Union
under the its terms. Stephen A. Douglas opposed it, however, bringing him into conflict
with Buchanan. Buchanan warned Douglas that he faced political reprisals if he opposed
the administration, but Douglas defied the president, arguing in a speech before the
U.S. Senate that the Lecompton Constitution did not reflect the will of the actual
inhabitants of Kansas, citing the December 21, 1857 vote that allowed voters to vote
for the constitution but not against it. The Senate approved the Lecompton Constitution,
but Republicans, Democratic allies of Douglas, and others, with Douglas as floor leader
of the opposition, defeated it in the U.S. House of Representatives. See Bleeding Kansas.
David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War, 1848-1861 (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 307, 315-16, 318, 320, 325; Wendell H. Stephenson,
“Lecompton Constitution,” Dictionary of American History, rev. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976), 4:130-31; Cong. Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess., Appendix, 195 (1858).
4Lincoln was the Republican candidate from Illinois for the U.S. Senate. In the summer and fall of 1858, he crisscrossed Illinois delivering speeches and
campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates for the Illinois General Assembly. At this time the Illinois General Assembly elected the state’s representatives in
the U.S. Senate, thus the outcome of races for the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate were of importance to Lincoln’s campaign. He ran against, and lost to, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the incumbent. See the 1858 Illinois Republican Convention; 1858 Federal Election.
An eminent former Whig, Crittenden was widely regarded as the natural successor to Henry Clay, and Lincoln worried that a Crittenden endorsement for Douglas would hurt his chances
with his former Whig brethren in Illinois. Crittenden welcomed Lincoln's rise to political
prominence, but had little sympathy with the Republican Party.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:457-85, 542, 557; Allen
C. Guelzo, “Houses Divided: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Political Landscape of 1858,”
The Journal of American History 94 (September 2007), 392, 401; Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America, 273.
5Despite this statement, Crittenden nonetheless became embroiled in the campaign for
the U.S. Senate. On July 19, T. Lyle Dickey, a former Whig and Lincoln supporter who had defected to the Democrats and Douglas,
wrote Crittenden requesting that he confirm a conversation with Dickey in April 1858
where Crittenden praised Douglas. On August 1, Crittenden wrote Dickey confirming
the conversation and his praise for Douglas's service to Illinois and his principled
position on the Lecompton Constitution. Not wishing to be appear "to be an officious
intermeddler" in the election, Crittenden requested that Dickey, should he speak of
the conversation or letter, "acquit me of any intermeddling, or of the presumption
of seeking to obtrude myself or my sentiments upon the attention of the people of
Illinois." Dickey kept the letter private until October 19, when he read it aloud
in a speech denouncing Lincoln for abandoning Clay and Whiggery. The Daily Illinois State Journal sought to mitigate the damage by claiming that Crittenden's letter to Dickey was
a forgery and by suggesting the Crittenden had written Lincoln supporting opposition
against Douglas. The Daily Missouri Republican demanded that Lincoln publish this letter, which caused Crittenden, he wrote Lincoln on October 27, "much pain & surprise." The Illinois State Journal continued to misrepresent Crittenden's correspondence to Lincoln, prompting Owen
G. Cates of St. Louis to write Crittenden asking if he wrote such a letter. On October 28, Crittenden responded
in a telegram: "I have written no such letter." Crittenden's letter to Dickey, Dickey's
speech, and Crittenden's subsequent telegram hurt Lincoln in the old Whig stronghold
of central Illinois, contributing to Lincoln's loss to Douglas. David Davis, Henry C. Whitney, and others blamed Crittenden for Lincoln's defeat, and Lincoln himself, in a letter
to Crittenden dated November 4, claimed that the use of Crittenden's name "contributed
largely" to his loss.
Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 1:456-57, 542-43, 546-47; Allen C. Guelzo, Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America, 273-76; The Louisville Daily Journal (KY), 26 October 1858, 2:1; Daily Missouri Republican (St. Louis), 25 October 1858, 2:1; 29 October 1858, 2:1; David Davis to Abraham Lincoln; Henry C. Whitney to Abraham Lincoln.
6Democrat Thomas L. Harris represented the Sixth Illinois Congressional District in the U.S. House. He won
reelection in 1858 but died before he took his seat.
Howard W. Allen and Vincent A. Lacey, eds., Illinois Elections, 1818-1990 (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 10, 11;
John M. Palmer, “Thomas Langrell Harris: A Biography by Stephen A. Douglas and James
Shields,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 31 (June
1938): 163.
Autograph Letter Signed, 6 page(s), Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).