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John J. Crittenden
In the election of 1860, the party wanted to run Crittenden for president but he declined, so they ran John Bell of Tennessee against Lincoln, Northern Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Southern Democrat John C. Breckenridge for the presidency. Though Bell received the smallest share of the vote nationally, he carried the Border States of Kentucky and Tennessee and even Virginia by just a hair.
When Lincoln won in 1860 and the slave states began preparing to secede, Crittenden worked on his most famous attempt to hold the nation together: the Crittenden Compromise. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky stated Crittenden “did literally all he could to try avoid this great national conflagration” and noted that he had “tried to repair the cracks between the North and South” and was believed by many at the time to be the only one who could find a solution to hold the country together.
He hoped to prevent secession and preserve the Union as had been done since the early days of the republic by finding a compromise that protected slavery but also limited its expansion. As a senator, he sought constitutional amendments that would guarantee the federal government could not interfere with slavery in the South and also provisions limiting the expansion of slavery to below the 36°30’ parallel all the way to the Pacific following
the previously agreed upon Missouri Compromise. His plan was opposed by Lincoln and the Republicans as it would allow the extension of slavery into further territories rather than containing it, and it failed to make it out of committee.
Historian Michael D. Robinson wrote, “While the Bluegrass politician certainly failed to win passage of his compromise package, he did organize an impressive political campaign during 1860-61 that helped keep the four crucial Border South states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri from seceding. Crittenden kept the hope of a possible settlement alive into the spring of 1861, which prevented many white border southerners from abandoning the Union. He built an imposing Unionist network throughout the Border South, used an array of political maneuvers at home and in Washington, D.C., and after the war commenced in April 1861 relied heavily
on the might of the U.S. military, but in the end he accomplished his goal of keeping the Confederacy from swelling to fifteen states. That in itself skewed the balance sheet of the war heavily in favor of the Union...” Though he helped keep Kentucky officially in the Union camp,
the state was divided on whether to support the Union or the Confederacy and initially officially declared neutrality. Lincoln’s administration was cautious in their handling of the state for fear of nudging it into the Confederacy even after Unionist swept most of its state level and national legislative seats. He considered Kentucky to be “the bellwether of the loyal slave states” according to Kentucky historian Lowell H. Harrison,
and Crittenden was one of the most influential and respected
Union supporters in the border states overall and certainly
within Kentucky. At the same time, secessionists in the state
also attempted to setup their own provisional government, and
many prominent Confederates were Kentuckians. Crittenden’s
own family was much divided. George, his eldest son, was a West Point graduate and veteran of the Black Hawk War and Mexican- American War and had resigned from the U.S. Army and joined the Confederacy despite his father pleading him while two of Crittenden’s younger sons fought for the Union and remained loyal to the country like their father.
As most Southern representatives left Washington, D.C., following
their states’ secession, and Lincoln and his cabinet strongly considered Crittenden to fill the seat of Supreme Court Justice John Archibald Campbell but ultimately decided against it by the time Campbell had finally left. The fact that he was considered strongly for the position clearly indicates
the Lincoln administration’s recognition of Crittenden’s popularity
and political might. He was elected to Congress in a special
session in the summer of 1861 despite previously wanting
to retire. In the special session of Congress in 1861,
the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution passed just
following the First Battle of Bull Run declaring:
“That the present deplorable civil war has
been forced upon the country by the
disunionists of the Southern States now
in revolt against the constitutional
Government and in arms around the
capital; that in this national emergency
Congress, banishing all feelings of mere
passion or resentment, will recollect
only its duty to the whole country;
that this war is not waged upon
our part in any spirit of oppression,
nor for any purpose of conquest
or subjugation, nor purpose of
overthrowing or interfering with the
rights or established institutions of
those States, but to defend and
maintain the supremacy of the
Constitution and to preserve
the Union, with all the dignity,
equality, and rights of the
several States unimpaired; and
that as soon as these objects
are accomplished the war
ought to cease.”
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