John J. Crittenden

thumb|Crittenden, portrait by [[George Peter Alexander Healy|G. P. A. Healy, 1857]]

John Jordan Crittenden (September 10, 1787 – July 26, 1863) was an American statesman and politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky. He represented the state in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and twice served as United States Attorney General in the administrations of William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, and Millard Fillmore. He was also the 17th governor of Kentucky and served in the state legislature. Although frequently mentioned as a potential candidate for the U.S. presidency, he never consented to run for the office.

During his early political career, Crittenden served in the Kentucky House of Representatives and was chosen as speaker on several occasions. With the advent of the Second Party System, he allied with the National Republican Party before joining the Whig Party, and was a fervent supporter of, and eventually a protege of Henry Clay and opponent of Democrats Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.

Lame duck president John Quincy Adams nominated Crittenden to the U.S. Supreme Court on December 17, 1828, but senators who supported president-elect Jackson voted to postpone confirmation until Jackson could nominate his own man. After his brief service as Kentucky secretary of state, the state legislature elected Crittenden to the second of his four non-consecutive stints in the U.S. Senate. Upon his election as president, William Henry Harrison appointed Crittenden as Attorney General, but five months after Harrison's death, political differences prompted him to resign rather than continue his service under Harrison's successor, John Tyler.

He was returned to the Senate in 1842, serving until 1848, when he resigned to run for governor, hoping his election would help Zachary Taylor win Kentucky's vote in the 1848 presidential election. Taylor was elected, but Crittenden refused a post in his cabinet, fearing he would be charged with making a "corrupt bargain", as Clay had been in 1825. Following Taylor's death in 1850, Crittenden resigned the governorship and accepted Millard Fillmore's appointment as attorney general.

As the Whig Party crumbled in the mid-1850s, Crittenden joined the Know Nothing (or American) Party. After the expiration of his term as attorney general, he was again elected to the U.S. Senate, where he urged compromise on the issue of slavery to prevent the breakup of the United States. As bitter partisanship increased the threat of secession, Crittenden sought out moderates from all parties and formed the Constitutional Union Party, though he refused the party's nomination for president in the 1860 election. In December 1860, he authored the Crittenden Compromise, a series of resolutions and constitutional amendments he hoped would avert the Civil War, but Congress would not approve them.

Early and family life

John Jordan Crittenden was born September 10, 1787, near Versailles, Kentucky. He was the second child and first son of Revolutionary War veteran Major John Crittenden and his wife Judith Harris. John and Judith Crittenden had four sons and five daughters; all but one survived infancy. His father had surveyed land in Kentucky with George Rogers Clark, and settled there just after the end of the American Revolution.

Crittenden began a college preparatory curriculum at Pisgah Academy in Woodford County. He was then sent to a boarding school in Jessamine County. After a year at boarding school, Crittenden moved to the Lexington, Kentucky, home of Judge George M. Bibb to study law. During his brief tenure there, he studied mathematics and belles-lettres and became friends with Hugh Lawson White.

Career

Completing his studies in 1806, Crittenden was admitted to the bar the following year. He began his practice in Woodford County, but found central Kentucky already well supplied with able lawyers. Crittenden then moved to Logan County, Kentucky, on the then western frontier and opened his practice in Russellville. The following year, Edwards also made Crittenden his aide-de-camp.

In addition to his legal practice when he returned to Kentucky, Crittenden also operated plantations and owned enslaved people. In 1830, his household included 12 free white persons and 6enslaved people. In 1850, Crittenden owned 44 enslaved people (11 women above age 16, 7men, 13 boys and 13 girls). In 1860, after distributing some property to his now-adult children, Crittenden owned ten enslaved people, all mulattos (females aged 60, 25, 21, 18 and 16 and males aged 28, 16, 14, 10 and 1).

Early political career

Crittenden's career as an elected official began in the Kentucky House of Representatives, where he represented Logan County from 1811 to 1817. On the outbreak of the War of 1812, Kentucky governor Charles Scott appointed him as an aide-de-camp for the First Kentucky Militia. Following the war, the governor issued him a special commendation for faithfulness in carrying out his orders. Hence he returned to his seat in the Kentucky House, where he was elected speaker over John Rowan. He would retain the position from 1815 to 1817.

Crittenden's support of a new election was both popular and politically expedient. When the U.S. Senate term of Martin D. Hardin, one of Slaughter's unpopular nominees, expired in 1817, the Kentucky General Assembly chose Crittenden to fill the vacancy. Though he was the youngest member of the body, he served as the second-ever chairman of the newly created Committee on the Judiciary. He was also a member of the Committee on Naval Affairs.

Legislative interim

After leaving Congress, Crittenden moved to Frankfort, the state capital, to attract more legal clients and be nearer to the center of the state's political activity. During this period, he collaborated with Henry Clay in defending Charles Wickliffe, son of Robert C. Wickliffe.

Crittenden was elected to the board of trustees for Transylvania University in 1823, possibly due to lobbying by Henry Clay. A year later, the faculty of the university awarded him an honorary doctor of laws. Crittenden also served as a trustee and attorney for the Kentucky Seminary in Frankfort.

In the early hours of the morning of November 7, 1825, the very morning the legislature was to convene, Sharp was assassinated. Charges were made that Old Court supporters had instigated the murder. Crittenden tried to blunt these charges by introducing a resolution condemning Sharp's murder and offering $3,000 for the murderer's capture. When assassin Jereboam O. Beauchamp was apprehended, it became clear that the motivation for the killing was personal, not political. (Beauchamp's wife had married him on the condition that he kill Sharp, who had refused to claim the child he had fathered with her previously.) Despite this, Crittenden refused a request to represent Beauchamp in his murder trial because he wanted to avoid any implication in the matter.

The court controversy dominated the legislative session. Crittenden joined the Old Court majority in the House in passing a measure to abolish the New Court. The bill was killed in the Senate, however, by the tie-breaking vote of Lieutenant Governor Robert B. McAfee. Crittenden later served on a committee of six to resolve the conflict, but to no avail. He was unwilling to accept a solution whereby all the justices resigned from both courts, and the governor would appoint a reorganized court made up equally of Old Court and New Court supporters. This position cost him the support of some New Court partisans that had voted for him in the previous election, and he was not returned to the House in 1826. Ultimately, Old Court partisans gained control of both houses of the legislature, and the New Court was abolished permanently in December 1826.

Association with the National Republicans

thumb|alt= |Crittenden's Supreme Court nomination

As a result of the Old Court – New Court controversy, Kentucky's politicians became divided between the Democrats and the National Republicans. Crittenden's alliance with Henry Clay and his own personal political views put him squarely in the National Republican Party. Because of Crittenden's support of his presidential bid, President Adams appointed him United States district attorney for the district of Kentucky in 1827.

In 1829, Crittenden was elected to the Kentucky House via a special election. In 1830, he was the Whig nominee to replace John Rowan in the Senate. Secretly, the party wished to nominate Henry Clay, giving him a springboard from which to launch another presidential campaign, but it was unknown whether he would be able to secure enough votes for confirmation; it was decided that Crittenden would be the nominee, and if the voting favored the Whigs by a large enough margin, Crittenden would withdraw and allow them to confirm Clay instead. The Democrats countered successively with Richard Mentor Johnson, John Rowan, Charles A. Wickliffe, and John Breathitt.

The following year, a clear majority of the House of Representatives were pledged to Crittenden for the open Senate seat. However, Clay allies pressured Crittenden to step aside and allow Clay to be the Whig nominee. Crittenden went on to manage both the unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign of Richard Aylett Buckner and the campaign to help Clay win Kentucky in the 1832 presidential election. After Clay's defeat in 1832, he offered to resign his Senate seat and allow Crittenden to succeed him, but Crittenden refused the offer. Later that year, Crittenden retired from the General Assembly.

Crittenden was active in organizing the Whig Party from the remnants of the defunct National Republican Party in 1834. On July 4, 1834, he called to order the party's first organizational meeting in the state at Cove Spring on the outskirts of Frankfort. Later in 1834, Kentucky governor James T. Morehead appointed Crittenden Secretary of State.

Immediately upon taking his seat in the Senate, Crittenden was named to the Committee on Public Lands and the Committee on the Judiciary, probably due to Clay's influence. Early in his term, Crittenden vociferously opposed Senator Thomas H. Benton's proposal to spend the federal budget surplus on public land graduation and military fortifications along the eastern seaboard. He pointed out that the principles of the circular had been presented in a resolution on the Senate floor, but had been tabled by a large majority. Crittenden maintained that the tabling of the resolution was a condemnation by the Senate, yet the administration issued the circular only months later, overstepping, as Crittenden saw it, the bounds of the executive branch's authority. Crittenden debated the issue at length with Senator Benton, and Congress ultimately passed a bill requiring the government to accept the notes of specie-paying banks for the purchase of government lands, but President Jackson employed his pocket veto to prevent it from becoming law.

During his term, Crittenden remained an outspoken critic of Jackson and his successor, Martin Van Buren. One of the few administration proposals he supported was the recognition of the new Republic of Texas.

Harrison and Tyler administrations

In the 1840 presidential election, Crittenden again encouraged Kentucky Whigs to support the nomination of Henry Clay. During the balloting at the party's 1839 convention, candidates Clay and General Winfield Scott played cards with Crittenden and Whig politician George Evans at the Astor House hotel in New York City. When the group received word of William Henry Harrison's victory, Clay blamed his loss on Scott and struck him, with the blow landing on the shoulder which had been wounded during Scott's participation in the Battle of Lundy's Lane. Afterwards Clay had to be physically removed from the hotel room. Scott then sent Crittenden to Clay with Scott's challenge for a duel, but Crittenden reconciled them by convincing Clay to apologize.

After Clay lost the nomination, Crittenden supported Harrison. He was apparently given his choice of positions, and selected Attorney General.

Only a week after being appointed by Harrison, Crittenden was dispatched to New York City to mediate tensions with Great Britain over the sinking of the steamboat Caroline by a group of Canadian militia, who were attempting to suppress a rebellion in Canada. He spoke with New York governor William H. Seward and secured his promise to pardon Alexander McLeod, who had seized and burned the Caroline, if he were convicted of a crime in New York.

Shortly after the Caroline affair, President Harrison died and Vice-president John Tyler ascended to the presidency. The Whigs' feud with President Tyler continued unabated, and some even talked of impeaching him, but Crittenden condemned that course of action.

Polk administration

thumb|right|Daguerreotype of Crittenden by [[Mathew Brady, ]]

Crittenden again supported Clay's presidential bid in 1844. None of the traditional campaign issues—Tyler's "executive usurpation", Clay's "corrupt bargain" with John Quincy Adams, or the protective tariff—seemed to excite the electorate. However, the issue of the annexation of Texas changed the entire campaign. Clay made a tour of the South just before the Whig nominating convention and concluded that the sentiment in favor of annexation in that part of the country was not as strong as had been assumed in Washington, D.C. Acting on this belief, and against Crittenden's advice, Clay sent a letter opposing annexation to Crittenden, asking him to have it published in the National Intelligencer. Polk went on to win the election in a close race.

In 1845, the Senate took up the question of ending the joint occupancy of the Oregon Territory with Great Britain. Lewis Cass, a senator from Michigan, supported an immediate termination of the joint occupation agreement and maintained that a war with the British over the matter was inevitable.

In 1846, the United States entered the Mexican–American War in an attempt to gain control of Texas. President Polk consulted Crittenden regarding the terms of peace that should be accepted to end the war. A few Whigs joined the Democratic majority in Congress to ratify the treaty and defeat the Wilmot Proviso, which would have banned slavery in the newly acquired territory.

Friends encouraged Crittenden to run for president in the 1848 election. A Democratic senator from Rhode Island opined that Crittenden could win support from a sizable number of Democrats in addition to the support of his own party. Clay hoped Crittenden would again support him, but Crittenden concluded that Clay was no longer a viable candidate and threw his support behind Kentuckian Zachary Taylor. William J. Graves, out of politics since his fatal shooting of Representative Cilley, had the backing of sitting Whig governor William Owsley, while Archibald Dixon had secured support from former Whig governor Robert P. Letcher. The nomination easily carried before Crittenden's friends could block it. He would also have to abandon his growing legal practice before the Supreme Court and would lose input on national issues of importance to him such as the territorial questions that grew out of the Mexican War.

Elijah Hise, Chief Justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, was the leading candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, but after the Whig nomination of Crittenden, Hise withdrew from consideration. The Democratic state convention then nominated Congressman Linn Boyd, but Boyd also declined the nomination. Crittenden maintained that he supported Clay for the presidency over anyone else, but he had believed that Clay did not intend to seek the Whig nomination in 1848. After Clay announced his candidacy, Crittenden said, he remained neutral in the Whigs' choice. In the gubernatorial election, Crittenden defeated Powell by a vote of 65,860 to 57,397. He resigned his Senate seat to assume the governorship. After Taylor was elected, he offered Crittenden the post of Secretary of State. Appeals came in from both Whig and Democratic leaders across the country urging him to serve in the cabinet; Taylor was inexperienced, and many felt that without Crittenden to guide him, his administration would fail. Taylor personally visited Crittenden in Frankfort on February 15, 1849, in hopes of persuading him to accept the appointment. Crittenden refused Taylor's overtures, and Taylor similarly rejected Crittenden's appeals to appoint his friend, Robert P. Letcher, as Postmaster General.

Crittenden's reasons for refusing Taylor's appointment were many. Partially, he declined out of respect for Clay's feelings and partially he felt it would be viewed in the same way as Clay and Adams' "corrupt bargain" in 1825. Resigning the governorship also would have amounted to admitting to the Democrats' charges that he only sought the office to help Taylor win the presidency. Finally, he had not been able to fully heal the breach in the Whig Party, and he wanted to remedy that situation. This law established guidelines for several public officials regarding their administration of the common schools. Most Whigs opposed the calling of a constitutional convention because it would necessarily involve reapportionment of the state's legislative districts and threaten Whig dominance in the General Assembly; nevertheless, Crittenden belatedly supported the call for a convention during his 1848 gubernatorial campaign.

Second term as attorney general

thumb|right|alt=A man in his mid fifties with white hair wearing a black jacket and white shirt|President Millard Fillmore appointed Crittenden to his second term as U.S. attorney general.

Vice President Millard Fillmore ascended to the presidency upon Taylor's death and offered Crittenden the post of Attorney General. Fillmore, an opponent of slavery, requested an opinion from Crittenden on the constitutionality of the fugitive slave law, one of the bills involved in the Compromise of 1850. Specifically, he asked if the law suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Fillmore, his misgivings assuaged, signed the bill, keeping the Compromise intact.

Crittenden was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Harvard University in 1851.

In November 1851, the General Assembly convened to elect a successor to Senator Joseph R. Underwood. Underwood, whose term would expire in 1853, desired re-election, and Whigs Charles S. Morehead and George Robertson had also announced their respective candidacies. Crittenden, whose term as attorney general also expired in 1853, had publicly announced that he wished to return to the Senate after his service in President Fillmore's cabinet, and upon learning this, Underwood and Morehead both withdrew from the race. Robertson was not expected to seriously challenge Crittenden, but following the withdrawals of the other candidates, Archibald Dixon entered the race. Historically an ally of Crittenden, Dixon's entrance into the race after Crittenden's announcement showed that he had switched his allegiance from Crittenden to Clay. Democrats, desirous to defeat Crittenden and embarrass the Whigs, pledged to vote against him at all costs, even if it meant electing Dixon. Crittenden's friends, therefore, held back his name from nomination to spare him almost certain defeat. Balloting deadlocked for several days, with Clay supporters throwing their support to Dixon, Robertson, and Lieutenant Governor John B. Thompson, a compromise candidate. Another compromise was proposed whereby Clay, his health failing, would resign his Senate seat, creating two Senate vacancies and allowing both Dixon and Crittenden to be elected, but Clay refused to cooperate. Finally, on the night of December 11, 1851, the Whigs met in caucus and agreed to withdraw both Dixon and Crittenden and elect Thompson.

A week after the election, Clay resigned, but Crittenden now declined the appointment to fill his unexpired term. Instead, the legislature elected Dixon to the remainder of Clay's term, set to expire in March 1855. Three weeks before Clay's death in 1852, he sent for Crittenden, and the two were reconciled; Crittenden delivered a eulogy for Clay in September 1852, publicly dispelling the feud. He encouraged the party to support the nomination of Millard Fillmore for the presidency in 1852, but the nomination ultimately went to Winfield Scott. Democrats captured the governorship that year; this was harbinger of the demise of the Whig Party in Kentucky.

In the period between his election and his taking office, Crittenden was the lead defense counsel in the murder trial of Matt F. Ward, the son of one of Crittenden's lifelong friends. Ward's younger brother had been disciplined by the principal at Louisville Male High School the preceding November, and the elder Ward went to argue with the principal on behalf of his brother. In the ensuing encounter, Ward shot and killed the principal with a pistol. Public sentiment was heavily against Ward, and the trial was moved to Hardin County. During the week-long trial, which began in April 1854, Crittenden emphasized inconsistencies in the accounts of eyewitnesses and called prominent character witnesses such as Louisville mayor James Stephens Speed, Congressman William Preston, and Courier-Journal editor George D. Prentice. He presented a case that Ward had acted in self-defense. Because the prosecution sought the death penalty, Crittenden asserted that if the jury rendered an erroneous conviction, they would have no peace of mind knowing they had sentenced an innocent man to hang.

There was a tremendous public outcry when Ward was found not guilty. Only Prentice, in the Courier-Journal, defended Crittenden and the Ward family. Several public meetings passed resolutions calling for Crittenden's resignation from the Senate.

Crittenden was present on May 22, 1856, when Congressman Preston Brooks attacked Senator Charles Sumner with a cane on the floor of the Senate. During the attack, Brooks's allies from the House, Laurence M. Keitt and Henry A. Edmundson, prevented witnesses from coming to Sumner's aid. Crittenden attempted to intervene, and pleaded with Brooks not to kill Sumner. Senator Robert Toombs then had to intercede for Crittenden, telling Keitt that it would be wrong to attack someone who was not a party to the Brooks-Sumner dispute, though Toombs also indicated later that he had no issue with Brooks beating Sumner, and in fact approved of it.

In the early part of his term, Crittenden was concerned with quelling the violence in Kansas Territory. An opponent of the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, Crittenden also opposed repealing the Missouri Compromise unless the North agreed to substitute popular sovereignty for the exclusion of slavery north of the 36°30' line. In early 1856, he proposed sending General Winfield Scott to the Kansas Territory to ensure that fair elections were held there, but the proposal was blocked by the Pierce administration. He regarded the ratifications of both the Topeka Constitution and the Lecompton Constitution as invalid, and made one of the most highly regarded speeches of his career in opposition to the latter. So great was Crittenden's influence after his actions on the Kansas question that Abraham Lincoln felt that Crittenden's endorsement of Stephen Douglas cost Lincoln the Illinois senatorial election in 1858. His efforts helped form the Constitutional Union Party later that year. At age seventy-three, however, Crittenden was already contemplating retirement and instead orchestrated the nomination of John Bell, whom he actively supported in the 1860 presidential race. However, he believed that this compromise must not be a simple legislative action, which could be altered or even repealed by a successive Congress, but amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which would be much more difficult to change. To that end, he proposed the Crittenden Compromise—a package of six constitutional amendments and four congressional resolutions—in December 1860. Among the resolutions were a condemnation of Northern personal liberty laws and an assertion of the constitutionality of the fugitive slave law.

The compromise proposal was referred to a special committee proposed by Crittenden's fellow Kentucky senator, Lazarus Powell. Though it was believed that Republicans in general, including their representatives on the committee, were disposed to accept Crittenden's compromise or one substantially similar to it, President-elect Lincoln had already instructed his trusted allies in the legislature to resist any plan to extend slavery into the territories. Consequently, when the committee held its first meeting, the Republican members blocked Crittenden's plan and six others from coming to the floor for a vote. Despite their opposition, however, the Republicans presented no alternative plan. After the rejection of Crittenden's plan in committee, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia followed South Carolina's lead and passed ordinances of secession.

On January 3, 1861, Crittenden tried to salvage his plan by recommending to the full Senate that it be submitted to the people in referendum. It was widely believed that a referendum would recommend adoption of Crittenden's plan, and Republicans in Congress used a variety of procedures to prevent a vote on allowing it. On January 16, with procedural delays exhausted, New Hampshire Senator Daniel Clark moved to substitute for Crittenden's plan a resolution stating that constitutional amendments were unnecessary to preserve the Union, and that enforcement of the Constitution and the present laws would eliminate the need for special sectional guarantees. With the senators from southern states (both those that had seceded and those that had not) refusing to vote, Republicans were left with a majority in the chamber and passed Clark's substitute resolution, effectively killing Crittenden's proposal.

Crittenden remained in Washington for a few weeks after Congress adjourned. Having learned that John Archibald Campbell, an Alabamian serving on the Supreme Court, had decided to resign in light of his state's secession, President Lincoln proposed to appoint Crittenden to the vacant seat. Lincoln's cabinet approved, and the nomination papers were drafted, but Campbell belatedly reconsidered his resignation, and by the time he definitely determined to resign, Lincoln had changed his mind regarding Crittenden's nomination.

Having failed to secure compromise at the federal level, Crittenden returned to Kentucky in early 1861, attempting to persuade his home state to reject the overtures of fellow southern states and remain in the Union. On May 10, 1861, a conference was held to decide Kentucky's course in the war. The conference failed to produce a united course of action, but adopted the policy of armed neutrality. To counter any threat that the militia would seize control of the state for the South, the General Assembly organized the Home Guard, a separate militia controlled by a five-man, pro-Union commission.

In April, the General Assembly called a border states convention to be held in Frankfort in May. On May 27, 1861, Crittenden was chosen chair of the convention and called it to order.

Service in the House of Representatives and death

thumb|upright|Crittenden in his elder years

President Lincoln called a special session of Congress to convene July 4, 1861, and Kentucky held special elections in June to select congressmen for the special session. Crittenden had expressed his desire to retire from public service and initially refused pleas to become a candidate, but he finally consented to run in late May. He was elected over secessionist candidate William E. Simms; in all, nine of Kentucky's ten congressional districts selected Unionist candidates in the special election. Upon taking his seat, he was assigned to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. On July 10, 1861, he accompanied Simon B. Buckner on a visit to President Lincoln to secure a renewed commitment from Lincoln to respect Kentucky's neutrality; Lincoln agreed only to issue a declaration that he had no present designs on Kentucky but would not commit to restrict his future actions. In order to calm the fears of border state citizens concerned about the Union's objectives in the war, he introduced the Crittenden–Johnson Resolution, which blamed the secessionist states for the war and stated that the object of the war was not the subjugation of those states, but the defense of the Constitution and the preservation of the Union. When those ends were achieved, the resolution stated, the war should cease. Kentucky Representative Henry C. Burnett asked that the question be divided. Burnett was one of only two votes against the portion of the resolution blaming the Southern states for the war; the only dissent on the remaining portion came from Wisconsin's John F. Potter and Ohio's Albert G. Riddle. In the Senate, the resolution passed 30–5, with Kentucky senators Breckinridge and Powell voting in the minority. In December 1861 the House refused, by a vote of 76–65, to reaffirm the resolution.

After Congress adjourned in late July 1861, Crittenden returned home to Frankfort, but presently had to flee the city as Confederate generals Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith invaded Kentucky, capturing both Frankfort and Lexington. He took up temporary residence at Louisville's Galt House hotel and was still residing there when Union General William "Bull" Nelson was killed by Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis there in 1862. He returned to his home in Frankfort shortly after the Battle of Perryville drove the Confederates from the state on October 8, 1862. Returning for the regular congressional session, he became the conduit through which many reports of unconstitutional military arrests in Kentucky were channeled. He spoke against the admission of West Virginia to the Union on the grounds that Virginia had not consented to the creation of the state from its territory. He also opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and the use of slaves as soldiers in the war.

When he returned to Kentucky following the 37th Congress, Crittenden's health was failing, and he frequently complained of shortness of breath and chest pain. He had determined to retire from Congress, but once again, friends persuaded him to stand for re-election. Shortly after his nomination, Crittenden and his wife were en route to an alum spring in Indiana to seek treatment to alleviate the symptoms of his failing health when he collapsed in Louisville. After remaining bedfast at the home of a local doctor, he returned home to Frankfort, where he died on July 26, 1863.

Marriages and children

On May 27, 1811, Crittenden married Sarah O. Lee at her home in Versailles. Lee was a member of the Lee family of Virginia and a cousin of future U.S. President Zachary Taylor and aunt of U.S. Senator Wilkinson Call. They had seven children before Sarah died in mid-September 1824. Among their children were Confederate major general George Crittenden and Union general Thomas Leonidas Crittenden. Their daughter Sallie Lee "Maria" Crittenden was the mother of John C. Watson, a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy during the late 19th century. Their daughter Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman published in 1864, Life and Letters of John J. Crittenden, a biography of her father's life.

On November 15, 1826, Crittenden married Maria Knox Todd, a widow who was the daughter of Judge Harry Innes. (Her first husband John Harris Todd was a son of US Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd) Crittenden took Todd's three children as his own, and the couple had two more children: John and Eugene. Maria Knox Todd Crittenden died on September 8, 1851, of an unknown illness.

On February 27, 1853, the twice-widowed Crittenden married his third wife, Elizabeth Moss. Moss was Crittenden's wife until his death.

The World War II Liberty Ship was named in his honor.
Camp Floyd in Utah was renamed Fort Crittenden in his honor.

Notes

Available sources leave some uncertainty and ambiguity regarding the exact timeline of Crittenden's education. All seem to agree on his graduation from William and Mary in 1806 and admission to the bar in 1807. Sources disagree on matriculation and graduation dates, as well as Crittenden's age and the duration of his studies at the other institutions.

References

Citations

Book sources

External links

The Obsequies of Mr. Crittenden, obituary from The New York Times
Inventory of the John J. Crittenden Papers, 1786–1932, Rubenstein Library, Duke University
John Jordan Crittenden
John J. Crittenden – Crittenden County KY USA