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John Jordan Crittenden Biography

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CRITTENDEN, John Jordan (1787-1863). An American statesman, born near Versailles, Ky. He graduated at William and Mary College in 1807, served in the War of 1812, was a United States Senator from 1817 to 1819, United States District Attorney from 1827 to 1829, and a United States Senator again from 1835 to 1841. In 1841 he was appointed Attorney-General by President Harrison, but resigned when Tyler became President, and was again in the Senate from 1842 to 1848, after which he was Governor of Kentucky from 1848 to 1850. He was again Attorney-General under President Fillmore and in 1855 was a fourth time sent to the Senate. Although a Southerner, Crittenden consistently devoted his energy and eloquence to the preservation of the Union, and he exerted every effort, first, to avert the impending Civil War, and later to assist the Administration in its prosecution. In the Senate (1860-61) he urged unsuccessfully his famous compromise. (See CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE.) Retiring from the Senate in 1861, he served one term in the House, and in that body also strove for the supremacy of the Constitution. Consult The Life of John J. Crittenden, by his daughter, Mrs. Chapman Coleman (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1871).

CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE. In American history, a measure proposed in Congress in 1860 by Senator J. J. Crittenden (.q.v,) as a means of preventing the secession of the Southern States, through the adoption of certain constitutional amendments. These amendments were five in number, and provided: (1) that the right to property in slaves was to be recognized, and that slavery was to be permitted and protected in all the common territory south of 36º 30' and prohibited north of that line, while the land remained in its territorial status; (2) that Congress was not to have power to abolish slavery in the places under its exclusive jurisdiction which lay within a State where slavery existed; (3) that Congress was to have no power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia so long as it existed in either Maryland or Virginia, and then only after the owners of the slaves had been compensated; (4) that Congress was to have no Power to prohibit or hinder the transportation of slaves from one State to another, or to a Territory where slavery was legal; (5) that Congress might provide that in cases where escaped slaves were rescued, or their arrest prevented by mobs, the owners should be compensated by the United States, which in turn might recover damages from the county in which the illegal act occurred. All of these amendments were to be permanent and "unamendable." The compromise was defeated in a committee of the Senate and failed of consideration in the House.