John J. Crittenden to Orlando Brown, February 6, 1852

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6, 1852.

MY DEAR SIR,—I see the Whigs are to meet in Frankfort on the 24th of this month to select delegates to the national convention for the nomination of a candidate for the Presidency. I think that Mr. Fillmore has fairly earned and fully deserves the highest favor and confidence of the Whigs, and that he is in mere justice entitled to the nomination. I do not know that he will be a candidate; I am sure he will not seek such a position. But neither you nor I will think that he therefore deserves it the less. I am anxious that your Frankfort convention should make some strong expression of its approbation of Mr. Fillmore, and its preference for him as their candidate. When they shall have done that, and with it their determination to support the nominee of the national convention, they will have done all that they ought to do. I beg you to do all you can to procure such an expression of preference for Mr. F. You will gratify and serve me by this. I believe that Fillmore is, as he ought to be, the favorite candidate of Kentucky. I see that in one of your county meetings there has been an expression of a preference for me as the candidate for the Presidency. If any purpose of that sort should be manifested in the convention, I beg you and all my friends to suppress it. It would do me no good in any event; it would be a prejudice to me in any of those contingencies or prospects which my too-sanguine friends might anticipate. You know my sentiments on this subject. I shall always be proud of any favorable expression of the sentiments of Kentuckians to me, but at this juncture I should much regret a nomination for the Presidency. Besides its other injurious effects, it would furnish a plausible ground to doubt the sincerity of my conduct and advice to others who are here and expose me to suspicion of contrivance and selfish ambition, than which nothing could be more unjust. Reflect upon and attend to this. Let me hear by telegraph the first expression of preference for Fillmore.

Your friend,

J. J. CRITTENDEN.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 26