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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—KentuckyJohn Jordan CRITTENDEN
(1786-1863)
Senate Years of Service:
1817-1819; 1835-1841; 1842-1848; 1855-1861Party: Democratic Republican;
Whig; American (Know-Nothing); UnionistCRITTENDEN, John Jordan,
(uncle of Thomas Theodore Crittenden), a Senator and a
Representative from Kentucky; born near Versailles, Woodford
County, Ky., September 10, 1787; completed preparatory studies;
attended Pisgah Academy, Woodford County, Ky., Washington College
(now Washington and Lee University), Lexington, Va., and graduated
from William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va., in 1806; studied
law; admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Woodford County,
Ky., in 1807; attorney general of Illinois Territory 1809-1810;
served in the War of 1812 as aide to the Governor; resumed the
practice of law in Russellville, Ky.; member, State house of
representatives 1811-1817, and served as speaker the last term;
elected as a Democratic Republican to the United States Senate and
served from March 4, 1817, to March 3, 1819, when he resigned;
chairman, Committee on Judiciary (Fifteenth Congress); moved to
Frankfort, Ky., in 1819; member, State house of representatives
1825, 1829-1832; appointed and was confirmed as United States
district attorney in 1827, but was removed by President Andrew
Jackson in 1829; nominated in 1828 by President John Quincy Adams
as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,
but was not confirmed by the Senate; again elected to the United
States Senate as a Whig and served from March 4, 1835, to March 3,
1841; appointed Attorney General of the United States by President
William Henry Harrison March to September 1841; appointed and
subsequently elected as a Whig to the United States Senate to fill
the vacancy caused by the resignation of Henry Clay and served from
March 31, 1842, to June 12, 1848, when he resigned; chairman,
Committee on Military Affairs (Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth
Congresses); Governor of Kentucky 1848-1850, when he resigned;
again appointed Attorney General by President Millard Fillmore
1850-1853; again elected to the United States Senate as a Whig
(later American/Know-Nothing) and served from March 4, 1855, to
March 3, 1861; chairman, Committee on Revolutionary Claims
(Thirty-sixth Congress); elected as a Unionist to the
Thirty-seventh Congress (March 4, 1861-March 3, 1863); was a
candidate for reelection at the time of his death; died in
Frankfort, Ky., July 26, 1863; interment in State Cemetery,
Frankfort, Ky.
Bibliography
American National Biography; Dictionary of American
Biography; Kirwan, Albert D. John J. Crittenden: The
Struggle for Union. 1962. Reprint. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 1974; Ledbetter, Patsy S. ‘John J. Crittenden and the
Compromise Debacle.’ Filson Club History Quarterly 51
(April 1977): 125-42.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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