The following letter was written by Elisha Whittlesey (1783-1863), the son of John and Mary (Beale) Whittlesey of Litchfield county, Connecticut. Elisha studied in Danbury, where his older brother, Matthew, practiced law; moved to Canfield, Ohio; and was soon appointed prosecuting attorney for the WesternN Reserve, serving from 1807-23, except during the War of 1812 when he was private secretary to Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison.

As a lawyer, Whittlesey was the senior partner with Eben Newton in the area’s best-known partnership, the proprietor of a 1-room law school, and an early leader of the Ohio bar. He was a circuit lawyer specializing in land cases. As a businessman, Whittlesey earned a small fortune by slow, steady work, basically handling eastern capital invested in Ohio lands and holding stock in Ohio banks. He lost a considerable sum in the Panic of 1837. Whittlesey’s elective career began in 1820 with 2 terms in the Ohio general assembly. He served in Congress, first as a Natl. Republican, then as a Whig, from 1823-38, nicknamed “watchdog of the Treasury,” a recognized example of official integrity in government. As a party leader, Whittlesey was a conciliator in party rivalries. Active in the American Colonization Society, he believed expatriation was the answer to slavery. After 1848, Whittlesey served the Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, and Lincoln administrations as comptroller of the Treasury.

Elisha wrote the letter to John William Allen (1802-1887), also of Litchfield, Connecticut, who attended preparatory schools and moved to Chenango County, New York in 1818. He received a classical education and studied law. Allen moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1825, and studied law under judge Samuel Cowles and became a leader of the bar. He was president of the village from 1831 to 1835, a member of the board of directors of the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie in 1832, and one of the incorporators of the Cleveland and Newburgh Railroad Company in 1834. Allen was an organizer of the Ohio Railroad in 1836, and served in the Ohio State Senate 1836–37. He was elected to the 25th and 26th Congresses as a Whig, and served March 4, 1837 – March 3, 1841. He was elected Mayor of Cleveland in 1841.

In 1845, Allen was elected president of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad, and was a delegate to the first convention on river and harbor improvement, held in Chicago in 1847. When the Whig party dissolved in the 1850s, he joined with the Republicans. He was appointed postmaster of Cleveland April 4, 1870, by President Grant, and was re-appointed in 1874, serving until he resigned January 11, 1875. He died in Cleveland on October 5, 1887.

In his letter Elisha reveals that the author of the letters appearing in the Cleveland Herald in 1844-45 under the pseudonym “Chenango” were written by his friend and fellow Whig, Congressman John W. Allen of Cleveland. He also takes Allen to task over his broad denunciation of the South as “slave holders” arguing that such “indiscriminate condemnation of the South” will only lead to greater hostile feeling between the geographical sections of the country unnecessarily. The letter was penned at the time of the debate over the annexation of Texas which was opposed by the Whigs as it would result in the addition of another slave state and likely provoke a war with Mexico.

Transcription

Canfield [Mahoning county, Ohio]
February 24th 1845

My Dear Sir,

Your esteemed letter of the 6th was duly received. I should have answered it immediately if I had known where to have addressed you. Your arrival was anticipated before I left Columbus but was given up as I understood by those who had communicated with you, verbally or otherwise, Mr. Catlett from Wellsville was to leave the morning I did, and I expected to have found him in the stage. He told me some days before he should not expect you, if you did not arrive at a time he mentioned, which elapsed before the day we agreed to return home.

If I had known certainly that you would have been at Columbus, I should have stayed for I wanted to see you. There are a few only with whom I can talk freely on the subject of politics and I am a stranger among my own countrymen and kindred. Those with whom I formerly counseled, act, or seem to me to act, as if I had committed an unpardonable political sin by staying at Washington and that I am leprous. Well, I cannot pull of my shirt to satisfy them my skin in free from disease. It has been the most extraordinary mystery to me why anyone should have supposed it was the duty of a subordinate officer to cut sticks and run because there was a breach between the President and his cabinet. If I had left at that time, everyone would have laughed at me and have compared me to the fable of the frog and the owl. If my conduct needed justification, it might be found in the request of distinguished Whigs not to leave, but I will not resort to it, under any circumstances. I shall not walk the broad aisle until I am conscious of having done something wrong.

There is a new generation in active life, with whom I have no acquaintances. They treated me very civilly and it would have been agreeable to me to have been on terms of confidential intercourse, but to have sought it might have been considered obtrusive. It seemed to me that some gentlemen supposed I was at Columbus in the character of an office seeker and therefore that it was necessary to use a long pole.

Having been greatly afflicted myself in seeing my old friends when in the decline of life, seeking for employment and office, I long since determined never to distress my junior friends in that way, I will dig for a living rather than get it in that manner. I said I did not want an office, but if it was thought I could be of service to the State, I should feel it to be my duty not to decline.

There is a time when every man having a regard to his reputation should not stand in the way of men younger than himself who are ambitious or preferment, I have with pain seen old people a burden to their friends for office and to their children for a support. It is my desire to avoid both positions.

Now, my dear sir, do not conclude from the freedom of my remarks that my temper is soured or that I feel myself in any way slighted. A querulous or a jealous old man is not an agreeable companion for a gentleman of your good temper, and kind feelings, and I would not on any account forfeit your respect by seeming to be dissatisfied when I am not. I do not complain and that I have said is in justification of my conduct, and it seemed to me to be necessary that I should explain to you fully my own position least you should conclude I was in fault from what what you heard at Columbus. If you had been there before I left, I should have conversed with you fully.

I received two numbers of the [Cleveland] Herald on my return from Warum Saturday evening where I had been to address some Whigs on the 22nd, Washington’s birthday.

I am always instructed by “Chenango,” and thank you for the papers. Permit me to dissent from you in one particular. It is the indiscriminate condemnation of the South under the designation of “slave holders.” If we do not cease our geographical denunciations, we shall be a divided nation, Texas or no Texas. We denounce our friends with our foes, and we sacrifice a great many honorable patriotic men who have as much to content with as they can bear up under without our contumely. I think the South in error in many particulars but they are a part of the confederacy and many of its citizens are our friends in feelings and interests, It is my firm belief if some four or five gentlemen had not been members of Congress, we should never have heard of the annexation of Texas. What disgraceful scenes have lately been played in the Hall! Let us read Washington’s farewell address and practice it. This section of the country is under an influence that will make all of us disunionists unless it shall be checked. You will see the intemperate resolutions at [Warsaw?]. I have no doubt if they do not claim parentage at Washington, they do affinity. If I had not been called on to address the meeting, I would have opposed a part of them. They are not in a good spirit, nor in good union languages. The movement is to out brag the Liberty Party. ¹ I go at no such game. My belief is we should expose any party, or men, who are hostile to the Union, or whose measures endanger it. I noticed with regret it was the practice of the speakers last summer & fall to denounce all slaveholders. Mr. Corwin was not exempt from it and at Medina he admitted the correctness of my private suggestion to him. It seemed to me we were fully sustaining in this particular the Liberty Party in this cause they took. I think so now. I am mistaken if we are not required to sustain “a martyr in the cause of human rights” by an indiscriminate attack on the South. The mandate is issued or I am mistaken that we are to volunteer in Lickey [?] of Massachusetts. Have we not enough to do to attend to our own matters. A Martyr! Yes, a martyr!!!

Present us most kindly to Mrs. Allen. Most sincerely yours, — E. Whittlesey

[to] Hon. J. M. Allen

¹ The Liberty Party emerged in upstate New York as a third party committed to confronting slavery more directly than the prevailing Whig and Democratic Parties. The party aligned chiefly with the evangelical church, and organized largely around the concept of “one idea” abolitionism: committing the party’s platform singularly to ending slavery or its expansion. Salmon P. Chase captured this sentiment when he coined the party’s slogan “the absolute and unconditional divorce of the government from slavery.” See Liberty Party.