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8
The Journal of Mississippi History
son.80 That his search for clients was not without success is indicated by the fact that Claiborne was approached by John Calhoun, president of the New Orleans and Jackson Railroad, who sought to hire him to represent the railroad before the legislature of Mississippi in 1856. Calhoun wrote that he knew ?from past experience, how potent? Claiborne was ?in matters of this kind,? and indicated that he desired Claiborne to secure the passage of a bill which would permit the railroad to issue $2,000,000 in new stock for the purpose of extending the line to Canton.31
At the start of the Civil War, torn between a dual allegiance and love for his state and his nation, Claiborne at first tried to follow the middle ground, secluding himself at ?Laurel Wood? to weather out the war in isolation. But when it became apparent to him that he would have to take a firmer stand and align himself with one camp or the other, he cast his lot with the Union. Once having taken the irrevocable step of supporting the Union against the Confederacy, he worked wholeheartedly for the cause he espoused.
It seems somewhat paradoxical that Claiborne should have become an ardent Union man. His Life of Quitman, published on the eve of the war, was above all a poignant defense of the state-rights doctrines for which the South claimed to be fighting. As a cotton planter who felt that he had suffered under unjust tariff laws he saw the advantages to be gained from southern independence; as the owner of one hundred slaves he could expect to be ruined financially by the emancipation that would surely follow a northern victory; as the father of a son who died fighting in the Confederate service he was tied by blood to the Confederate cause; as a lifelong neighbor and acquaintance of some of the major political figures of the Confederacy he was bound
30	Newspaper clipping dated New Orleans, February 25, 1845, ibid..
31	J. Calhoun, New Orleans, to Claiborne, February 27, 1856, J. F. H. Claiborne Papers (Mississippi Department of Archives and History).