Crutchfield's biggest accomplishment during his term in Congress was to obtain $600,000 in appropriations for improvements to the Tennessee River, and smaller appropriations for improvements to the Little Tennessee and Hiwassee rivers. During heated civil rights debates in the House in early 1873, Crutchfield introduced a bizarre amendment to a civil rights bill that would have made it a crime for a white woman to refuse a proposal of marriage from a black man on the basis of "race, color, and previous condition of servitude." Though he intended this as a joke, it caused considerable irritation for his fellow Republican congressmen who had been fighting for the bill, and generated outrage among white and black residents alike in the 3rd district. Crutchfield did not seek reelection in 1874.