and on Mrs. Menefee's recollections of her husband, said that, after the verdict of the jury had been returned, "he hurried to her who awaited the result. When asked if he was tired after the struggle, with the smile of death upon his face, as he sat dangling his feet from the bedside on which he sat, the old ambition and zeal creeping through his wasted frame, he answered, 'No.' The same sweet smile that I had marked when he came from the legislative halls, triumphant, the same genial smile he wore from the cradle to the grave."

On October 15 Menefee made application for a new trial, setting forth six reasons for asking for it, but Judge Wooley overruled them. The case was then taken to the Kentucky Court of Appeals, which court, months after Menefee's death, sustained the decision of the lower court.

On October 23 Menefee bought from William H. Rainey ten acres of ground, containing a dwelling-house, on South Broadway, for $2,790.25—his fee, no doubt, in the Rogers case. This property had been sold on August 15 by Commissioner Harry I. Bodley to Rainey; but for one dollar and other considerations, Rainey transferred his bonds to Menefee. This was the only home that Menefee ever owned, as he probably rented a house in Mt. Sterling and boarded with Mrs. Jouett in Lexington. After his death his devisees sold the house to Isaac W. Scott, who in turn sold it to Jacob Ashton, at one time proprietor of the Dudley House, formerly Keiser's Hotel, where Menefee received his "boom" for Congress. On July 13, 1846, John C. Breckinridge,

the youngest of the Vice-Presidents, bought the house for $4,500. About ten years later General Breckinridge sold it to Rev. W. C. Dandy, pastor of the Hill Street M. E. Church, and he, in 1865, sold the house to Gen. John B. Huston, a celebrated Kentucky lawyer. The house has been recently sold to Dr. P. H. Malloy, and is to-day in a good state of preservation. As the residence of three distinguished Kentuckians, Menefee, Breckinridge and Huston,-it occupies a place among historic Kentucky homes second only to Henry Clay's "Ashland."

On November 4, 1840, William H. Harrison of Ohio and John Tyler of Virginia defeated Martin Van Buren of New York and Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, by an overwhelmingly large vote. Menefee's vote for Harrison was not only the last Presidential vote he was ever to cast, but also the last he was ever to cast for any candidate. Democratic electors were chosen in only two Northern and five Southern States. The new Liberty Party, led by James G. Birney, one of Kentucky's sons, did not succeed in choosing any electors, but polled nearly eight thousand votes.

The Presidential electors for Kentucky, chosen at the Harrodsburg, Kentucky, Convention of August, 1839, met in Frankfort, Kentucky, on December 2, and cast their fifteen electoral votes for Harrison and Tyler. Through the efforts of Menefee, Combs, and other men, the Whigs had swept the State. All of the electors were present, and this was the last time that Menefee was ever in the Capitol of his native State, where he achieved

his first legislative triumphs. After the votes had been cast for the Whig candidates, the question arose as to the one who should carry the vote to Washington. There were several candidates for this honor, but Col. John Payne, a soldier of the war of 1812, was finally elected to carry the vote of Kentucky to the national capital. In February, 1841, he went to Washington, and there the electoral votes were counted. The count showed that Harrison and Tyler had received 234 votes, and that Van Buren had received 60 and Johnson 48. Accordingly, on March 4, 1841, Harrison and Tyler were sworn into office. One month from the day of his inauguration, Harrison died, and Tyler, according to law, became President. He was a Calhoun-Democrat and had been elected to satisfy the Southern Whigs. Menefee, however, was not to live to see these events come to pass, and they are given here simply to round out the story of the great campaign of 1840.

On December 3, Richard H. Menefee returned to Lexington, and retired to his recently purchased home. On the following day, at sundown in his life, he began the only portion of his Diary that is extant. We shall now let him tell his own story almost to the end.

CHAPTER IX

SUNDOWN

Diary-December 4th-1840.

My birthday 31 years old. This anniversary has heretofore invited me to some review of the past as well as meditation on the future, generally ending in numerous resolutions of amendment of my past career, and in as many new enterprises in the acquisition of knowledge. One amongst which is the habitual use of this book as a diary, commonplace, or as well for cultivating and preserving the thoughts of others as my own, together with all parts or other matters proper to be noted and remembered without much respect to order or arrangement. I am the rather persuaded to this from having before me many months of leisure (at least compulsory respite from business made necessary by ill health) which fairly promises to enable me to pursue something of a systematic course of general studies, embracing the elements of most of the important sciences and the most approved of the ancient and modern (British) classics. If my health shall be (in the space of a year) properly reestablished, and I shall in the meantime have accomplished what is here proposed, I shall not regard my ill-health as a calamity, but rather as a disguised blessing.

I find my religious opinions unsettled. An acknowledgement not reputable to one of my age in my condition-This must not be.

Dec. 7th-After a conversation of some length with my physician, Dr. Dudley, I have resolved henceforth to observe the strictest regimen taking only so much food as will support life in reasonable strength of

body-enough to prosecute my studies. This course is adopted upon his opinion and my own belief that my malady is seated in the organs of digestion and that they can only be relieved by comparative rest aided by medicines (in the smallest possible quantity that will effect the object) for correcting the action of the liver-My recovery probably depends on an inflexible adherence; my speedy recovery certainly does.

I have some thought of drawing up a brief sketch of my very obscure and unprofitable life; not for the benefit of the present or future generations, but for the personal advantage which I think might be drawn from the review it would involve. These advantages are, to my mind, so evident that it would be easy to state them, if I feared the suspicion of having thought of such a project as a matter of vanity. But I have no fear of the kind for I care not what others might, in the premises, suspect. In fact, it looks suspicious, quite.

December 11th-I commenced a few days ago the history of England from the close of the reign of James the 1st to the end of William the 3rd, as embracing its most interesting portion, especially in a constitutional point of view. It interests me extremely

I must read Machiavelli's Works and Murphy's Tacitus.

December 12th-Having just read Bolingbrook's letters on the study and use of History and his sketch of the History and state of Europe, I conclude to observe the impressions he has made upon me. If anything were wanting to satisfy me of the doubt which hangs over the authenticity of nearly all history called ancient (including the historical portions of the Scripture), he has confirmed me. True History is Philosophy teaching by example; the end being to make men wiser and better. History is the best substitute for experience which cannot be obtained until one enters upon the world. It is man's best introduction into the