names of James T. Morehead, Charles A. Wickliffe, William Owsley, John Calhoun, Richard A. Buckner, and Thomas Metcalfe were put in nomination. Morehead led on the first vote but he did not obtain enough to elect. On the 18th of February, after the fourteenth ballot had been taken, with Morehead still leading, Cassius M. Clay, representative from Fayette County, nominated Richard H. Menefee. This was the greatest honor that Menefee ever received, and it came to him when he was on his death-bed, with only three more days to live. Clay was ordered by the Speaker to inform the Senate that he had put Menefee's name in nomination. On the fifteenth ballot Menefee received the vote of the Speaker, Charles S. Morehead, and Representatives Adams, Botts, Brent, Chenault, Clay, Curd, Curle, Ford, Forman, Hawkins, Hazlerigg, Latimer, Marshall, C. A. Morgan, Newell, Raymond, Snyder, Waring, Williams and Woodson-22. In the Senate on this ballot, Menefee received only one vote, that of Charles J. Walker, of the Twenty-third senatorial district. This ballot ended Calhoun 42, Buckner 34, Morehead 31, and Menefee 23. This was the joint vote of the Senate and House. None of the candidates had enough votes to elect and the sixteenth ballot was taken. In the House, Menefee received the votes of Representatives Adams, Bruton, Bullock, Chenault, Clay, Curd, Curle, Ford, Hazlerigg, Innes, Morgan, Raymond, Skiles, Smith, H. H.; Waring and Woodson-16. He had gained some new votes but had lost some of the men who voted for him on the fifteenth ballot. In

the Senate, Senator Walker again voted for Menefee, and he also gained four new votes in the upper House, Morgan, Rice, M. Williams, and Young. The joint vote resulted: Calhoun 39, Buckner 36, Morehead 35, and Menefee 21.

On the seventeenth ballot Menefee received in the House the votes of Representatives Atkins, Botts, Bruton, Bullock, Chenault, Clay, Cunningham, Curd, Curle, Ford, Gabbert, Hawkins, Hazlerigg, Innes, Marshall, C. A.; Morgan, Newell, Raymond, Riffe, Rudd, Skiles, Stephan, N. B.; Waring, Watts, Williams, and Woodson-26. He had won back some of the representatives who voted for him on his first ballot and also gained a few new ones. In the Senate, Young did not vote for Menefee on this ballot, but the other four Senators who had voted for him on the sixteenth ballot also voted for him on the seventeenth, and he gained two extra votes in J. S. Morgan and Gen. S. L. Williams, with whom Menefee had represented Montgomery County in the Whig State Convention of 1836. The joint vote resulted: Calhoun 39, Menefee 32, Morehead and Buckner 31 votes each. Then, after Menefee had gained eleven votes on one ballot, and with one vote ahead of the man who was finally elected, Clay, for some reason unknown to me, withdrew his name.

On the twentieth ballot Joseph R. Underwood was nominated, but on the twenty-first ballot James T. Morehead was elected as Crittenden's successor in the Senate.

On Saturday morning, February 20, 1841, Richard H. Menefee realized that only a few hours remained before he would be called by

his Maker to join the Choir Invisible whose music is the gladness of the world. He had made a will before he purchased his home, and as he desired to revoke it he sent for his friends, Madison C. Johnson, Thomas A. Marshall, Waller B. Redd, and Doctor Benjamin W. Dudley, who was his physician, to draw up and act as testators to a second will. The body of the instrument was drawn by M. C. Johnson, and was very brief. It simply stated that after the payment of all his just debts, he devised and bequeathed the whole of his estate to his beloved wife, for her own support and maintenance and for his children's support. He gave her full and ample power over the whole of his property in its disposition. He appointed M. C. Johnson to be his executor and gave him authority to settle, compromise, and adjust all and every part of his business. He then subscribed his hand. The testators to the body of the will were Doctor Dudley and Thomas A. Marshall. Although codicils had been denounced by one of Menefee's most distinguished contemporaries, Ben Hardin, who rewrote his will before be would add a codicil, Menefee, nevertheless, then asked Thomas A. Marshall to add one, which stated that it was his further will and desire that no security should be required from his executor, M. C. Johnson, for the discharge of the duties which he had imposed upon him, as he had entire confidence in him. Menefee then subscribed his hand, a trembling, nervous one, to the codicil, which was the last time he ever wrote his name.

Years after Menefee's death, M. C. Johnson

(1806-1886) showed his appreciation of Menefee when he said, "Richard Menefee is the greatest lawyer that I ever met." Johnson had met all of the great Kentucky lawyers, and many of the leading lawyers of America. His opinion is, therefore, worth recording. Johnson was eminent as a financier and suggested to the Government the three per cent. bonds, by which millions of dollars were saved to the National Government.

During that day Doctor Dudley told Menefee that he could live for only a few hours, and he replied, according to Marshall, "Brief summons." Late that night, a few hours before the dawn of a Sabbath day, it became evident to the good doctor, Menefee's wife, Mrs. Matthew Jouett, his mother-in-law, and the other watchers at the bed-side, that the immortal spirit of Richard Hickman Menefee was about to ascend to his Master, and a few moments before his death, Mrs. Jouett asked him in what was his hope.' He replied: "The blood of Jesus," which were his last words. He died at the age of thirty-one years, two months, two weeks and two days. As he died very late on Saturday night, some of the newspapers, who noticed his death, said that he died early Sunday morning. The epitaph, on the old Allen grave-yard tomb-stone, fixes the date of his death on the twentieth, and this of course settles all controversy in regard to this point. On the day that Menefee died there was born, in Kentucky, the great geologist, Dean Nathaniel S. Shaler, who has been recently gathered to his fathers.

1 Mrs. Menefee's letter to Mr. Clements.

CHAPTER X

MEMORIALS

One of the most lasting Menefee memorials is the portrait that Oliver Frazer (1808-1864), the Kentucky artist who ranks just below his master, Jouett, painted of Menefee, which he sat for two days before his death. The picture shows him to be greatly emaciated. It was finished after his death. Frazer and Menefee were friends, and when the former was in Europe, studying art, he often referred to Menefee in his letters home. Besides Menefee's portrait, he painted a picture of Henry Clay, that the "Commoner" regarded as the best picture that he had ever had painted. Frazer also painted portraits of Joel T. Hart, the famous Kentucky sculptor, and Chief-Justice George Robertson, perhaps the brainiest man that ever presided over the Kentucky Supreme Court.

The first notice of Menefee's death appeared in the Lexington Intelligencer for Tuesday morning, February 23, 1841. The editor, Edwin Bryant, gave a good biographical sketch of Menefee, and then added the following beautiful tribute:

As a debater, he was peculiarly distinguished for his candor, courtesy, and dignity; the lucidness and beauty of his illustrations and the overwhelming force of his reasoning and eloquence which seemed to sweep away without an apparent effort every obstacle placed in their course by his adversary and to carry convic