12



the Commonwealth, he displayed in the most eminent degree the
peculiar traits of his genius. It was not the discrimination in
the amount of the salaries to which he objected. It was that
principle in the law, which virtually made the Commonwealth's
judges at Louisville to be piid by, and of course to be dependant
to a certain extent, upon that corporation, which he resisted and
exposed. But the master effort of his mind that winter, was on
the bill to repeal the law of 1833 prohibitiug the importation of
slaves. Never yet have I heard or read among all the discussions
to which that law has given rise, an argumient so masterly, so
statesmanlike, so triumphant as that of M3r. Menefee. Profound-
ly practical, and standing utterly aloof from the extremes of fa-
naticism, he displayed the deepest knowledge of the natural foun-
dations of social prosperity, and the most cautious regard for ex-
isting institutions. Equally exempt from the rash spirit of politi-
cal empiricism which would tear the subsisting frame of society
to pieces, in search of that which is abstractly good, and from
that worse than cowardice, which shutting its eyes upon what is
absolutely and demonstrably evil, would deepen and extend it,
for the wise reason that it is not perfectly curable, that despe.
rate quackery, which would spread a cancer over the whole bo-
dy, because it could not be safely extirpated, he neither lauded
slavery as a blessing, nor dreamed with crazy philanthropists, or
murderous incendiaries of its sudden and violent extinction. He
adhered to the law of 1833 as a mean of checking the increase of
an evil which could not now be prevented. It is a public misfor-
tune, and a drawback upon Mr. Menefee's fame, brilliant as it is,
that his speeches in the legislature of Kentucky were not pre-
served. Rmgarding him, as I have already said with the deepest
interest, and under circumstances very favorable for observation,
I describo him as he impressed himself upon me. The great cha-
racteristie of his mind was strength, his predominant faculty, was
reason, the aim of his eloquence was to convince. With an ima.
gination rich, but severe and chaste, of an elocution clear, nerv-
ous and perfectly ready, he employed the one as the minister,
and the other as the vehicle of demonstration. He dealt not in
gaudy ornament or florid exhibition; no gilded shower of meta-
phors drowned the sense of his discourse. He was capable of
fervid invective, vehement declamation, and scathing sarcasm,