xt7kd50fvc31 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7kd50fvc31/data/mets.xml Marshall, Thomas Francis, 1801-1864. 1841 books b92-155-29772139 English N.L. & J.W. Finnell, Printers, : Lexington, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Menefee, Richard Hickman, 1809-1841. Address on the life and character of the late Richard H. Menefee : delivered before the Law Society of Transylvania University, in the chapel of Morrison College in Lexington, April 12th, 1841 / by Thomas F. Marshall. text Address on the life and character of the late Richard H. Menefee : delivered before the Law Society of Transylvania University, in the chapel of Morrison College in Lexington, April 12th, 1841 / by Thomas F. Marshall. 1841 2002 true xt7kd50fvc31 section xt7kd50fvc31

AN ADDRESS

ON THE

LIFE AND CHARACTER

OF THE LATE

RICHARD H. MENEFEE:

DELIVERED BEFORE

THE LAW SOCIETY OF TRANSYLVANlA UNIVERSITY,

In the Chapel of Morrison College in Lezingten, April 12th, 1841.

BY THOMAS F. MARSHALL.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF THE S.GWCETY,

LEXINGTON, KY.
N. L. J. W. FINNELL, PRINTERS.

1841.

CORRESPONDENCE.

TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY,
Law Society Hall, April 12, 1841.
THOMAS F. MARSHALL, ESQ:
Dear Sir-We are directed by the Transylvania Law Society,
to request for publication, a copy of your Address on the Life and Character
of RicAard H. Menefee, Esq. deceased, pronounced in the Chapel of Morrison
College this day.
With sentiments of profound regard,
We have the honor to be your obt. servants,
JOHN W. FINNELL, E
WILLIAM WALLER, JR. (Corn of Tranay.vania
JAMES R. GALTNEY, LoSociety.

MAY 14, 1841.
Genttemen-Your note of the 12th April was received and the Manuscript
you desire would have been furnished long since but for severe indisposition,
and the most pressing engagements. Trusting that the delay has been imma-
terial to you, I now place it, such as it is, at your disposal.
With high respect, c.
THOMAS F. MARSHALL.
J. W. Finuell, W. Wailer, Jr., J. R. Galtney.

ADDRESS.

GENTLEMEN OF THE LAW SOCIETY:
I am not here to recount in set phrase
and with that courtesy which the living always pay to the dead,
the virtues, real or supposed, of one around whose fate, youth
and interesting private relations alone have cast a transient in-
terest. I come not merely to acquit me of a duty to one whom
I personally loved and admired, to weave a fading garland for
his tomb, or scatter affection's incense over his ashes. Mine is
a severer task, a more important duty. I stand here gentlemen,
as a member of a great commonwealth, amidst assembled thou-
sands of her citizens, to mourn with them the blow sudden and
overwhelming, which has fallen upon the country. He about
whose young brows there clustered most of honor-he, around
whose name and character, there gathered most of public hope-
the flower of our Kentucky youth, "the rose and expectancy of
the fair state" lies uprooted. He, who by the unaided strength
of his own great mind, had spurned from his path each obstacle
that impeded and rolled back the clouds which darkened his
morning march-who in his fresh youth had reached an emi-
nence of fame and of influence, which to a soul less ardent
might have seemed the topmost pinnacle, but which to him, was
only a momentary resting place, from whence, ;vi'a aii indaz-
zled eye and elastic limb, he was preparing to sprfig still up-
wards and nearer to the sun of glory which gio-ved 'o'v'e himn;
while the admiring crowd below were watchinla, With intensest
interest each movement of his towering step, each wave of his
eagle wing,
"Why sudden droops his crest
The shaft is sped, the arrow's in his breast."
Death canonizes a great name and the seal of the sepulchre
excludes from its slumbering tenant the breath of envy. I might
fling the reins to fancy and indulge in the utmost latitude of

panegyric without offence; the praises of the dead fret not the
living. But I am not here upon an ordinary occasion to pro-
nounce a pompous eulogy in set terms of a vague and general
praise. You have directed me to draw the life and character,
to delineate the very form and figure of the mind of one, whose
moral likeness you wish to inscribe in enduring and faithful
colors upon your archives, not only as a memorial of one loved
and lost, but as an example and model for the study and imita-
tion of yourselves and successors. It is not a sample of rhetoric,
but a perpetuation of his image, that you seek, as the monument
best suited to the subject, as a real and historic standard by
which the youth of after times may measure and elevate the
idea and the stature of excellence. And surely, if ever there
were mirror in which young genius could glass and fashion itself;
if ever there were mould in which the forming intellect could be
cast in the just and full proportions of graceful energy and per-
fect strength; he, of whom we are to speak this day, was that
mirror and that mould. Would that the artist were equal to
his work, would that his mind were fully up to the dignity of his
subject; then indeed would I gladly obey your high command,
and give to posterity embodied in my land's language, the very
form and lineament, the breathing attitude, the intrepid port, the
beaming hope, the dauntless energy of a genius which "poverty
and disease could not impair, and which death itself destroyed,
rather than subdued." Ah, had he but have lived! on that broad
pedestal laid already, he would himself have raised a statue co-
lossal and historic, an individual likeness, but a national monu-
ment, than which never did the Grecian chisel, from out the
sieeping fiiarble, awake a form of grander proportions or of
more enduring beauty. He meditated such a work and was
faxt zgathering round him the eternal materials. Type of his
couutry, 4e sougbL to mingle himself with her existence and her
fame and to transmit his name to remote generations as an epit-
ome of her early genius and her history, and as the most signal
example of the power of her institutions, not only for the pro-
duction, but for the most perfect developement of the greatest
talents and the most exalted virtue.
RICHARD H. MENEFEE, whose death clothed this immediate
community with mourning, threw a shade over Kentucky, and

awakened the sympathies of the whole American public, was
born in the town of Owingsville, and county of Bath, 4th Decem-
ber, 1809. His father, RICHARD MENEFEE, was an early emigrant
from Virginia. He was a man by trade a potter, and exercised
his calling for many years in Bath. Although of exceedingly
limited education and originally of very humble fortune, the
native strength of his mind and the love of information raised
him to very respectable attainments in knowledge, while the
integrity of his character, no less than his sagacity commanded
the confidence as well as the respect of all who knew him. He
was repeatedly elected to the legislature of Kentucky and
served one term in the Senate. The characters and the career
of distinguished men have sometimes been traced to circumstan-
ces apparently trifling, which even in infancy have been thought
to have settled the bent of the mind. The biographer of Na-
poleon has noted among the earliest and most prominent incidents
of his infancy, that his first play thing was a miniature cannon,
with its mimic equipments. From this first impression, or early
predilection, the indelible image of war may have been stamped
upon the mind and decided forever the genius and the passions
of the conqueror of Europe. In 1809, Kentucky's great Senator
was fast drawing upon himself the gaze of men. The saffron
tints of morning had already announced the coming of that orb
which has since shone forth with such splendor in the eyes of
the civilized world. The father of our Richard had at one time
determined to call his son Henry Clay, and indeed the infant
statesman and orator wore the name for the first two or three
months of his existence. It was subsequently altered to Richard
Hickman, from respect to a warm personal and family friend,
but the boy was apprised of the prcenomen of his infancy and
fired even in childhood by the fame of his great countryman,
breathed often to heaven his fervent orison, that he might one
day equal the eloquence, the greatness and the reputation of Mr.
Clay. That the love of glory was the master-passion of his na-
ture, and that sooner or later some event or circumstance must
have roused it into life and action we cannot doubt, and yet it
may be, that the simple circumstance we have cited, may have
marked out the path and determined the object of his ambition.
That it made a deep impression upon his (hi1i!d(iSh inginmtion, is

a veritable and very interesting fact in his boyish biography.
He was left by his father an orphan at about four years of age
and an estate never large was almost entirely wrecked by mis-
management and that bane of widows and orphans, a law suit-
in which it had been left involved. Richard's utmost inherit-
ance of worldly goods did not exceed a few hundred dollars.
He seems till he was about twelve years of age, to have been
indebted almost exclusively to his mother's instructions for the
rudiments of knowledge he received. For her he cherished to
his latest hour the fondest veneration. He was her champion
in boyhood, for sorrow and misfortune fell fast upon her. It
was in his mother's defence that the lion of his nature first broke
out. Incidents might here be related, exhibiting in rare perfec-
tion the depth of filial piety and dauntless heroism in a boy of
fifteen, but they involve circumstances and feelings too delicate
for a stranger's touch. In proof of the strength and tenderness
of his private affections, it may here be stated, that after he
commenced the practice of law, though pressed by the claims of
his own family. he devoted a portion of his own slender means
to the support of a brother overwhelmed with personal misfor-
tunes and an orphan sister, and continued it till his death. At
twelve years of age, so far as I have been able to learn, he first
entered a public school. Like steel from flint, the collision of
other minds struck instant fire from his own. The first com-
petition brought into full play the passion for distinction, which
formed the master principle of his nature. His teacher was as-
tonished at the intense application, surpassing progress and
precocious genius of the boy. He predicted to his pupil his
future greatness, exhorted him to perseverance and furnished
him every facility in his power. With this gentleman, whose
name was ToMPKINS, (it should be written in letters of gold,) he
seems to have remained without interruption for two years, at
which period his mother married a second time and he was
removed from school. Clouds and thick darkness gathered
now, over his fortunes and his darling hopes. At fourteen,
he was summoned to attend at a tavern bar in Owingsville. But
the omen of his first name still cheered him on, and the fire
which had been first kindled within him, could not be extinguish-
ed. Hle compromised the matter at home and served at the

bar or labored in the field during the summer, for the privilege
of school during the winter months. Even this did not last, for
want of means, (mark that, ye of more prosperous fortunes;)
for want of means to defray his tuition fees, this unconquerable
boy exchanged the character of pupil for preceptor at fifteen
years of age and taught what he had learned to others for hire
during the winter months, that he might accumulate a fund with
which to prosecute his own education thereafter. He continued
thus till about his sixteenth year; when, in consequence of un-
pleasant difficulties with his step-father, he was taken to Mount-
sterling by Mr. STOCKTON, an intimate friend of his deceased
father. From this time he seems to have been left to his own
guidance, and wrestled alone with his fortune. Upon the divis-
ion of the wreck of the paternal estate, a negre was assigned to
Richard about the period of his removal from home. He sold
this slave to his friend, and with the proceeds, together with
what he had earned as a preceptor, maintained himself at the
public school in Mountsterling till his eighteenth year, when he
entered Transylvania as an irregular Junior. The rules of col-
lege would have excluded him from the privilege of examination
and debarred him even from a trial for the honors of his class.
But that discipline which fixes a given time for given accom-
plishments and deems their attainment impossible, save within
the limits and in the mode prescribed, was not framed for such
as he. The hardy orphan who had been tutor and instructor of
others at fifteen, and absolute and unheeded master of himself at
sixteen, was not likely to be damped or daunted from his not
having passed through a technical routine of studies, based upon
ordinary calculations and framed for ordinary minds. He had
already trampled upon the legal maxim which fixes one and
twenty as the age for self-government, already "had his daring
boyhood governed men." He gazed in scorn upon the artificial
impediment which would have barred him from academic honors,
and cleared it at a bound. His intrepid genius, his intense ap-
plication, and the bold and extra-collegiate range of his informa-
tion had attracted the eye and the admiration of the celebrated
President HOLLEY. Through his intercession and influence the
strict canon of the University was dispensed with in Richard's
behalf; he was admitted to an examination with his class, and

bore awxay the palm. Upon kis return to Mountsterling his funds
were exhausted and lie again became a private tutor while he
prosecuted the study of law with Judge JAMES TRIMBLE. He
persevered in his labors and his studies till the year 1830, when
upon the death of his friend STOCKTON, whose affairs required the
superintendance of a lawyer and to whom he held himself bound
by a debt of gratitude, in his twenty-first year he obtained a
license to practice and undertook as his first professional act,
without charge, to settle and arrange the complicated and em-
barrassed affairs of his friend. In the fall of 1831 he was en-
abled to attend the law lectures here, when he became a distin-
guished member of your society. In the spring of 1832 he re-
ceived the appointment of commonwealth's attorney, and in
August before he had attained his twenty-third year he was mar-
ried to the eldest daughter of the late AIATTHEW JOUITT. It is not
among the least interesting circumstances which concentrate in
the union of these two orphans, that the dowerless daughter of
Kentucky's most gifted artist should have found a tutor in her
childhood every way adequate to form her taste and fashion her
understanding, and that in the dawning graces of her first wo-
manhood reflecting back upon its source the light she had bor-
rowed should have drawn and fastened to her side as friend and
protector through life, that same boy preceptor from whose pre-
cocious mind her own had drawn its nutriment and its strength.
JOUITT and MENEFEE! what an union of names, what a nucleus
for the public hopes and sympathies to grow and cluster round,
to cling and cleave to. And they are united in the person of a
boy, a glorious beauteous boy-upon whose young brow and
every feature is stamped the seal of his inheritance. I have
seen this scion of a double stock through whose young veins is
poured in blending currents the double tide of genius and of art.
Bless thee JOUITT MENEFEE, and may heaven which has imparted
the broad brow of the statesman orator along with the painter's
ambrosial head and glowing eye, may heaven shield and preserve
thee boy, from the misfortunes of thy house.
Mr. Menefee retained his appointment, and located at Mount-
sterling continued the practice of law with extraordinary success
in the various counties of that mountainous district till August
1836, when he was returned the member from Montgomery to

ihe House of Representatives of Kentucky. It was the fortune
of your speaker to day, to have served in the same body during
that session, and it was at this period that he first saw bind be-
came acquainted with the illustrious subject of this discourse.
The impression which Mr. Menefee then made was instantaneous,
and ineffaceable. He was in his twenty-seventh year, but the
lightness of his hair, his delicate complexion and almost beardless
face, and a certain juvenile outline of person, made him look to a
transient observer some years younger than he really was. 1
knew nothing then, nor till long after, of his private history. He
stood among his colleagues -in legislation, almost an entire stran-
ger. He was surrounded by no peculiar circumstances or asso-
ciations of influence or of interest. No pomp of heraldry blazon-
ed his hitherto obscure name; no hereditary honors glittered
around his pale brow; no troop of influential connexions or famni-
ly partisans stood ready to puff him into prompt notice, or to force
him upon fame. Even the incidents of his young life which would
have won for his chivalric spirit an admiring and generous sym-
pathy were unknown. The storms through which his star had
waded in its ascent, the strife perpetual which he had waged from
infancy with evil circumstance and most malignant fortune had
rolled over him unknown or unheeded by that world to whose
service and applause he had been fighting his way. He came in-
to the lists unattended, without device, armorial bearing, squire,
pursuivant, or herald. Entertaining the views which Mr. Mene-
fee did, it cannot be doubted that he regarded the Legislature of
Kentucky as an important theatre to him. It was the entrance into
that temple upon whose loftiest turret his eye had been fastened
from childhood. The scene was practically at least an entirely
new one to him. He was well aware, no man more so, of the
importance of first impressions upon a body constituted as that of
which he was a member. One would naturally have expected
from a person situated as he was, great anxiety, not unmixed
with bashfulness and timidity in his debut. You might have anti-
eipated too, the selection of some question of great and general
interest, and the careful and elaborate preparation, by so young
atd aspiring a member, of a speech duly laden with flowers, and
studded with all the rhetorical gems of trope and figure. No
such thing. He threw himself easily and naturally, and with apr

parent carelessness into debate for the first time, upon a bill en-
tirely private in its character and of not the smallest interest to
the house. No sooner had he risen however, and his bell tones
vibrated through the hall, than every eye and ear were riveted
into attention. There was about him an air of practiced ease, a
self-possession, a deliberation, as utterly remote from affectation
or impudence, as it was entirely free from confusion or timidity.
He wore the cheek of a boy, and moved with the tread of a vete-
ran. There was no impatience for display, no ambitious finery
no straining after effect about him, but there was a precision and
clearness in his statement, an acuteness, a strength and clearness
in his argument, which bespoke a mind not only of the greatest
original power, but trained in the severest school of investigation,
and to which the closest reasoning was habitual and easy. He
seemed to move too, in his natural element, as though he had so
long and so carefully revolved in his own mind the theatre of pub-
lic affairs as being the true stage for him, that he stood there al-
beit for the first time without surprise or anxiety. It was upon a
motion of his own to reverse a report from the committee of
courts of justice upon a bill authorising the sale of some infant's re-
al estate, that he was first heard to speak. The present Gov-
ernor of the Commonwealth was at the head of the committee,
and some of the most experienced members of the house, and of
the ablest professional men in the country were members of it.
The member from Montgomery attacked their report with so
much vivacitr and such remarkable ability, that they felt them-
selves compelled to make a regular and formal defence, which
they did seriatim, and it is no reflection upon their talent to state
now, what all felt then to be true, that their young antagonist was
a match for the whole. This debate and the occasion of it would
have passed from my memory long since, but that they served to
develope to my view for the first time, the character and the pow-
ers of a man evidently marked out for greatness, whose subse-
quent career was one unbroken series of splendid successes, whose
genius then first fairly risen upon the public, within three years
from that date, shot into the zenith with an horizon stretching to
the utmost boundary of the American states. After this first ef-
fort, trifling as would seem the occasion, Mr. Menefee was no
longer considered in the light of a promising young man. He did

not climb gradually into favor and influence with the house, but,
sprang at once and with an elastic ease truly surprising, into the
position not only of a debater of the highest order, but of a lead-
ing mind, whose ripened judgement and matured thought render-
ed his counsels as valuable, as the eloquence in which they were
conveyed was striking and delightful. He was a member of the
committee of finance, and reported and carried in the face of the
most violent opposition, what is usually termed the "equalizing
law" by which the ordinary revenue without an increase of taxa-
tion, but by including new subjects, has gained upwards of thirty
thousand dollars per annum. The debates in the Kentucky le-
gislature are not reported, and little attention is paid, and little in-
terest manifested throughout the country in what is passing at the
capitol in Frankfort. Yet upon the narrower and more obscure
theatre which he then trod, did Mr. Menefee display during that
winter, powers and qualities which in Washington would, as they
afterwards did, have covered him with glory and fixed his name.
Compelled, by the particular interest which I then represented,
(being a member from the city of Louisville) to be thrown into
frequent collision with Mr. Menefee in the debates of the house,
I had ample opportunity both to know and to feel his intense pow-
er as a disputant. Attracted powerfully by the whole structure
and style of the man, I studiously sought occasions for a close and
critical observation of him. To men curious in such things he
was a subject altogether worthy of study. Accident threw me
somewhat into his personal confidence, which furnished better
opportunities of ascertaining the distinctive traits of his charac-
ter and the habitual complexion of his mind, than the mere con-
tests of argument and public discussion would have afforded. In
the course of the session, he was heard upon every question of
state policy and always with an attention which showed how
deep he was in the confidence of the house. Upon a proposition
to reduce the salaries of the state engineers, to which he was op-
posed, he took occasion to discuss the system of internal im-
provement, as it is called, in which he showed that lawyer as he
was, he had found time to study deeply the sources of nation-
al wealth, and the principles of public economy. Upon a pro-
position of his own which he lost, to place the salaries of the judg.
es at Louisville upon the same footing with the other judges of

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,

but strength, strength was the pervading quality, and there was
argument even in his denunciation. "No giant form set forth his
common might," no stentor voice proclaimed a bully in debate;
yet did he possess the power of impression, deep, lasting impres-
sion, of interesting you not only in what he said, but in himself,
of stamping upon the memory his own image, in the most eminent
degree, and in the mont extraordinary manner, of any man of his
age whom it has been my fortune to encounter. "Bonum virum
facile crederes, magnum libenter." Although removed the far-
thest possible, from the affectation of mystery, or any asserted
and offensive pretension to superiority over other men, and al-
though his manner was exempt entirely from the charge of haugh-
tiness, still as he appeared at that time, he loved not familiarity
and courted no intimacy. He was bland, courteous, and perfect-
ly respectful in his intercourse; still there was a distance, an un-
definable sort of reserve unmixed with pride, but full of dignity,
Ikeeping frivolity aloof and attracting at once your curiosity and
your interest. Upon his forehead, which was broad, and full and
very commanding, were traced the indisputable lines of intellect
and genius. His pale and delicate brow was stamped with the
gravity and the care of premature manhood. About his lip and
mouth were the slight, but living and indellible traits of a resolved
and ambitious spirit. The whole countenance was that of a man
who had suffered and struggled, but who had conquered the past
and was prepared to grapple fearlessly with the future. But the
master expression, the natural language which breathed from his
face, form, step, gesture, and even the almost feminine tone of his
voice and which contrasted so strangely with the delicacy of the
whole, was energy, unfainting, indomitable, though curbed and
regulated energy, which could sustain him through all danger and
under all fortune, and which would and must bear him on to the
utmost mark at which his ambition might aim, and to which his
talents were at all adequate. There was nothing restless or im-
patient about him. His was deliberate, concentrated, disciplin-
ed energy. He had that managed calmness of general manner,
which so often betokens a fiery and excitable temperament, but
under the most perfect control. Never man was more entirely
master of himself than Mr. Menefee. His conversation corres-
ponded with and deepened the impression made by his public

speeches and a close examination of his whole appearance. He
had all the quickness and penetration of a man of true genius, but
without a spark of wildness or eccentricity. There was no
dreamyidealis.mn,no shadowy romance, no morbid sentimentl-
ism about him. The occasional splendor of his illustrations prov-
ed him to be sure possessed of an imagination not only grand and
lofty, but exquisitely sensible of the beautiful and the soft, but it
was the ally, not the principal; and an ally upon which his sove-
reign reason, abounding in its own resources, leaned but little and
drew but seldom. His fancy drew her inspiration from the natu-
ral fountains around and within him. It was not even tinged
with the sickly light of modern fiction. His whole mind was
eminently healthy. His was the seriousness of determination,
unmixed with gloom or melancholy. The purity of his language,
which was remarkable for its beauty as well as its precision,
declared a mind imbued with elegant letters, but there was an
antique severity in his taste, a marble firmness as well as smooth-
ness in his style, which spoke of the hardihood and muscle of the
Grecian masters, those first teachers and eternal fountains of po-
etry and eloquence. But neither Mr. Menefee's conversation,
nor his attainments, nor his talents, eminent as they all were, sur-
prised me so much as the matured and almost rigid tone of his
character, the iron control which he exercised over himself, the
cool, practical and experienced views which he took of the world,
and the elevation, consistency and steadiness of his purposes.
These were the qualities which made his talents useful; these
were the qualities which, young as he was, gave him such abso-
lute hold and command of the public confidence; these were the
qualities which adapted him to the genius and bound him to the
hearts of his countrymen, without which he might have been bril-
liant, but never could have been great.
He had early ranged himself with that great party in politics,
whose protracted and arduous struggles have at last found their
consummation, and whose principles have been ratified by the
judgment of the nation in the election of General Harrison to the
presidency. He belonged to that class of minds, who in every
That he was familiar with the historians ard orators of antiquity, poricou-
larly of Athens, I am enabled to state of my own knowledge. Those whbo oew
him at college, say that he won his academic honors by his superiority in Ma-th-
ernatics and the languages.

country and under every form of government, are found the un-
flinching advocates of rational and regulated liberty, a liberty
founded in principles fixed and eternal, and which is only safe
under the shield and cover of a law changeless and inviolable by
the government, equally supreme and binding upon the rulers and
upon the people. The imperial maxim, "'voluntas principis habet
vigorem legis" he rejected utterly. He loathed despotism in all
its forms, and wherever lodged, whether in the hands of one, the
many, or the few. Born in a monarchy, he would have died as
Hamden died, in the assertion of legal limitations upon the prero-
gative. Born in a republic, he clung to the constitutional re-
striotions upon the rapacious passions of faction. He regarded
the courtier cringing at the footstool of a throne, and the dema-
gogue lauding the absolute power of a mob, as equally the foes of
freed