He was presumed the successor to Henry Clay as leader of the Whig Party until his death at age thirty-one.

His reputation, and that of fellow Kentuckian John J. Crittenden, were tarnished due to their involvement in a duel between Representatives William J. Graves and Jonathan Cilley, in which the latter was mortally wounded.

[2] Four years later, his mother married Colonel George Lansdown, proprietor of a spa in Bath County.

[1] He then enrolled at Walker Bourne's preparatory school in Bath County, where he was a classmate of future congressmen Henry S. Lane and John Jameson.

[1] Though the college's rules forbade conveying degrees upon underage candidates, Menefee was granted an exception by President Horace Holley and graduated with his class.

[5] Notable in Menefee's graduating class was George W. Johnson, who would later serve as governor of Kentucky's provisional Confederate government during the Civil War.

[2] On November 15, 1831, Governor Thomas Metcalfe appointed Menefee to succeed his law tutor, James Trimble, as Commonwealth's Attorney for the 11th district.

[2] In the midst of the campaign, Governor James Turner Morehead called for one thousand mounted soldiers for service in the Second Seminole War.

[1] Fellow representative Thomas F. Marshall called Menefee's speech on this occasion "the master effort of his mind that winter.

"[12] In April 1837, Menefee announced that he would challenge incumbent Democrat Richard French for his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

[14] Youth's History of Kentucky, an 1898 school textbook, records that some referred to Menefee as "the young Patrick Henry of the West" due to his considerable oratory skill.

Menefee contested the claims of Virginia's James M. Mason and South Carolina's Hugh S. Legare that the Mississippians had not been properly elected.

[1] On a return trip to Owingsville, he successfully defended a man accused of murder in a dispute over rights to an ore bed.

A team of Menefee, future governor James F. Robinson, and Madison C. Johnson represented the five children from the first marriage, who filed suit to set aside the will on the grounds that their father had suffered a stroke and was not of sound mind when constructing the will.

Menefee's health was already beginning to fail during the trial with Clay, and he last appeared in court in September 1840.

[1] In 1841, Cassius M. Clay nominated Menefee to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the resignation of John J.

[23] He was commonly reported to have died of tuberculosis, but Townsend claims the true cause of death was "consumption of the bowels.

[31] Kentucky historian Lewis Collins opined that, had he lived, Menefee would have succeeded Henry Clay as the leader of the Whig Party.