The very origin of duelling should make us blush at its permanency,—springing from the darkest eras of barbarism, when scarcely a vestige was left, in the wreck of empires, of ancient glory, and of those arts, sciences, and polite accomplishments that had distinguished preceding ages, and of which the scattered ruins and tradition alone remained, fearful records of the vanity of earthly grandeur and mortal fame.
The martial and independent spirit of Rome was extinct. Sybarite luxury had succeeded its days of iron; and civilization, degraded by over refinement into effeminacy, had built palaces, but overthrown the barriers against invasion. This weakness was felt, tried, and overwhelmed. Swarms of barbarians overran that once great dominion,—the torrent swept all before it, and famine and pestilence marched in the train of the savage invaders; every institution that policy had laboured to establish was overthrown; and, for centuries, scarcely a vestige was to be traced of law, justice, or reason. The right of the sword was the only authority recognized; and a feudal system divided mankind into lords and slaves. Turbulence, oppression, and rapine were called government. The Deity was supposed to be propitiated by deeds of blood; while religion became a useful mask for the hypocrite, and was confined to the observance of external ceremonies.
It was during this dark period that the practice of trials by ordeal,10 duelling, and single combat reigned paramount; and, when we consider the state of society into which mankind were brutalized, we cannot wonder at this mode of deciding differences being considered the wisest and most just. This epoch cannot be better described than in the fitting passage of Robertson:
“To repel injuries and to revenge wrongs, is no less natural to man, than to cultivate friendships; and, while society remains in its most simple state, the former is considered as a personal right no less inalienable than the latter. Nor do men in this situation deem that they have a title to redress their own wrongs alone; they are touched with the injuries done to those with whom they are connected, or in whose honour they are interested, and are no less prompt to avenge them. The savage, how imperfectly soever he may comprehend the principle of political union, feels warmly the sentiments arising from the ties of blood. On the appearance of an injury or an affront offered to his family or tribe, he kindles into rage, and pursues the author of it with the keenest resentment. He considers it with the keenest resentment. He considers it as cowardly to expect redress from any arm but his own, and as infamous to give up to another the right of determining what reparation he should accept, or with what vengeance he should be satisfied.”
Here we find the groundwork of duelling,—and it is to be lamented, that man, even in a progressive state of civilization, differs little from the savage in his thirst for gratifying the degrading indulgence of revenge.
Let us strip the romantic days of chivalry of their fantastic and glittering panoply,—the hall of wassail of its pomp and beauty,—the troubadour’s fond theme of its florid attractions,—and the feats of knighthood in the cause of the ladies loved par amours of their Quixotic devotion,—and what shall we behold? Treachery and ferocity of the blackest dye,—profligacy and debauchery of the most revolting nature,—vice clad by morbid imagination in the most fascinating garb of virtue,—and a murderer’s brow laurelled by beauty’s hand, instead of falling under the headsman’s axe!
—from The History of Duelling by J.G. Millingen. John Gideon Millingen (1782–1862) was a Paris educated surgeon in the British army, as well as a prolific writer. His two-volume history of dueling is one of the most comprehensive works on the subject.
Two More Selections from Sabine
Reflections On The Eve Of A Duel
I have somewhere read that Moreau made, and Wellington assented to, the remark, that commanders of large armies, however brave, weighed down by moral anxiety and reasonings upon the uncertainties of the result, hesitate, after all their combinations and arrangements have been completed, to make the final movement to bring on a battle. How similar the condition of statesman and military men of distinction, when on the eve of private battle,—the parting line to the unconscious wife scaled; the will executed and concealed from curious eyes; the thought of the dread event of the morrow and its issues; the resolution taken to reserve fire, or not to wound in a mortal part; and the last conversation for the night with the only friends entrusted with the momentous secret! What were the emotions of Thurlow, rapidly advancing the bar, and with the vision of the Great Seal and the Wool-sack before him! Of Canning, struggling for the premiership, but scorned by the aristocracy for the lowly position in life of his true-hearted and exemplary mother! Of Pitt, whose ambitious policy grasped at bounding and balancing the kingdoms of all Europe! Of Hamilton, the pride and hope of a hemisphere, and the “disciple on whose bosom” Washington had “leaned!” of Clay, as chivalrous as the ancient Bayard himself, and taunted to madness by the ferocity and malignity of party calumny! Of Decatur, gallant and generous to knight-errantry, yet pushed by malign influences to wrong a professional brother already crushed by an administration to conceal its own indolence and remissness!
Sin and Absurdity Of Duelling
An elaborate argument to prove the Wickedness of the custom is unnecessary, for that is admitted everywhere, and quite as often and as frankly among its unfortunate victims as among others. Nor, in omitting a discussion on the point thus generally conceded, shall I so far yield to the popular voice in some sections of the country, as to say that, as a class, “duellists are murderers”; since it were as just, in my judgment, to pronounce the sentence of self-murder against those of the other sex who, by their course of live, produce consumtion and premature desease. Both are the victims of FASHION. Society in the former case loads, presents, and fires pistols, to shoot husbands and fathers and brothers; and in the latter, by its imperative laws to regulate the form and materials of dress, the hours of visiting, the articles of food or entertainment, and the manner of employing time, commits wives and daughters and sisters to untimely graves. Is it not so?
The unconditional ABSURDITY of duelling, as a means of redress, may be shown in a passing word. If, under the commercial code, a rich but unprincipled merchant owes me a debt which he refuses to pay, and I propose to give him an acquittance on his consenting that, attended by our clerks, we meet and shoot at one another, or if, under the criminal code, I should agree not to arrest the man who had entered my dwelling, and robbed me of my family plate and pictures, on condition that he would fight me, everybody would see and exclaim against the foolishness of my conduct. Yet I should act on the precise rule of the code of honor.
Without dwelling on the minor offences, we will take for an illustration the crime of female seduction, which wounds the frinds of the victim to madness, and which is sometimes comitted under circumstances that almost justify the most summary punishment. But how is it possible to efface the family stigma, in a combat with the seducer? Could the fallen daughter or sister be resorted, or were it certain that the aggressor would be shot, then something might be gained; but as it is, and in the nature of things ever must be, a male protector, if he send a challenge which is accepted, not only places himself on an equality with a scoundrel, but may himself be slain, and thus cause fresh anguish at the fireside already polluted by lust.