The great Gustavus Adolphus, finding that the custom of duelling was becoming alarmingly prevalent among the officers in his army, was determined to suppress, if possible, those false notions of honour. Soon after the King had formed this resolution, and issued some very rigorous edicts against the practice, a quarrel arose between two of his generals; who agreed to crave His Majesty’s pardon to decide the quarrel by the laws of honour. The King consented, and said he would be a spectator of the combat; he went, accordingly, to the place appointed, attended by a body of guards, and the public executioner. He then told the combatants that “they must fight till one of them died”; and turning to the executioner, he added, “Do you immediately strike off the head of the survivor.” The monarch’s inflexibility had the desired effect: the difference between the two officers was adjusted; and no more challenges were heard of in the army of Gustavus Adolphus.
From the peculiar prevalence of this custom in countries where the religious system is established, which, of all others, most expressly prohibits the gratification of revenge, with every species of outrage and violence, we too plainly see, how little mankind are, in reality, influenced by the principles of the religion by which they profess to be guided, and in defence of which they will occasionally risk even their lives.
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was born in England but flourished in America, where he played a pivotal role in the launching and success of the American Revolution. His prolific writing career began when he was recruited by Benjamin Franklin to write and edit several American newspapers, often composing entire issues. Paine’s progressive politics were extremely radical for the time. He wrote often on subjects that were considered taboo. He was a proponent of ending slavery, advocated for women’s suffrage, and for government to serve the nation’s poor with social programs.
11 From the Pennsylvania Magazine, May, 1775.
12 Reign of Emperor Charles V by Dr. William Robertson (1721–1793).
Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton prepare to duel. The famed Hamilton-Burr duel resulted in the death of Alexander Hamilton, a favorite son of the revolution and a popular political figure. The loss of Hamilton was perceived as a devastating blow to the fledgling United States, and instantly called into question the irresponsibility and foolishness of dueling and its code of conduct, the duello. Preachers and politicians alike used this duel as a catalyst to begin a large and successful movement to ban dueling, as seen in the Lyman Beecher tracts in a previous section.
Two Sides of the Coin: A Duel of Words
The Lesser Evil
Certainly it is deplorable to see a young man, the hope of his father and mother—a ripe man, the head of a family—an eminent man necessary to his country—struck down in a duel, and should be prevented if possible. Still this deplorable practice is not so bad as the bowie knife and revolver, and their pretext of self-defense—thirsting for blood. In the duel there is at least consent on both sides, with a preliminary opportunity for settlement, with a chance for the law to arrest them, and room for the interposition of friends as the affair goes on. There is usually equality of terms; and it would not be called an affair of honor if honor was not to prevail all round; and if the satisfying a point of honor, and not vengeance, was not the end attained. Finally, in the regular duel, the principals are in the hands of the seconds (for no man can be made a second without his consent); and as both these are required by the dueling code (for the sake of fairness and humanity) to be free from ill will or grudge toward the adversary principal, they are expected to terminate the affair as soon as the point of honor is satisfied, and the less the injury so much the better.
—Reply by Senator Thomas Hart Benton (1782–1858) after congress condemned to death any persons involved in a duel, fought within the confines of Washington, D.C., that resulted in a fatality. Benton was nicknamed “Old Bullion,” and was a Senator from Missouri famous for his bombastic speeches, as well as his reputation as a duelist. He was an early proponent of the westward continental expansion eventually dubbed “Manifest Destiny.” When asked about whether he was quarrelsome, Benton supposedly replied, “I never quarrel, sir, but I do fight, sir, and when I fight, sir, a funeral follows, sir.”
Duelists Are Hypocrites
But the average man who has made his money by ways that are dark and tricks that are vain or who has used deceit, dishonesty, hypocrisy, or oppression in gaining his ends, has no right to send or accept a challenge to mortal combat. He must stand fair and square before the people if he expects their sympathy. If he fights of course it is out of respect to public opinion, for no two men would fight if they were on an island by themselves. And this proves the duelist a coward, the worst kind of a coward, for he has more regard for public opinion than he has for himself or his family or his friends or his Maker. He knows that a duel proves nothing and settles nothing and yet he deliberately lets public opinion outweigh his wife and his children and worse than all he puts his soul in reach of the devil. From every moral standpoint he is a fool and a coward and could be convicted of lunacy in any court, and ought to be. Lord, help us all—when will this foolishness stop? The law is against it. Public opinion is against it. Common sense is against it and so is humanity and morality. Public opinion says that every such case lowers our moral standard at home and belittles us abroad. Public opinion doesn’t care a snap for the duel or the duelist. Duels prove nothing. They establish no man’s character for truth or integrity. They give him no better credit in bank, no more friends in business. Among decent peaceable people he is looked upon as a partial outlaw, and they shrink from his society for fear of offending him. His code of morals and his peculiar sense of honor is a silent insult to them as though he had said: “I move in a higher plant than you common folks. I am a man of honor—a gentleman.” He has been engaged in a dishonorable business and he knows it, for he has had to skulk around in the night and hide and dodge like a thief. He does not dare to fight on the genial, loving soil of his own State, for that would disfranchise him and so he seeks some other. In fact, the whole thing would be as funny as a farce if nobody was concerned but the principals and their seconds. But there are parents and wives and children and friends and hence the deep concern. Then let us have more peace and less foolishness. Let a man take part in no show that he has to keep secret from his wife or his children. Let him undertake no peril that his preacher couldn’t approve with a parting prayer and benediction. In fact, I have always wondered why the preacher was not taken along as well as the surgeon, for where the devil is, the man of God ought to have an equal chance to capture an immortal soul.
—from The Farm and The Fireside: Sketches of Domestic Life In War and In Peace by Bill Arp. Charles Henry Smith (1826–1903) wrote under the nom de plume of Bill Arp, and was widely read and published in his lifetime. Smith fought in the Civil War for the 8th Georgia Volunteer Infantry and later became Mayor or Rome, Georgia.