Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1883 — Dueling, Past and Present. [ARTICLE]

Dueling, Past and Present.

Twenty- five years ago, at the table of a gentleman whose father had fallen in a duel, the conversation fell upon dueling, and after it had proceeded for some time the host remarked, emphatically, that there were occasions when it was a man’s solemn duty to fight. The personal reference was too significant to permit further insistence at that table that dueling was criminal folly, and the subject of conversation was changed. The host, however, had only reiterated the familiar view of Gen. Hamilton. His plea was that, in the state of public opinion at the time when Burr challenged him, to refuse to fight under circumstances which by the “code of honor” authorized a challenge, was to accept a brand of cowardice and of a want Of gentlemanly feeling, Which would banish him to a moral and social Coventry, and throw a cloud of discredit upon his family. So Hamilton, one of the bravest men and pne of the acutest intellects of his time; permitted a worthless fellow to murder him. Yet there is no doubt that he stated accurately the general feeling of the social circle in which he lived. Tljere was probably not a conspicuous member of that society who was of military antecedents whd would not have challenged any man who had said of him what Hamilton had said of Burr. Hamilton disdained explanation or recantation, and the result was accepted as tragical, but in a certain sense inevitable. The most celebrated duel in this country since that of Hamilton and Burr was the encounter between Commodores Decatur and Barron, in 1830, near Washington, in which Decatur, like Hamilton, was mortally wounded, and likewise lived but a few l?ours. The quarrel was one of professionial, as Burr’s of political, jealousy. But as the only conceivable advantage of the Hamilton duel lay in its arousing the public mind to the barbarity of dueling, the only gain from the Decatur duel was that it confirmed this conviction. In both instances there was an unspeakable shock to the country and infinite domestic anguish. Nothing else was achieved. Neither general manners nor morals were improved, nor was the fame of either combataht heightened, nor public confidence in the men or admiration of their puplic services increased. In both cases it was a calamity alleviated solely by the resolution which it awakened that such calamities should not occur again. Such a resolution, indeed, could not at once prevail, and eighteen years after Decatur was killed, Jonathan Cilley, of Maine, was killed in duel at Washington by William J. Graves, of Kentucky. This event occurred forty-five years ago, but the outcry with which it was received even at that tifne—one of the newspaper moralists lapsing into rhyme as he deplored the cruel custom which led excellent men to the fatal field—

Where CiUeys meet their Graves—and the practical disappearance of Mr. Graves from public life, showed how deep and strong was the public condemnation, and how radically the general view of the duel was changed. Even in the burning height of the political and sectional animosity of 1856, when Brooks had assaulted Charles Sumner, the challenge of Brooks by some of Sumner’s friends met with little public sympathy. During the excitement the Easy Chair met the late Count Gurowski, who was a constant and devoted friend of Mr. Sumner, but an Old-World man, with all the hereditary social prejudices of the Old World. The Count was furious that such a dastardly blow had not been avenged. “Has he no friends?” he exclaimed. “Is there no honor left in your country?” . And, as if he would burst with indignant impatience, he shook both his fists in the air, and thundered out, “Good God! will not somebody challenge anybody?”— Harper's Magazine.