Several of the states, however, have endeavoured to check the practice: that of Massachusetts framed a law for that purpose in 1719, which was revived in 1784, and subsequently in 1805; by this enactment, any person fighting a duel was deprived of his political rights, and rendered ineligible to any public situation for twenty years, and the body of the deceased, when the meeting proved fatal, was appropriated to anatomical demonstration. Similar laws have been promulgated in Tennessee, New York, and other states. In Virginia public officers were called upon to take an oath never to fight a duel upon entering on their functions, and after this resolution duels became very rare. In New Orleans, the papers of 1834, and several recent publications, proposed the establishment of a court of honour, to decide upon any differences that might arise amongst its citizens; and in 1831 Mr. Livingston published his views on this important subject, relative to which a French writer, Dupont de Nemours, speaks in the following terms:—
“The diversity of political opinion has rendered duelling very frequent in the United States, Some years ago, General Hamilton, a man of the most distinguished merit, and who had been minister of finance, was slain in a duel by Colonel Burr, and two years before that fatal event, the eldest son of the general had lost his life in a similar manner.
“Most of the states have denounced a sentence of death against those duellists who have killed their adversaries. But this penalty is only comminatory, since it is eluded by the parties repairing to a neighbouring province, of which they are not citizens, and which has not the power to take cognizance of their offences; the laws on this head not extending to the whole country, but being limited to each of the eighteen confederate states.
“Moreover, European experience has evidently shown that death does not intimidate those who fight, because they either brave it, or wish to show that they do not fear its terrors.
“The habits of the Virginians disposed them to duelling more than any other of the Americans, and the extent of the country rendered it more difficult to seek the protection of a neighbouring state; for when people are determined to fight, they are in general impatient. The legislature of Virginia has therefore sought to obtain its object by a less severe penalty, which from that very reason was more likely to prove efficacious. They considered that when in frivolous matters, or in differences of opinion which the law tolerates and even authorizes, a man is induced to expose himself to death or to slay another, he is actually demented, and that, therefore, all principals and seconds in a duel should be considered labouring under an alienation of mind, and deprived of any public station that they might hold; that their property, moreover, should be vested in the hands of trustees, and in fact be considered as labouring under an interdiction. Since this enactment, duels in the state of Virginia have been rarely heard of.”
The first notorious duel that was fought in America was in the year 1630, when a challenge to single combat with sword and dagger, passed between Edward Doty and Edward Leister, servants of a Mr. Hopkins. Both were wounded, the one in the hand, and the other in the thigh. As it was deemed expedient to repress such affairs, the parties were condemned to have their hands and feet tied together, and to lie in that condition for twenty-four hours, without either meat or drink. This punishment was begun to be inflicted, but in an hour the pain they endured was so severe, that, at their own supplication and their master’s request. Governor Bradford liberated them on their promise of future good behaviour.
The correspondence that arose between General Wilkinson and Mr. Randolph, a senator, is somewhat curious. The former had observed, that he had learnt that Mr. Randolph had called him a rogue: to this the Honourable John Randolph replied, “In you, Sir, I can recognize no right to hold me accountable for my public or private opinion of your character, that would not subject me to an equal claim from Colonel Burr and Sergeant Dunbaugh. I cannot descend to your level. This is my final answer.” Upon this concise reply, the General wrote the following letter to the senator:—
“Sir,
“I have received your letter of the 25th instant, by mail, in which you violate truth and honour, to indulge the inherent malignity and rancour of your soul. On what ‘level,’ pray Sir, shall we find the wretch who, to mark his cowardice, fabricates falsehoods, and heaps unprovoked insults upon unmerited injuries? You ‘cannot descend to my level,’—vain, equivocal thing! And you believe this dastardly subterfuge will avail you, or that your lion’s skin will longer conceal your true character? Embrace the alternative still within your reach, and ascend to the ‘level’ of a gentleman, if possible; act like a man if you can, and spare me the pain of publishing you to the world for an insolent, slanderous, and prevaricating poltroon.
“James Wilkinson.”