Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Of American Dueling 20240713

[ applause ] in introducing tonight speaker, dr. Joanne freeman, i would like to mention at the outset that one of her most commendable qualifications is that she received her ph. D. From the university. Thats right, uva. [laughter] in any case, not long after receiving that degree, she was recognized already as one of the nations top young historians. She subsequently has achieved widespread recognition as a scholar of the revolutionary and Early National periods of American History. She is the author of numerous articles on those subjects which will appear in print in proper academic journals including the william and mary quarterly, the journal of policy history and the yale law journal among others. She has written oped pieces for the New York Times and appeared in numerous documentaries on pbs, the History Channel and radio programs like npr and the bbc. You may have seen her in the past week on the History Channel series on george washington. She has written several books, including a study of Alexander Hamilton. And her first major book titled affairs of Honor National politics in the new republic won the best book award from the society of historians of the early american republic. Her most recent book and the basis of tonights lecture is titled field of blood published in 2018. With regard to that book, a historian, who some of you may recall was a former great live speaker wrote that, quote, speaker, wrote that, quote, with insightful analysis, she explores the relationships of the congressman before the civil war and finds a culture of astonishing violence in fistfights, duels, and mass brawls. Her innovative account looks at steps towards disunion and changes how we think of political history. Another prominent historian wrote that , she describes many varieties of congressional violence including bullying, fighting in the halls of congress, fisticuffs, guns, knives, duels and threats of duels. With painstaking research, she penetrates the conspiracy of silence imposed by sources frequently reluctant to publicize the embarrassing truth. What a surprise that such an important story should have waited so long to be told. Tonight we are honored that she will share that story with us as we welcome Joanna Freeman to the university of Mary Washington and to the great lives podium. [ applause ] [ applause ] thank you. Thank you very much. It is my great pleasure to be with you this evening to talk, as was just suggested, about something of a juicy topic, and that is american duelists. It probably will not surprise you to learn that as someone who has studied Alexander Hamilton for a good many decades, i have really good reasons to study dueling. Over the years, i have watched reenactments of the standing close enough to the action to actually get splattered by hamiltons lood. Which is really being up close and personal with your subject. On another occasion, i had the chance to shoot a black powder dueling pistol. Now thanks to the policeman who was supervising my target practice, i was wearing ear shields and plastic goggles, which kind of took something away from the accuracy of the historical moment, but still, it was an amazing opportunity to get some small sense of the physical sensation of firing a dueling pistol. But getting a handson sense of a duel is one thing. Understanding dueling is another, because when you get right down to it, dueling doesnt make sense. One person insults another person, and as a result, they travel to a field at the crack of dawn and fire pistols at each other. Does that solve anything . Seemingly, no. Is there a risk of life and limb . Definitely yes. So, what is the logic of dueling, and what drove americans to become duelists, or put another way, given duelings seeming lack of logic, why did hundreds of american men in the 18th and early 19th centuries reason their way onto a dueling ground . That is what i want to explore with you this evening. I will do that in two parts. First i will briefly look at how american dueling really worked, and the logic behind it. Id note that i am talking about american dueling here, because it differed from european dueling in several ways, that in one key way that i will talk about later. Secondly, i will focus on specific duelists, and talk about how they put dueling into per this and why. One of the first things we have to grapple with in discussing dueling is the concept of honor in early america. Any gentleman of the period considered his honor and reputation his most valued possessions. To be dishonored was to lose your sense of self, your manhood, your status to read to be ashamed to face your family and friends. Honor was even more important for politicians who based their careers on public opinion. In early america, it really was character and reputation that qualified you for public office, not job skills or talents. Elections went to the man with the best reputation. The man who the public most respected. So basically, to get voted into office, to get your friends into office or to exercise any political power or influence, you needed to have the right sort of reputation. So for an early american politician, honor wasnt some kind of vague sense of selfworth, it represented his ability to proof elf a deserving political leader. So it was practical in some ways. In a sense, that is an idea i will keep coming back to. Among men who were so touchy about their reputations, rules of behavior were very important, and that makes sense if you think about it. Where insults can really have such great consequences, where the wrong word might lead to the dueling ground, there have to be clearly defined rules and standards so that accidental insults and violence can be avoided. The rules of honor, the code of honor, set out clear standards of conduct. Certain words you were supposed to avoid. Certain actions you were supposed to avoid. And it went in and was crossed and honor was offended, the code of honor offered a regulated way to settle the dispute. Hopefully, with negotiations, but sometimes, with gunplay on a dueling ground. For example, there were a number of what i always call for myself, alarm bell words. Words you could never use in relation to another gentleman, because it was a most like daring that person to challenge you to a duel. These words included some that were logical like liar, coward. Two have lost their singh. Rascal and scoundrel. They were serious in the 18th century. And my personal favorite, puppy. I guess it is insulting someone and suggesting a man is a effeminate and a toy. It was a serious insult although it is hard to consider that today. However, everyone knew that insulting a man with one of those words was as good as challenging him to a duel. It was like a dare that demanded a response, and to ignore the kind of dare would be to dishonor yourself. I want to show you an example of one or two of those words in action. So this takes place in 1797. Alexander hamilton and james monroe, local guy james monroe, became involved in a controversy. Hamilton believed that munroe had leaked some damaging information to the press, and he was outraged. So he decided that he would go to munroes house to demand explanation, and he wrote a note saying i hear you have done x, y and z. Im coming to your home for an explanation, and im bringing a friend. Or in other words, a second, a duel assistant in case they are talking and in these to something more serious. If you are monroe and you have a note saying that someone is coming to your house with a friend, that means you are in dueling territory. Monroe immediately knew that now we moved into the realm where something bad might happen. So monroe went and got a friend for himself. Luckily for us, monroes friend recorded the entire conversation of what took place between hamilton and monroe. The first thing you can tell from the conversation is that they did not like each other. Things dont start out too well, you can tell right off the cuff that they hate each other. Hamilton was a really logical thinker who clearly wanted to rehearse the entire history of the controversy step by step like a courtroom lawyer would. Monroe kept interrupting in complete frustration. I know already. I lived through this. Can you get going . At which hamilton would begin again at the beginning of his account. [laughter] so things went worse as their conversation went on. It did not take long for both men ultimately to lose their patience, with hamilton clearly getting redder and redder and monroe getting icier and icier until hamilton bluntly accused one row of leaking the information. When one road one row denied it, hamilton said, this as your representation is totally false. Hes not using the l word, not saying youre a liar, but hes just being careful with his words. Even though he did not use the buzz word, the acquisition was serious enough to have a big impact. What happened at that moment is fascinating because as soon as hamilton said that, it was clear that a line had been crossed. As soon as the words left hamiltons mouth, both men jumped to their feet. Now the two men assumed theyll be involved in an affair of honor. Monroe responded by taking hamiltons dare and pushing it one step further. He said you say i represented falsely, you are a scoundrel. Thank you for the sound effects. Thats what someone would have said at the time. Hamilton responded by saying, i will meet you like a gentleman. Meaning, im ready to duel. Monroe replied, im ready, get your pistols. At which point the two mens friends, their seconds, separated them, calmed them down and convinced them to act as though some of which had happened had not happened so the seconds could negotiate. Now, as i just suggested, this incident unfolded much more quickly than most honor disputes. The two men lost their tempers, which is not how a man of honor was supposed to behave. Most disputes followed really predictable ritualist steps. In a more conventional dispute, a gentleman would have written a form letter to the other with five basic statements. First it would say, i have been told you insulted me and said x, y and z. And it would suggest what that insult was. And it would have quoted precisely the words quoted to me are this is what im told you have said. Third, the letter would ask, is this true or false . Avow it or deny it. Fourth, it would ask, do you have in the nation for this . And fifth would demand, an Immediate Response typically by saying, i demand an Immediate Response as a man of honor. If you get that letter, that is a duel to be form letter. It is an alarm bell. Whoever got it knew honor was defended and the writer was ready to fight. It gave the recipient a chance to explain himself or deny the insult or apologize. And sometimes that happened. But from this point on, as soon as you receive that kind of letter, you were engaged in an affair of honor in which any word or action could lead to a duel. This is typically the point where each man would appoint a second to represent him, a person who was kind of acting as a dueling lawyer negotiating terms for his client, trying to appease the offended Party Without humiliating the offender. Negotiations could take days or weeks, or even months, as, in this case, hamilton and monroe did. For months, they exchanged letters in each one said, ready to fight when you are. The other one said, i am ready to fight when you are. No, i am ready to fight when you are. Nothing happens in the end. This goes on for months and in the end both men walk away and say, well, i showed him. Hes a coward. Kind of typical. It accomplished something but didnt accomplish anything easy for us to see with the distance of time. The negotiating process was extremely important and extremely ritualized, because it enabled those involved to really display their honor, their superior character, being calm and passionless and even haughty in the face of death. Ideally, the ritual of dueling allowed honor to be satisfied without any violence. And here we come to an aspect of dueling that is really counterintuitive. It really does not make sense. Probably opposite to what people think dueling is. The point of a duel was not to kill your opponent. It is easy to assume that. Two men going into a field to shoot each other, probably one wants to kill of the other. But that was not the point. The point of a duel was to prove that you were willing to die for your honor. So when you went to the dueling ground by standing there, you were wiproving your willingnesso risk your life for your honor as with your opponent. People didnt had to die to redeem their reputation, they didnt even have to get to the dueling ground to redeem their reputation depending on the negotiations. Obviously, in that kind of situation, deaths were relatively rare in duels. Words were usually not too serious. I remember finding a newspaper poking fun at a recent duel. It said Something Like, he suffered a wound in that fashionable area, the shin. There are a lot of shin wounds. The point of a duel is to prove you are willing to die for your honor. The opponents often fell victim to such outrage that he had to leave the state. In many ways, a dumest welest w failed to kill his opponent was a failed duellist, because rather than redeeming his reputation, he risked damaging it. Once you understand political dueling in this way, when you see that all the letters and negotiations are really a ritualistic part of an affair of honor that might lead to a duel, you discovered there were many affairs of honor in america, more than people assume. For example, Alexander Hamilton was involved in at least 10 affairs of honor. At least 10 times, he got into some kind of dispute with someone. They had a ritualized negotiation. In some cases they came near fighting, but he did not end up going to the drooling ground. He even negotiated himself out of a fight with aaron burr, i think once before. Burr says twice, hamilton says once. Ten is a lot of times to be involved in an affair of honor. Tells you something about hamilton. In new york city alone, there were at least 17 other Political Affairs of honor. At least three actual duels. So, in other words, the burrhamilton duel was not a grand exception, but rather part of a larger trend. When you look at these honor disputes and duels, you do see patterns. First, you notice a lot of these duels occurred shortly after an election. I actually remember discovering this with a calendar with elections on it and pinning the duels and going, this is an interesting pattern. Second, when you look at the details of these political duels, you discover many of them were politically provoked. A common ploy is that someone would call another someone a selfinterested politician and there is one obvious response to that, you are a liar. You got yourself a duel. In most cases, and this is the striking point, the loser of the election, or one of his friends, would find a way to provoke a winner or one of the winners friends into a duel. What is happening here, these are duels that are not resulting from a slip of the tong, they are deliberately provoked and strategically timed. In other words, many early american political duels were kind of like counter elections. Someone who was dishonored by a lost election, a democratic contest, tried to redeem his reputation with an aristocratic contest of honor. A duel. Now, in american duels, often the results were published in newspapers. Sometimes they would be summarized, Say Something like mr. X met mr. Y on the field of honor, and both men behaved honorab honorably. The sub text of that would be both men behaved honorably, both are fit to be leaders so vote for them in the next election. That is why these details are being published. And europeans were stunned at this custom, because it seemed like americans were advertising their duels for votes, which in a way, they were. This is a really distinctly american twist on the european practice of dueling. As i just suggested, these are not impulsive or irrational duels, not guided by uncontrolled suicidal impulses or murderous rage. Early american political duels, at least for a time were deliberate attempts to redeem an electoral loss and prove oneself eligible for future leadership. The burrhamilton duel fits perfectly into that pattern. It took place in 1804. That year bur burr lost his i l election for governor of new york with hamilton campaigning against him. Not long after losing, burr felt compelled to redeem his name and reputation from that loss. There is actually a pamphlet written by one of his supporters at the time that says, if mr. Burr didnt redeem his reputation, why should his followers follow him . What does he have to offer . He must prove hes a leader to offer something to his followers, so he has to do something. So burr did. After losing the new york election, he was looking for a way to redeem his reputation, lo and behold someone handed him a newspaper clipping that contained news of a dinner party were hamilton had insulted burr. Burr used the clipping to initiate an affair of honor with hamilton, who had been attacking burr for 15 years at that point. Because of some sloppy insulting exchanges between the two men during those long negotiations, along with 15 years worth of insults, hamilton couldnt really apologize. In the end, with men felt insulted during the negotiations and obviously, they ended up dueling. I dont think either one of them wanted to kill the other. I know people think burr was an evil guy who wanted to kill hamilton. When you look at the letters before the duel, it doesnt seem that way as well. But they did end up dueling and there were tragic consequences. As i suggested earlier, this does not mean that burr won the duel. In some ways, he lost it. He fled town as did a flurry of his supporters, his newspaper editor, and the man who rode them across the river to the dueling ground. Now new york is upset. He has killed somebody. His enemies united against him to basically condemn him as a murderer and press murder charges. He was vulnerable and for some time, he hid in South Carolina, where people were less upset about hamiltons death and more comfortable with dueling. After several months, he returned to his job as Vice President of the United States, because he was Vice President when he killed hamilton. He was finishing up his term and not coming back for a second term. Given that deaths occasionally happened in dueling, he just back to his job, once he felt the coast was clear. Its easy to assume he strolled his way back into the senate and went back to work, but over the years, in reading the letters of men who were in the room, congressmen and senators who were in the room when burr came back, its really interesting. A lot of them say things like, looked like it wore on him. He looked as though he was weighted down. They could see basically, it is not all fun and roses when you are involved in a duel and you are being thrown out of town. People could see the impact of what happened. You can see how some american duelists, particularly political ones, use duels as a form of politics in the first decade or two of the new american that was a big part of my first book affairs of Honor National politics in the new republic. This leads to the question, did this political use of dueling change over time, and if it did, how . That is the topic of my recent book mentioned earlier, the field of blood violence in congress and the road to the civil war. The book explores violence in congress in the decade leading up to the civil war. Most of the violence i found actually were not duels or even negotiations, most of the violence was pushing, shoving, people pulling knives and guns on each other. Fistfights, mass brawls. In the course of my research, i found 70 physically violent incidents in the house and senate from the 1830s to the civil war. Including the most famous incident of all, the infamous caning of abolitionist senator Charles Sumner by representative preston brooks. I should say, it took me many years to write this book because i had to uncover the violence, and almost 100 of the time when i would say to people, im writing a book on violence in the congress. They would not necessarily know the name, but they would all basically say, there is that guy. They all knew about the sumner caning. Theres no reason why they would know anything else. Some of this violent scum of the 70 fights that i found was a product of the fact that the United States was violent in these decades and congress was representative. But some of the violence was a matter of strategy. Dueling was part of that strategy. Because by the 1830s, dueling was increasingly seen as a southern custom, something that southerners boasted about as being a sign of their culture, something that northerners demeaned as being barbaric. And, in fact, by the 1830s and 1840s, north and south had two really different fighting cultures. Southern culture obviously, the slaverybased culture favored violence and in particular, mantoman combat. Both things were vital in a slavebased culture. Northerners were more prone to rioting when it come to violence. So north and south are violent in this period. Neither one is necessarily better than the other when it comes to violence, but dueling by this point is becoming dec e decidedly southern. In congress, it was different. In congress, southerners knew that they were willing to duel and that their northern colleagues were probably not willing to duel, particularly by this point, because by this point, congressmen from the north were assuming their constituents back home really disapproved of it, thought it was barbaric and southern and would not want their representatives to take a part in it. Southerners used that to their advantage during congressional debate. They threatened and intimidated northern opponents, hinting at duels, knowing full well the northerners were likely to back down when confronted or sometimes not to even stand up for confrontation. Silencing themselves rather than risk being hue mitt ymiliated o floor of congress. I want to show you an example of this in action. In 1838, one congressmen killed another in a duel, the only time when congressmen killed another. What launched the duel was a clash between democrats and whigs on the house floor. A southern whig who tried to intimidate a northern democrat into silence. The southerner who was using intimidation to get his way was henry wise, virginian. Really interesting character. He ended up being the most frequent fighter in my book, which somehow frequentflier and frequent fighter were going backandforth in my head as i was writing the book. It was my most frequent fighter. He fought several duels, he was the second of several duels. He wasnt a back alley brawler, he was an educated man. He goes on to become governor of virginia, the man who signed john browns death warrant. But he was also constantly rolling up his sleeves to throw a punch. So in 1838, wise sprayeds into the house, waving a newspaper above his head and announces, i have here proof that the democrats are corrupt. A maine democrat, in his first year in congress, immediately stood up in protest and insisted thats not true. Democrats are not corrupt. At this wise slowly and dramatically turned around to face silly and with a bit of a sneer on his face said, are you calling me a liar . You are excellent with sound effects. Precisely. Thats precisely what he was doing. And silly immediately knew that this was moving into duel territory. And he immediately back pedaled and eventually backed down. In the process of backpedaling he instulted a newspaper editor through a series of details that i wont go into, there ended up being a duel between two congressmen. The important part of that story is wises reactions. Wise taunted him knowing full well that as a northerner sully would not want to fight a duel so wise could score an easy point against democrats. During the later duel negotiations, sully discussed the fact that he didnt want a duel, that his constituents disapproved of it, but he didnt feel like he could back down because in doing so he would dishonor himself and all that he represented. In my book i refer to this as the northern congressmans dilemma. I dont want to duel, but if im in this situation, i cant back down because that humiliates me and my constituents dont want that either. It was a difficult spot to be in and it influenced debate on the floor. Northerners resigned from committees when bullied by southerners. Sometimes they refused to confront southerners because of it. There is a great diary entry from an ohio congressman and he reports he is new to congress and describing what he sees and he says there was a southern congressman who was getting the per diem that he should not have been getting as a congressman, and this fellow from ohio says thats not right. He goes up to these friends from ohio and says, why are none of you stepping up and saying, protesting that he should not be getting his money . His friends respond, well, he has a dueling character. So we wont do that. There it is really blatant. Of course, that sort of process of intimidation and threatening and silencing people was a very handy thing to have in play when the issue of slavery came up. There is an issue which southerners had a lot to say and northerners kept being put in this difficult situation again and again. Now, when you see here is that all of these years after the birdhamilton duel, dueling was a form of politics that said a lot about a politicians character. And southerners were really using that to full advantage. But now in the 1830s and beyond it communicated messages about politicians characters in a more immediate and powerful way than ever before because of great advances in technology. Steam powered printing presses, railroads, the telegraph, all of them came to the fore and they spread rumors of what was happening in Congress Faster than ever before, farther than ever before. So southern bullying and duelling potentially had a more powerful national impact. Its interesting. Its been an interesting time in American History to come out with a book on politicians behaving badly and violence between politicians. It took me so long to write it that i could not have known this would be the moment when my book came out. One of the things i found striking when i was finishing up the book, there is a chapter in the book on the telegraph. New form of technology. Information is spreading quickly. Congressmen suddenly dont control the the public is learning all kinds of things from all kinds of people and they cant tell whats true or false. Conspiracy theories spread because of the confusion. Its very easy to spread them. If you think about it, the telegraph did what social media does today, which is if politics is basically a conversation between politicians and the public, technology that scramble that conversation makes perfect sense that they potentially scramble the working of democracy as well. So the telegraph and social media is not a comparison i thought i would ever make, but its really a striking one. Sully, because of the telegraph and other things that were spreading news much more quickly than ever before and further than ever before about what was going on in congress, he worried throughout the negotiations what they were going to think if i do duel. What are new englanders going to think if i dont duel . And wise knew that his constituents would be proud of him for dangling a duel to defend everything that he represented. And in fact, he even said so. Always a handy thing. Henry wei hen wise always said what he wasnt supposed to say. Someone would do something, threaten someone, and wise would stand up and say this is like the last five times that happen and i would be a happy historian because i had five other times. So he is that guy. In Congress Someone says to wise, you should be ashamed of yourself for all of this fighting. Shame on you. We should throw you out. And wise responds, do it. Go right ahead. I will be back here in no time because my constituents put me here to fight on their behalf. They want me to behave this way. And in many ways, wise was right. This is a period when people struggled in and out of congress, sometimes serving one term, maybe two. Wise was reelected at least six times, which was unusual and clearly his constituents approved of what he was doing. So, you can see how dueling culture was one of many ways in which southerners exercised a great deal of control over the National Government in this period. There was a reason why people spoke in very general terms about a slave power. It was one. In congress, southerners had a cultural advantage because of dueling culture, and a political advantage of extra representation because of the threefifths compromise. Now, im sort of leaning towards the latter part of my comments here, and so what i want to do is at this point is talk about a remarkable document thats going to help us look at how things change, because they dont continue percolating along in congress identically for all of these decades and change is important. Then at the very end i want to answer a question because its the question i get asked all the time when i talk about this topic. First the document, because its an extraordinary document. And it shows how the dynamics of dueling as i just described it in congress percolated along for a while until the mid 1850s when a new party came to congress. A northern party. An antislavery party. The Republican Party. Unlike former northerners, republicans running for congress in their Promotional Campaign material insisted they would fight the slave power, and in congress that had a real meaning to it. Some republicans in the late 1850s were fighting men unlike northerners who came before, that came to congress armed. They stood up to bullying. And they said so often. So when you read in this time period the periods equivalent of the congressional record, again and again you see northerners rise to their feet when being bullied and they will say things like, you cant say that about me, im a different kind of northerner, im here to stand up, not to bow down. Im a different kind of person. I am not going to take this. And you better be careful. But clearly, the arrival of the Republican Party and these different kinds of northerners changed the dynamics of bullying in congress. But it also confronted republicans with a difficult decision. What should they do, duels or challenges at provoking a duel . Its one thing to stand up to southerners, but fighting a duel . When it came to their constituents, that probably crossed a line. I found things addressing this specific problem. A formal statement of sorts signed by three Republican Congressmen, cameron, benjamin faa Franklin Wade and zachariah chandler. It tells a decision about dueling they named in 1858. As the document explains, there was a long history of southerners insulting northerners. At a certain period of time when the insults became particularly offensive, these three men had a conversation and made a group decision. They describe all of this in the statement. They couldnt stand the humiliation of being insulted any longer and they couldnt bear the fact that southern bullying was denying their constituents full representation in congress by intimidating northerners into silence. As they put it in this document, it was an undurable outrage that made them frantic with rage and shame. Powerful statement. So these three men decided that from then on when confronted by southerners they would declare themselves willing to fight duels and in a statement they said willing to fight duels to the coffin. So, we shouldnt be doing this, but we will. And in the statement they say, we knew that this would probably ostracize us back home. We knew this was risking our lives in some ways, but for the sake of all they represented, they decided they needed to fight. Now, whats striking first about that statement is that it exists. It shows three northerners attesting to what dueling meant and the situation they were in and this decision that they made. As a historian, the part that struck me is why they made the statement. Its signed by all three men, and they explain at the end of the document they have put this down on paper to explain to posterity what it once took to be in favor of liberty their words, to be in favor of liberty and express such sentiments in the highest places of official life in the United States. They basically say in their words we wanted those who come after us and study us to understand what it meant to oppose slavery in congress. When i found that statement, you know, essentially they were talking to me, and anyone else who was studying them. It basically was them saying look what this felt like. Look at how difficult this was. You wont see it unless we point to it, so, here, have a document, joanne freeman. Its handy and you can write a book. Strikingly, amazing powerful document. For these three potential american duellists in the 1850s, dueling still had power. And all these men didnt end up fighting duels, their willingness to duel served as proof of their character in the same way it served for hamilton. And to some degree the simple fact that they were willing to duel changed some of their southern colleagues. They were slightly less willing to bully northerners after the three men make their declaration. That was not enough to make a difference, and the years between 1855 and 1860 were the most violent years in the history of congress, and of course we all know what came next. Now, i want to close by answering an obvious question. Im asked it all the time. When did this change and how . Thats what happens after the civil war. It certainly doesnt go on. Part of the answer as to when does it change and how has to do with the fact after the civil war, this is going to be very logical, the dynamics of congress shifted and now northerners had power. So, for example, when one southerner during a debate about Southern States being riyad admitted to the union attempted to be violent during debate, a northerner stood up and basically said, you see that . You all remember that . From 1857, 1858, 1859 . You want to let that back in here . Thats a powerful statement to make and that really shows you northerners flaunting a kind of power that they didnt have before. In this sense, the northern victory in the civil war changed the meaning of dueling in congress. With the north in control, refusing to duel became a way to display a politicians character. Now, before i close, and we will have questions in a moment, i want to throw something out there in case folks are interested because this series is a biographical series of lectures. I have spoken in a general way about duellists. One thing i didnt talk about is the main character at the heart of my book who basically enabled me to tell the story because of how he changed from the period at the beginning of the book to the period at the end. If anyone is interested about that guy, its Benjamin Brown french, and i thank him all the time because i really couldnt have told this story without him. I would be happy to talk about that as well. I dont know if its a great life, but its a significant life. Thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you, joanne. This is a little, usually we go to the very end. I want you to see this now to point out that this will be our topic on tuesday, this coming tuesday, and because it was rescheduled, the original schedule, this was supposed to be february 13th. Couldnt do it then. Had to reschedule. So bear in mind that we will have a lecture next tuesday night. John and john quincy adams. The title of that book is the problem of democracy. I hope you will be here for that. All right. Now, questions, right . Questions. If you are raise your hand and stand if you will and ask a question as succinctly as possible. We will take as many as we can, okay . How many duels actually stopped when the duellists were on the field with their guns . How many decided to negotiate there . And second question is, when you were when you are a dualist, were you required to shoot somebody, injure them, kill them, or just shoot them . Not kill them. Okay. The first question is how many went to the dueling round and negotiated their way out . Occasionally, that happened. Sometimes, you know, the way that a duel works is you would Exchange Fire once and then the second would talk to each other and say is honor satisfied . This person was offended. Does he feel satisfied now . And if the answer was yes, they would shake hands and go away. Occasionally, they managed to talk something out on the field that they hadnt done before. Thats not that common. But the second half of your question is particularly interesting. Its about what were they trying to do when they were shooting. So its the point of a duel, as i suggested earlier, to prove that you are willing to die for your honor. If your opponent shoots the gun in the air, he is depriving you are of that. There is a reason there are a lot of shin wounds. They are shooting in each others direction. I have to say with a Police Sharpshooter firing that dueling pistol with me, they are not the worlds most accurate weapons. It wasnt necessarily polite to shoot at the sky. You had to at least aim in the general direction of the other person. As i said, there are people there are a lot of leg wounds. People who are killed in the case of the bird sla Hurricane Michael hamilton dual. So the duel when his second said who should we bring as a doctor, bird said we dont need doctors, lets just get this over with. Along the lines of what i suggested, i dont think he thought there was going to be bloodshed. In your research, i wonder if you came across the provision in the kentucky state constitution still in effect in the 1970s when i went into the legislature that you had to swear that youd never fought a duel or offer a duel. So, thats really interesting. In kentucky, the state constitution that said if you were going into the legislature, i guess, that you had to swear that you had never fought a duel. State officials. Thats really interesting. In the period that im speaking about from burn all the way through, dueling was illegal. The people doing the dueling were the lawmakers. Right . They were elite and they felt, and as they did, they could violate the laws with impunity. People were arresting for dueling, but they sure werent members of congress and elite folks. Whats interesting about this question about swearing you wouldnt duel, one of the ways antidueling folk tried to push their agenda is that sort of thing, is by, you know, basically saying to constituents dont vote for duellers or to legislators, you know, put something in that swears they wont duel. That was a slow way to solve the problem. But it very much recognized along the lines of what i was talking about. We are talking about men representing constituents and doing what they feel they need to do to represent them. If those people step forward and say, yeah, you do this and you are out, thats going to have influence. But, so, state by state there were different people doing some version of that precise thing, and there were different aspects of dueling that were illegal state by state. There was no national antidueling law. Question here. Really enjoyed your talk today. I guess after watching the debates last night, i would figure a time went by the desert in nevada would be very cold. My question is you mainly talked about politicians and a ruling class, for lack of better words. Would the local butcher and blacksmith solve a problem this way in the south . And did wives ever get involved . Did the ladies ever pull out the little pistols . Ill answer the second question first. Did women ever get involved . Not with pistols, but some of them would learn in advance that there was a duel and would try and intervene. As a matter of fact, one of hamiltons near duels, i dont know if its his wife. Someone finds out and hamilton says, i cant i have to im working without. Its complicated. His opponent says something along the lines of, i should think you would have control of your wife. So we could go ahead and do this. So women sometimes did intervene. They certainly had power. Personal power and cultural power. But i cant say that i know of a lot of duels that were cast aside that way. But this relates to your other question, which is what about nonelite folk. So there were average people dueling. They tended to be arrested. I remember finding a letter from the late 1790s and it says Something Like the jails are full of duellists. Those arent the guys i write about who were in jail. So, yeah, there were a lot of people dueling. But fascinating to me is that also everybody understood the rules and implications of dueling in honor, and the strongest example of that to me is something that took place in the early 19th century in boston in which one man insulted another man in the newspaper, and one man ended up killing the other man on the street. And there ends up being a trial. Everyone who was on the street or saw it testifies. And they testify to what they thought and what they were testifying. The barrel makers, candle makers, a barber. Its like everybody level of society. What they all say is, well, i saw that newspaper thing where one was going to cap the other. So i came to the street on person because i knew something is going to happen here because it happens to happen. I saw what was in the newspaper. What the trial makes clear is that everybody understood that culture and how it worked and what should happen. That was fascinating to me. Thats the sort of thing thats difficult to find. But the testimony in this trial really proved it. Thank you. Great evening. With reference to your issue where ben wade and his two buddies made the big statement, they must have scared the bejeebers out of the southerners because a couple of years later, as soon as lincoln, the republican is laektelected, six weeks, they said thats it. Did they make a statement that affected the whole Republican Party . Thats an interesting question. You are right that those three men, you know, they do it, frankly, wade came into congress with a gun and put it down on his desk. Thats a statement, right . Here you go. I am not like the northerners in the past. It didnt it shifted the dynamics. It didnt necessarily take away power from the southerners in congress. So, i wouldnt say that it suddenly changed southerners and how they were behaving, particularly given that the issue of slavery was reaching a peak at this moment. It complicated things. There is a great example in 1858. There is a northern kind of fighting man in congress and he is standing amidst southerners and he objects to something and a fellow from South Carolina yells out, go object in your own part of the house, dont object near us. The northerner, who did the objecting, says Something Like, im not going to listen to any slave driver with a whip telling me what to do. Im going to do what i want to do. This does not make the fellow from South Carolina happy, and he marches over there and gets ready to slug this northerner, and the northerner hits him first and flattens him. Now, what happens in this moment shows you that things have changed but they havent. Southerners who see one of their own flattened begin to stream across the house. Dozens at a time. Republican northerners, who see the southerners running to the point of combat, begin jumping over desks and chairs to get to the spot to help their fellow. In the end, there is a huge brawl, 30 guys punching each other, throwing spit unes, you know, a real brawl that ends when one congress man grabs someones hair to throw a punch and his hair comes off because its a toupee. What i love about that is that slapstick is just eternal, right . Goes all wait back. Whats interesting about that about, on the one hand, thats a striking moment in which north and south are battling in the space in front. Speakers chair. And there is a reporter that says that looks like a battle. On the one hand, the dynamic is really different, but the southerners arent scared. They are just unsettled and trying to figure out what to do to maintain a grip of what they had before. So, whats interesting along the lines of what you are suggesting is think about what this long tradition of northerners who wont fight, think about what that did to southerners and what they thought they were up against when the war started. There is a lot of statements by southerners giving speeches in the south and they say things like, we have seen these guys in congress. This is nothing. We can do this. We can do this quickly. These guys dont know how to fight. By the end, and when the war came, things were different. Okay. Question here, joanne. Hi. Out of curiosity, did the dueling culture have any sort of impact on the whole stereotypical wild west dueling . Interesting question. The relation between dueling and sort of wild west gun fight. The similarity of idea and method is really striking, right, if you think of a southern shootout. Two guys facing each other and, you know, a signal or something they both grab a gun and shoot. So there is a it feels very similar to a duel. But at some point earlier in my project i was looking to see how dueling and deaths and duels progress across the country. Its happening on east coast and what happens as the nation moves west. What i found was just before statehoods, there would be more duels, more violence. So its coming from the same sort of ideas. The reason why is because people knew that statehood was coming and people were going to claim power. So there was like this shuffle of a moment where people were like, oh yay . Im better than you. Sooner or later, there is going to be a government and its going to matter. I think the idea of it and the culture of it is similar. But i dont necessarily think that people drew that immediate connection and said this is just a western duel. It was just very similar in the logic of it. But you are proving your honor and your skill, but in shootouts i think more people are dying than in dueling, which is really more about the display. You said that dueling was illegal. What exactly was illegal . The fact that a group of men were peaceably assemblying on a certain spot . The fact that one man had it done two men had guns, they were entitled to bear arms . They were not trying to kill each other and if there was no killing, what was illegal . Good question. So sometimes it was sending or receiving a challenge that was illegal. Sometimes, i think it was a second caexample that just lefty mind. Sometimes it had to do with meeting for the murps of going to a dueling ground. If you did those things, a great example of this, a document i found at the New York Historical society about the bird hamilton duel. Aaron bruce ii ended up being tried for his participation in the duel. Clearly, he took notes at his trial. Clearly, what people were trying to prove, this challenge had been sent or he saw a duel taking place. Both of those things would have been legally problematic. But whats fascinating is they get all these people to testify. So the doctor who is on the ground testifies, and the doctor, its very clear, this is the document that led to the lyric, right . So the document that the doctor testifies and hes asked what did you see . And he said, well, i had my back to the dueling ground. I didnt see anything. I was looking out at the water. I heard two shots. I have no idea what happened. They carried the guns in a sack. So during the trial when people are asked, you did you see weapons . Nope. I didnt see any weapons. So, in a way they are cooperating with each other to enable themselves to engage in this and to get around the fact that specific things in different states are illegal. But these are all the sorts of things that make this fascinating. So the document actually leads to the lyric in the hamilton song. Kind of striking. But its my first book. I talk about the rules of dueling and when i saw that play, i heard the song, the line about the rules of dueling, the doctor turns his back so he can have deniability. I was at the show with a historian friend, i was like, thats my document. I later discovered, yeah, actually, they had read my book and it had inspired parts of that song. So, but whats fascinating about that is those are all things that arent commonly known. The ways in which these guys were trying to get around the laws so they could engage in this behavior that was important to them, but in all of these small ways. A question back here. To go back to the question of how women acted with dueling cultures, in the biography they talk about when the reynolds affair came forward, how eliza hamilton was ousted. Was there a way for a woman to respond to an attack on her honor on that level . Really interesting question. Is there a way for women to respond to attacks on their honor. Not in the sense that they could get pistols and go to a dueling ground. They werent part of that culture. An interesting example of that has do with john adams and otis warren, who is a woman and historian who has a public presence in the late 18th century. She does some things that make john adams feel dishonored and its clear he somehow wants to make his honor feel better, and she writes to a male friend. She is like, now what do i do . This is not my realm. You know, the male friend has to sort of come in. On the one hand, women arent really a part of that culture, but if they heard an insult, saw an insult, in one way or another were witnesses to it, they had a huge impact. So, if there is an insult in the street that maybe lots of people didnt say, maybe it wouldnt matter. If a woman was there, thats it. Then you have really been humiliated. So women had a big influence, and sometimes they did find out in advance and would do what they could do to ideally make this not happen. But there wasnt an exact equivalent of dueling. I once found an article in a late 18th century magazine of sorts. It was biefl arguing men have they can call duels. They settle disputes and shake hands. Women dont have anything like that. We dont get to shake hands and be done with any of our fights. Really interesting article along the lines of your question. Thank you. During your research, did you come into contact with the career of Andrew Jackson who, if memory serves, was a prolific duellist of constant character . Indeed. So i would focus on congress. In that sense, i wasnt really focused on jackson. However, the fact that he was a prolific dualist, that hetized that about himself in some ways, and that was held against him by particularly northerners, that he is bad because he is a dualist, but on other people that made him a kind of a leader, he represents an interesting kind of moment when ideas about leadership in america are kind of shifting. So, his dueling is still kind of a pro and a con for jackson, but i think for him its more of a pro because it impresses people. He is kind of that leader in a more kind of graphic violent way than maybe ive been talking about. But this main character at the center of my book, his name is Benjamin Brown french. And he knows jackson. And in his diary he spends a lot of time saying basically, you know, he has fought a lot of duels. He is really impressive. Jackson is a duellist, he is a little scary. But not ex bless italy political, sometimes it had to do with one lawyer attacking another. I went to the smithsonian. They have weapons of various sorts. I wanted to see what these weapons looked like. They had a table full of pistol sets. Those sets are like they are beautiful and carved, all kinds of ivory things. Like they are like for show and most people dont ever use them. If they do, they use them once. Andrew jacksons dueling pistols were like death weapons, you know . Like nothing for show. They were just bonk, you know. They stood out from what i saw on the table as being something that really was there for use as opposed to a handy thing to display. So he was a different kind of a politician, and his life changed the nature of politics in a lot of ways. There was a question. Thanks for just absolutely enlightening. T the context of your presentation kind of goes to whats next. Its been said that the stat gist figures out how to win the war. The grand strategist figures out how to win the peace after the war. Looking at lincoln is asnated, johnson takes over, southern democrat for the northerners, after johnson came in, grant, at what point in time, i assume you are saying that the republicans came in because, hey, we are not going to take that anymore, but now you have a warrior as the head of the executive branch. Was he able to dig into that more than just the presence of the Republican Congress not only having grant there, but interesting question. I didnt go far enough to focus on grant as president. However, above and a yand what im talking about with dueling cultures, back to our first president , there is a strong tradition of military men as president s and that kind of military Service Really matters. So, jefferson, when he runs for president , thats held against him, right. He was never a military man and he was governor of virginia and he fled from the british, he is a coward, he is bad always comes up in all of these contests. And its always an issue because it supposedly says something about character and being able to defend the nation, and thats i mean, in a way, thats a long thread in American Leadership and in particular what people look for in president s. So, you know, jackson was part of that same tradition. Not Johnson Quincy adams. I saw like a campaign broad side when Jackson Johnson running against each other for president. It said Something Like vote for the man who can fight, not for the man who can write. So, that shows you sort of jacksons persona. So that sort of thing matters, is the short answer to your question. Thank you so much for your presentation. You did mention that there were differences between the american nature of dueling and european, but you didnt get into too much of the differences. We know as a young man long ago, i was in europe, and i sort of had a brush with a fraternity that was part of their tradition was had to do with dueling and a scar on the face and operation of the second man, so on. Could you or did you get into that . Excuse me. Could you give us a little feedback on that . Sure. I didnt write about it, but in the process of looking at america, i was looking at dueling in cultures in other places to be able to compare. You are absolutely right. When i talk about in my talk is different in the u. S. Versus europe was americas advertising duels in the newspaper to make a point about their leadership. Dooilks, in a sense. That was one big difference. But also in not every nation, but certainly in some european nations, dueling went on in serving a real social culture long after the period that im talking about in the United States. However, this was sword dueling. This was epee. This was not guns. So, you know, you could have a dueling scar and have that be something that really shows your certain kind of man and you are not going to get killed. In a way, it gets back to what i was saying before, that dueling isnt about killing. That kind of dueling is also more about making a statement, showing who you are. In 1908, i believe, there was an international antidueling conference in berlin. 1908. So this culture goes on, but it goes on in a different form, i think, in europe than it does in the United States. In the United States, they were never using, you know, swords. They were never fencing in duels. Guns were very democratic. They were just focused on guns in the United States. So the whole culture of it is a little bit different in europe. Was there any attempt by congress to impeach him . Wow. Okay. Impeach him . I didnt expect that to come up. S so thats interesting. There was a mixed ponce. Hamilton is going for a while in South Carolina and reappears and goes back to preside over the senate again. And some federalists, hamiltonian federalists wanted to do something to act on the fact that he is there. They are horrified at the fact that they are sitting and being presided over this guy who just killed one of their supreme leaders. They want to do something. So they begin to talk about not in congress, but they begin to talk in new jersey and in new york about pushing in one way or another to really grab at the laws, sort of individual laws about what or isnt illegal, to really take that out on burr. He really get him in legal trouble for what he did. Whats interesting in congress is i dont remember how many. I want to say like 15 or 20 Republican Congressmen signed a statement in response to that, but basically it says we never punish people for dueling. Why are you taking this out on burr . Its not fair. Really striking, you know. So, again, i know i said it before, the logic of this is so fascinating and powerful and so sort of counterintuitive and backward. Thats a great example. Lawmakers in congress signing a statement saying we know its illegal. We dont punish people for this. Why are you punishing burr. Its a striking example of the kind of culture im talking about. Another question. I was wondering if you came across the i dont remember if looked like an actual duel, but a challenge between Abraham Lincoln and one of his contemporaries in illinois, shields. Shooelds, yes. Thats interesting. Its not something that i have written about. Its not in congress. However, there was something of an honor dispute between lincoln and this fellow shields. Its often written about on one hand, its kind of a joke, that it wasnt serious. People talk about the fact that lincoln got to pick weapons, so he chose swords that were long so that and his arms are longer so he could reach the other guy and the other guy couldnt reach him. Thats one way of talking about it. But there is a book, actually this fellow was writing it when i was had a particular fellowship. Doug wilson. I want to say its called honors call or Something Like that. Whether we talked about this, we felt like there was seriousness to it, that it wasnt just a joke, that they dont necessarily end up dueling. When you look at what they were doing, they were taking it seriously and thinking about what they were doing and kind of, as i suggested, you dont have to go to a dueling ground to make a person. You have to show yourself willing to do something during the negotiations than if you have a good second that can kind of stop things that way before they get to the dueling ground. That was a good example. I never heard that. All right. I think we are out of time. So, thanks to you. Lets give our thanks to joanne. Thank you. [ applause ] your infiltered view of government. 1979 and brought to you today by your television provider. Historian tim brooks talks about his book the black face minstrel show in mass media 20th century performances. He explains why this was considered a form of entertainment until as late as the 1950s. Thank you. Welcome, everyone here tonight, and to our viewers on cspan. From the friends in the North Hollywood library. A Nonprofit Organization of volunteers established in 1981. Our program tonight is presented in honor of black History Month for the purposes of Public Education and civil discourse. And our guests are two american historians. Our keynote speaker is a historian of television, radio, and the Recording Industry in the United States. A former network and Cable Television executive and the author of nine books. Ten books. He h his talk tonight is based on the black