Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics Of American Dueling 20240713

So that we can acknowledge them. Where are you . Another yorkshire. I know you are here. [applause] also, a special group tonight that i would like to acknowledge, that is the simpson circle. That is a group composed of former Mary Washington b. O. D. Members. We are here tonight and we would like to have them stand so we can acknowledge them. [applause] in introducing tonights speaker, dr. Joanne freeman, i would like to mention at the outset that one of her most commendable qualifications is that she received her phd from the university. Thats right, u. V. A. [laughter] in any case, not long after receiving that degree, she was recognized already as one of the nations top young historians. She has 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 appeared in prominent and proper academic journals including the william and mary quarterly, among others. She has written oped pieces for the New York Times and appeared on numerous documentaries on pbs, the History Channel and radio programs on npr and the bbc. You may have seen her just in the past week on the History Channels 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 National 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 tj stiles who some of you may recall was a former dust speaker, wrote that, quote, with insightful analysis and vivid detail she explores the , relationships of the congressmen before the civil war and finds a culture of astonishing violence in fistfights, duels and mass brawls. Her innovative account detects steps towards this union and changes how we think of political history. Another permanent 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 dr. Joanna freeman to the university of Mary Washington and to the great lives podium. [applause] dr. Freeman 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. Now it probably will not , surprise you to learn that as someone who has studied Alexander Hamilton for good many decades, i have had really good reason to study dueling. Over the years, i have watched reenactments of the burrhamilton duel, in one case, standing close enough to the action to actually get splattered by hamiltons blood, 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 at the time which kind of took something away from the historical accuracy of the moment, but still, 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 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 and hundreds of american men in the 18th and early 19th centuries reason their way onto a dueling ground . And that is really what i want to explore with you this evening. And i am going to do that in two parts. First i am going to briefly look at how american dueling really worked, and the logic behind it. And i note that i am talking about american dueling here, because it differed from european dueling in several ways but importantly in one key way that i will talk about later. And then secondly, i will focus on some specific dualists and how they put dueling into per ractice 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 his reputation his most valued possessions. To be dishonored was to lose your sense of self, your manhood, your status, 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 prove himself a deserving political leader. So it was practical in some ways. And in a sense that is going to be 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 grave 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 that you were supposed to avoid. Certain actions that you were supposed to avoid. And when a line 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 almost like daring that person to challenge you to a duel. These words included some that were logical like liar, coward. Those seem like they should be alarm bell words. Two have lost their zing, rascal and scoundrel. Probably not going to shoot someone over those words today, but they were serious in the 18th century. And my personal favorite alarm bell word puppy. , i guess it is insulting someone and suggesting a man is effeminate and a toy. But it was a serious insult although it is hard to consider it 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 at kind of dare would be to dishonor yourself. I want to show you an example of one of those, actually two of those words in action. So this takes place in 1797. And Alexander Hamilton and james munro, local guy, james monroe, became involved in a controversy. Hamilton believed that monroe had leaked some damaging information to the press, and he was outraged. So he decided that he would go to monroes house to demand an explanation. He wrote a note to monroe to say, i hear you have done xyz. I am coming to your home for an explanation. I am bringing a friend. Or in other words, a second, a sort of duel assistant in case their talk ends up leading 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. Right, monroe immediately knew that now we have moved into a realm where something bad might happen. So monroe went and got a friend for himself. And luckily for us, monroes friend, like a good second, recorded the entire conversation of what took place between hamilton and monroe. Now the first thing you can tell from the conversation is that they really, really did not like each other. Things dont start out too well. Because you can just tell right off the cuff they hate each other. Hamilton also 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 . In 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 finally just bluntly accused monroe of leaking the information. When monroe denied it, hamilton said, and his word choice is key here, hamilton said, this as your representation is totally false. Ok. He is not using the l word, or saying you are a liar, he is basically saying you are a liar. He is just being careful with his words. Even though he did not use the buzz word, his acquisition was serious enough to have a big impact. What happened at that moment is fascinating because as soon as hamilton said that, this is your representation is false it was , clear a line had been crossed. As soon as the words left hamiltons mouth, both men jumped to their feet. Now the two men assume they are going to 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. [crowd gasps] dr. Freeman thank you for the sound effects. That is exactly what somebody would have said at the time. Hamilton responded by saying, i will meet you like a gentleman meaning, i am ready to duel. Monroe replied, i am ready, get your pistols. At which point the two mens friends separated them, calmed them down and basically convince them to act like what had happened had not happened so that the seconds could negotiate. As i just suggested, this incident unfolded much more quickly than most honor disputes. The two men lost their tempers, which is not help men of honor were supposed to behave. Most honor disputes followed really predictable ritualized steps. In a more conventional dispute, a person who felt insulted would have written a formal letter to the other, and it would have five basic statements. First it would say, i have been told you insulted me and you said xyz. It would suggest what that insult was. It was it very precisely it would then quote it very precisely this is what i am , told you said. Third, the letter would ask, is this true or false . Have you done this, avow it or deny it. Fourth, it would ask, do you have an explanation 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 new that honor had been offended and the writer was ready to fight. You can see how the letter 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 a letter, you were engaged in an affair of honor, in which any word or action could lead to a duel. And 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. And negotiations could take days or weeks, or even months, as, in this case, hamilton and monroe did. For months, they exchanged letters through their seconds, and each letter basically said ready to fight when you are. And then the other one would say i am ready to fight when you , are. No, i am ready to fight when you are. Nothing happens. This goes on for months and in the end both men walk away and say, well, i showed him. He is a coward. Kind of typical. It accomplished something, but certainly 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 by being calm and passionless and even haughty in the face of death. Ideally, the rituals 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 of what most people think dueling is. The point of a duel was not to kill your opponent. Right . It is easy to assume that. Two men are going to a field to shoot each other, probably one wants to kill of the other. But that was not the point of a duel. 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 proving your willingness to risk your life for your honor as was your opponent. People didnt have 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. That is particularly true in duels between politicians which i will explain in a minute. Rules are usually not too serious. I remember finding a newspaper kind of poking fun at a recent duel. And it said Something Like, he suffered a wound in that fashionable area, the shin. [laughter] so there are a lot of shin wounds. The point of a duel is to prove you are willing to die for your honor. Not to kill the man who dishonored you. Whoin fact the dualist killed his opponent often fell victim to such outrage that he had to flee the state. In many ways, a duelist who killed his opponent was a failed duelist, because rather than redeeming his reputation, he risked damaging it. Now once you understand political dueling in this way, so once you see that all of these letters and negotiations are really a ritualized part of an affair of honor that might lead to a duel, you discover that there were many affairs of honor in america, more than most people assume. So for example, Alexander Hamilton was involved in at least 10 affairs of honor. So at least 10 times, he got into some kind of a dispute with someone. They had the ritualized negotiations. In some cases they came near fighting, but he did not end up going to the dueling ground. He even negotiated himself out of a fight with aaron burr before. 10 is a lot for someone to be involved in affairs of honor. Tells you something about hamilton. In new york city alone in the 12 years surrounding the burr hamilton duel, there were at least 17 other Political Affairs of honor. In other words, the burrhamilton duel was not a grand exception, but rather part of a larger trend. Now when you look at these other honor disputes and duels, look see,a historian, what do i do you see a pattern . You do see patterns. First, you noticed that a lot of these 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 that many of them , were deliberately 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 have got yourself a duel. And in most cases, and this is the really striking point, the loser of the election, or one of his friends, would find a way to provoke the 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 tongue, 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. American duels, sometimes they would be summarized in newspapers, they would Say Something like mr. X met mr. Y on a field of honor and with men behaved honorably. The subject would be, both men behaved honorably and they are fit to be leaders and you should vote for them in a selection. 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 some time, or 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, burr lost his 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 does not redeem his reputation. Why should his followers follow him . He must do something. So burr did. After losing the new york elections, he was looking for a way to redo his reputation. Low 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 exactly apologize. In the end, both men felt insulted during the negotiations and obviously, they ended up duelng. 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. 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 went back to his job once the coast was clear. 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. It is interesting, because a lot of them say things like, it 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 republic. 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 was not duels or even duel negotiations. Most of the violence was pushing, shoving, gunfights, fistfights, mass brawls. In the course of my research, i found 70 physically violent incidents in the house and senate between 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. Took me many years to write this book because i had to uncover the violence, almost 100 of the time when i would say to people i am 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. Some of the violence in the 70 was a that i found product of the fact that the u. S. Was violent in these decades. 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. One wasnt necessarily better than the other when it came to violence, but dueling became southern. In congress, that made a difference. 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 assumed that their constituents back home thought it was barbaric and southern and would not want their representative to take 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 humiliated on the floor of congress. I want to show you an example of this in action. In 1838, one congressman killed another in a duel, the only time one congressman killed another. Launched duel was a clash between democrats and whigs on the house floor. A southern whig who tried to intimidate a northern democrat defendants. The southerner who was using intimidation to get his way was named henry wise, a 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 was not a back alley brawler, he was an educated man who went 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, he strides into the house, with a newspaper above his head and announces, i have your proof that the democrats are corrupt. A main democrat, jonathan suey, who was in his first year in congress immediately stood up in protest and insisted, that is not true, democrats are not corrupt. At this, wise slowly and dramatically turned around to face him and with a sneer on his face said, are you calling me a liar . [laughing] dr. Freeman thank you. Excellent with sound effects. That is precisely what he was doing. Suey immediately knew this was moving into duel territory and he immediately backed down. But in the process of backpedaling, he insulted a newspaper editor. Through a series of details i will not go into, there ended up being a duel. The important part of the story actions inwise relation to him. Wise taunted him knowing full well that as a northerner, he would not want to fight the duel. So wise could score an easy point against a democrat. In fact, during the later duel negotiations, sealy discussed the fact that he did not want a duel, but his constituents disapproved of it, but he didnt feel he could back down because by doing so, he could dishonor himself and all he represented. In my book, i refer to this as the northern congressmans dilemma. I dont want a duel, but if i am in this situation, i cannot turn around and back down because that will humiliate me and my constituents dont want that either. It was a difficult spot to be in. It influenced debate on the floor. Northerners resigned from committees when bullied by southerners. They refuse to confront southerners because of it. There is a great diary entry from an ohio congressman who is new to congress who is describing what he sees. He says, there was a southern congressman who was getting a per diem that he should not have been getting as a congressman. A fellow from ohio says, thats not right. He goes up to his friends of his from ohio and says, why are none of you stepping up and saying, protesting that he should not be getting that money . His friends respond, he has a dueling character so we will not do that. There it is, really blatant. Of course, that process of intimidation and threatening and silencing people was a very handy thing to have in play when the issue of slavery came up. Issue which southerners had a lot to say and northerners kept being put in a difficult situation again and again and again. What you see is that all these years after the burrhamilton duel, dueling was still a form of politics which said a lot about a politicians character. 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 in this period and together, they spread news of what was happening in Congress Faster and further than ever before. So, southern bullying and duel taunting potentially had a more powerful national impact. It is interesting, it has been an interesting time in American History to come up with a book on politicians behaving badly and physical violence between politicians. It took me so long to write it that i could not have known that this moment would be the moment when my book came out, but one of the things i found striking when i was finishing up the book was that there was a chapter in the book about the telegraph, a new form of technology. Information spreading quickly. Congressmen suddenly do not control the spin. The public is learning all kinds of things and they cannot tell what is true or false. Conspiracy. Conspiracy theories start to spread because of the confusion. It is so easy to spread them. If you think about it, the telegraph did what social media does today, which is, politics is basically a conversation between politicians and the public, these forms of technology that scramble that conversation, it makes perfect sense that they potentially scramble the working of democracy as well. The telegraph and social media was not a comparison i thought i would make but it is a striking one. Because of the telegraph and other things that were spreading news much more quickly than ever before and much further than ever before of what was going on in congress, he worried throughout the negotiations, what are new england are going to think if i duel or if i dont duel . And wise knew that his constituents would be proud of a duel tongling defend what he represented. He even said so. Henry wise is not only my most frequentfighter, but he always said what he was not supposed to say. Someone would do something, threaten someone, and wise would stand up and said, this is like the last five times that it happened. And i would be a happy historian because i had five other times. He is that guy. So someone in Congress Says to wise, you should be ashamed of yourself. Shame on you. We should throw you out. And wise responded, do it. Go 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, he was right. This is a period when people cycled in and out of congress, sometimes serving one term, maybe two. Wise was reelected at least six times, which was unusual. 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 general terms about a slave power. There was one. In congress, southerners had a cultural advantage because of dueling culture, and the political advantage of extra representation because of the 3 5 compromise. I am sort of leaning towards the latter part of my comments here. What i want to do at this point is talk about a remarkable document that is going to help us look at how things changed, because they dont continue percolating along in congress identically for all these decades, and the change is important. And at the very end, i want to answer a question i get asked all the time when i talk about this topic. But first, the document, because it is an extraordinary document. It shows how the dynamics of dueling as i just described it in congress, percolated along for a while until the mid1850s, 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 that they would fight the slave power. In congress, that had a real meaning to it. Some republicans in the 1850s were fighting men, unlike northerners who came before. They came to congress armed, they stood up to bullying, and they said so often. So when you read in the time periods, you see northerners rise to their feet when being bullied and they will say things like, you cant say that about me. I am a different kind of northerner. I am here to stand up, not to bow down. I am a different kind of person. I will not take this. You better be careful. So, clearly, the arrival of the Republican Party and these different kind of northerners changed the dynamics of bullying in congress but it also confronted republicans with a difficult decision. What should they do when confronted with duels or challenges or insults aimed at provoking a duel . It is one thing to stand up to southerners, but fighting a duel . When it came to their constituents, it probably crossed a line. The document i found was addressing this specific problem. It was a formal statement signed by three Republican Congressmen, simon cameron, Benjamin Franklin wade and zachariah chandler. It tells a story of a decision about dueling that they made 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 this in the statement. They could not stand the humiliation of being insulted any longer they couldnt bear the fact that southern bullying was intimidating northerners into silence. As they put it into the document, it was an unendurable outrage that made them frantic with shame. So these three men decided in this, when confronted by southerners, they would be willing to fight. Willing to fight them to the coffin. So we should not be doing this, but we will. In the statements, they said we knew that this would ostracize us at 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. What is striking about that statement is that it exists. It shows the northerners attesting to what dueling meant and the situation they were in and the decision they made. As a historian, the part that struck me was why they made the statement. It is signed by all three men. It explains at the end of the document, they had put this down on paper to explain to posterity what it once took to be in favor of liberty and to express such sentiment and to be in favor of liberty 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, essentially, they were talking to me and anyone else who was studying them. They basically were saying, look at what this felt like. Look how difficult this was. You wont see it unless we point to it. So, here. Have a document, joanne freeman. It is really handy and you can read a book. Amazingly, a powerful document. For these three duelists in the 1850s, dueling still had power. And although they did not end up fighting duels, their willingness to do so served as proof of their character much in the same way it had served for burr and hamilton. And to some degree, the simple fact they were willing to duel tamed some of their southern colleagues down. They were slightly less willing to bully northerners after the three men made their declarations. But even that was not really enough to make a difference in the years between 1855 and 1860 were the most violent years in the history of congress, and of course, we will know well know what came next. I want to close by answering an obvious question, which i am asked all the time, which is, when does this change and how . What happens after the civil war . This certainly does not go on. Part of the answer as to when does it change and how, has to do with the fact that after the civil war, the dynamics of congress shifted. Now, northerners had power. For example, when one southerner during a debate about southern readmitted to the union attempted to be violent during a 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 . That is a powerful statement to make. It really shows you northerners flaunting a kind of power that they did not 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. Before i close and open things up to questions, which i will do in a moment, i want to throw something out there in case folks are interested. This is a biographical series of lectures. I spoke in a general way about duelists, one thing i didnt talk about because he was not a duelist, is the main character at the heart of my book, who basically enabled me to write this story because of how he changed from that period at the beginning of the book to that period at the end. His name is Benjamin Brown french. I thank him all the time because i really could not have told his story without him. I would be happy to talk about that as well. I dont know if it is a great life, but it is a significant life. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you, joanne. This is a little out of the ordinary that we do these things. We usually wait till the very end. But i want you to see this now, to point out that this will be our topic on tuesday, this coming tuesday. Because it was rescheduled. On the original schedules printed, this was supposed to be february 13. Could not do it then. Had to reschedule. Bear in mind, we will have a lecture next tuesday night on John Quincy Adams. The title of the book is the problem of democracy. I hope you will all be here for that. All right. Are we ready for questions . Questions. If you will raise your hand and stand if you will, and ask the ask aas to sing 20 question as distinctly as possible. We will take as many as we can. Ok . How many duels actually stopped when the duelists were on the field with their guns question mark how many with their guns . How many clicked and decided to negotiate there . When you were a dualist, were you required to shoot somebody, injure them to kill them, or should them to not kill them . Dr. Freeman the first question is how many negotiated their way out of a dual duel . Occasionally, that happened. Sometimes, the way it would work is you would exchange firearms than the seconds would talk to each other and say, is honor satisfied . This person is offended, does he feel satisfied now . If the answer was yes, they would shake hands and go away. Occasionally, they managed to talk something out on the field that they have not done before. That is not that common. But the second half of your question, it is particularly interesting, what were they trying to do when they were shooting . If the point of a duel, as i suggested earlier, is to prove you are willing to die for your honor, if your opponent shoots his gun in the air, he is depriving you of that. There is a reason why there are a lot of shin wounds. People are not trying to kill each other, they are generally shooting in each others directions. They are not the worlds most accurate weapons. So it was not 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 were a lot of leg wounds. The people who were killed, in the case of the burrhamilton duel, burr shoots, hamilton is hit and burrs first instinct is to run towards him. Before, when his second has to he should bring as a doctor, he said, we will not be doctors, let us 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, which was still in effect in the 1970s when i went into the legislature, that you had to swear you had never fought in a duel or offered duels. Dr. Freeman that is really interesting. In the kentucky state constitution that said, if you were going into the legislature, you had to swear that you had never fought a duel. State officials. That is really interesting. Because in the period that i am speaking about, from burr in hamilton and all the way through, dueling was illegal. The people doing the dueling were the lawmakers. They were elite and they felt that they could violate those laws with impunity. There were people who were arrested for dueling but they werent members of congress and elite folks. What is interesting about the question about swearing that you wouldnt duel, one of the ways in which antidueling folks tried to push their agenda was that sort of thing, basically saying to constituents, dont vote for duelists. Or to legislatures, put something in there that says people will say or do they will not do it. It was a way to solve the problem. But they very much recognized along the lines of what were talking about, right, we are talking about men representing constituents and doing the things they feel they need to do to represent them. If those people say, you do this and you are outcome of that is going to have influence. Questions here. Really enjoyed your talk tonight, but i guess after watching the debates last night, i figured that as time went by, the desert of nevada would be full this morning. You mainly talked about politicians and the ruling class, for lack of a better word. With the local whitcher and blacksmith solve a problem like this in the south, and did the ladies ever pull out little pistols . I will answer the second question first, which is, did women ever get involved. Not with pistols. Some of them would learn in advance that there was a dual and try to intervene. As a matter of fact, one of hamiltons near jewels duel s, i dont know if it was his wife, but summit he finds out he says i have to work this out, it has become complicated. His opponent said Something Like, i think you would have control of your wife so we can do this. Women sometimes intervened. They certainly had power, personal power and cultural power, but you cant say i know of a lot of duals that were cast aside in that way. This relates to your other question, what about nonelite folk . 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 duelists. Those arent the guys i write about. What is fascinating to me is that everybody understood the rules and implications of dueling and 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 there ended up, one man ended up killing the other man on the street and there ended up being a trial. Everyone who was on the street or saw it testifying. And they testify to what they saw and what they were thinking. Barrel makers, candle makers, a barber, every level of society. In one way or another, what they all say is i saw that newspaper thing where one was going attack the other. I came personally to the street because something is going to happen here because it has to happen. I saw it 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 that is difficult to find. The testimony in this trial really proved it. As he said, thank you for a great evening. Prof. Freeman thank you. 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. A couple years after the republicans, lincoln was elected, they said that was it. Did they really make a statement that affected the whole Republican Party . Prof. Freeman thats an interesting question. You are right that those three men Benjamin Franklin wade came into congress with a gun and put it down on his desk. Thats a statement, right. Here you go, im not like those northerners in the past. 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 the 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. And 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 the northerner and the northerner hits him first and flattens him. What happens in this moment shows you that things have changed, but they havent. Southerners who see one of their streamttened begin to across the house, dozens at a time. Republican northerners who see southerners running to the point of combat begin jumping over desks and chairs to get to the spot to help their fellow and in the end, there is a huge brawl, 30 guys punching each other, throwing spittoons, a real brawl congressmanen one grabs anothers hair and it comes off because its a toupee. [laughter] i love it because slapstick is eternal. It goes all the way back. On the one hand, thats a really striking moment in which north and south are battling in the space in front of the speakers chair. There is a reporter that says it looks like a battle. So on the one hand the dynamic is really different, but the southerners arent scared, theyre unsettled and trying to figure out what to do to maintain the grip of what they had before. What is interesting along the lines of what youre suggesting, think about what this long tradition of northerners who wont fight, think about what that did for southerners and what they were up against and the war started. There are a lot of statements of southerners giving speeches in the south and they say things like, you 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. Question here, joanne. Hi, out of curiosity, did the dueling culture have any sort of impact on the whole stereotypical wild west dueling . Prof. Freeman interesting question. The relation between dueling and gunfight. Ld west certainly 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, and a signal and they both grab a gun and shoot. So there is a it feels very similar to a duel, but what is striking, at some point early in my project, i was looking to see how dueling and death and duels progress across the country, right. Theyre happening on the east coast and what happens as the nation moves west. What i found was just before statehood, there would be more gun fights, more duels, there would be more violence. If its coming from the same sort of idea. 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 are like, oh, yeah, im better to you, no, im better to you. We better show it now. Sooner or later there will 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 that youre proving your honor and your skill, but in shootouts, i think more people are dying than in duelling, which really is more about the display. You said that dueling was illegal. What exactly was illegal, the fact that a group of men were peaceably assembling on a certain spot, the fact that one man had a gun, the fact that two men had guns which they were entitled to bear arms, the fact, you said they were not trying to kill each other and if there was no killing, what was illegal . Prof. Freeman good question. It differed in different states. Sometimes it was sending and receiving a challenge that was illegal. Sometimes, i think there was a second example that was just in my mind and just left my mind. Sometimes it had to do with meeting for the purpose to a dueling ground. There were different sort of tweaks that were assigned if you did those things, you were liable for dueling. A great example is a document i found at the New York Historical society about the burrhamilton duel. Triedburrs second was for being in the dual. He took notes at his trial and what people are trying to prove, he knew a challenge had been sent or he saw a duel taking place, both of those things would have been legally problematic. What is fascinating is, they get all of these people to testify, so the doctor who was on the ground testifies, the boatman who rowed them across testifies. And the doctor, its very clear , that anyone who knows hamilton lyrics, this is the document that led to the lyrics. The document the doctor testifies and he is asked what did you see and he says, well i had my back to the dueling ground, i didnt see anything. I was looking out at the water. I heard two shots, but i have no idea what happened. They carried the guns in a sack , so during the trial when people are asked, did you see weapons, nope. I didnt see any weapons. So in a way theyre 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. These are all of the sorts of things that make this fascinating to me and ill explain actually the document. So the document actually leads to the lyric in the hamilton song. Its kind of striking. Its in my book, its in my first book, i talk about the rules of dueling and when i went to see the play, i heard that line, there is a line in a song about the rules of dueling that says the doctor turns his back so he can have deniability. I was at the show with a historian friend and i said thats my document thats my document [laughter] i latereeman discovered that, yeah, Linmanuel Miranda had read my book and it had inspired parts of that song. What is fascinating about that, those arent things that are commonly known, the ways these guys are trying to get around the laws so they can engage in the behavior that was important to them but illegal in all of these small ways. A question back here. Thank you. To go back to the question of how women interacted with dueling culture, im thinking chernowson hamilton biography, he talks about when the reynolds affair came forward, how eliza hamilton was bousted, was there a woman to respond to an attack on her honor on that level . Prof. Freeman really interesting question, was there a way for women to respond to attacks on their honor . Not that they could get pistols and go to the dueling ground, they werent part of that culture. John adams and a woman and a historian who really has a public presence in the late 18th century and she does some things that kind of make john adams feel dishonored and its clear he somehow or other wants to make his own or feel better. Warren writes to a male friend and she is like, now what i do . This is not my realm. The male friend has to 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 was an insult in the street that maybe lots of people didnt see, maybe it wouldnt matter. If a woman was there, thats it, right. 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 female equivalent of dueling. I once found an article in the late 18th century magazine of sorts and it was basically arguing, you know, men have this handy thing called a duel that they settle their disputes and shake hands and theyre done. Women dont have anything like that. We dont get to shake hands and be done with any of our fights. Really interesting article and it is kind of a long 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 duelist of caustic character . Prof. Freeman indeed. I was focused on congress and in that sense, i was not really focused on jackson. However, the fact that he was a prolific duelist, that he advertised that about himself in some ways, that was held against him by particularly northerners, he is bad because he is a duelist. Among other people, that made him a kind of leader. He represents an interesting kind of moment when ideas about leadership in america are kind of shifting. So his dueling is sort of a pro and a con for jackson, but its more of a pro. It impresses people. It makes him a leader in a more graphic and violent way than i have been talking about. The character in the center of my book, Benjamin Brown french, he knows jackson. In his diary, he spends a lot of time saying he fought a lot of duels, he is quite a guy, he is impressive. Jackson as a duelist is a little scary. Some of his duels were not explicitly political, sometimes it had to do with one lawyer attacking another or something, but i went to the smithsonian room where they have weapons of various sorts because i want to do see what all of these weapons that i was writing about looked like. They had a table of duelling pistol sets. Most sets are beautiful and carved with all kinds of little ivory things for show and most people dont ever use them. If they do, they use them once. Andrew jacksons dueling pistols were like death weapons. There was nothing for show, they were just bonk, they stood out on the table as being something that really was there for use as opposed to a handy thing to display. He was a different kind of a politician and his rise really changed the nature of politics in a lot of ways. Here is a question. Thanks for just an absolutely enlightening presentation. The context of your presentation kind of goes to whats next. Its been said that the strategist figures out to win the war, the grand strategist figures out the piece of as the war. Lincoln assassinated, johnson takes over. He is no match as a southern democrat for the northerners. Came grant. N, in at what point in time, i would assume as you were saying the republicans came in, hey, we arent going to take that any more, you have a warrior as the head of the executive branch. Through force of personality was he able to dig into that more than just the presence of Republican Congress but not only having the grand strategist there, but the warrior as well . Prof. Freeman thats an interesting question. I didnt go far enough to focus on grant as president , however, above and beyond what im talking about dueling culture, back to our first president , there is military men as president s and that matters. Jefferson when he runs for president , thats held against him. He was never a military man. He was governor of virginia, he fled from the british, he is bad, it comes up in all of these contests. Its an issue because it supposedly said something about character and being able to defend the nation. And thats, i mean, in a way, thats a long tread in American Leadership and in particular what people look for in president s. So jackson is part of that same tradition, not John Quincy Adams. I saw a, like a Campaign Broadside when jackson and John Quincy Adams were running against each other for president. It said Something Like vote for the man who can fight, not for the man who can write. [laughter] prof. Freeman so that shows you sort of jacksons persona. So it mattered, that sort of thing mattered 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. When i was a young man long ago, i was in europe and i sort of had a brush with the fraternity that was part of their tradition had to do with dueling and the scar on the face and the operation of the second man to protect them and so on. Could you or did you get into that and could you give us a little feedback on that . Prof. Freeman sure. I didnt write about it, but in the process of looking at america, i was looking at dueling and honor culture in other places to be able to compare. You are absolutely right. What i talked about in my talk is different in the u. S. Versus europe, americans advertising duels in the newspaper to make a point about their leadership. Democratic duels in a sense. That was one big difference. But also in not every nation, but certainly in some european nations, dueling went on as serving a real social culture long after the period that im talking about in the United States. However, this was sword dueling, this was not guns. So you could have a dueling scar and have that be something that really shows youre a certain kind of man and youre 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 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 the United States. In the United States they were never using 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 in europe. Since aaron burr was Vice President when he killed Alexander Hamilton, was there any attempt by congress to impeach him . Prof. Freeman impeachment, i didnt expect that to come up. [laughter] prof. Freeman so thats interesting. There was a mixed response. Aaron burr killed hamilton, he was gone for a while in South Carolina and he reappears and presides over the senate again. Some federalists, hamiltonian federalists, want to do something on the act that he is there. They are horrified that they are being presided over by this guy that killed one of their supremes. 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, these sort of individual laws about what is or isnt illegal to really take that out on burr, to really like get him in legal trouble for what he did. What is interesting in congress, i dont remember how many, i want to say like 15 or 20 republicans, jeffersonian Republican Congressman sign a statement in response to that that basically says we never punish people for dueling, why are you taking this out on burr, its not fair. Really striking. So, again, i know i said it before, the logic of this is so fascinating and so powerful and so sort of counterintuitive and backward, thats a great example. Lawmakers and members of congress signing a statement say we know its illegal, we dont punish people for this. Why are you punishing burr . It is a striking example of the type of culture im talking about. One of my students has a question. I was wondering if in your research you came across the, i dont remember if it came like an actual duel, but a challenge between Abraham Lincoln and one of his contemporaries in illinois, shields . Yeah. Freeman shields, so thats interesting. It is 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 the one hand as its kind of a joke, that it wasnt serious. People talk about the facts that lincoln got to pick weapons so he chose swords that were long and his arms are longer so he could reach the other guy and the other guy couldnt reach him. That is one way of talking about it. There is a book that actually, this fellow was writing it when i had a particular fellowship, doug wilson, i think its honors call or Something Like that. When we talked about this incident, we ended up feeling like there was seriousness to it, that it wasnt just a joke, they dont necessarily end up dueling but when you look at what they were doing, they were taking it seriously and thinking about what they were doing and as i suggested, you dont have to go to a dueling ground to make a point, right. You just have to show yourself to be a certain kind of person and to be willing to do something during the negotiations. If you have a good second, they can kind of stop things that way before they get to the dueling ground. A good example, i never heard of that. All right, i think we are out of time, so lets give our thanks to joanne, thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] youre watching American History tv, covering history cspan style with event coverage, eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures in college classrooms, and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend, every weekend on cspan three. [faint street noises] you can watch archival films on Public Affairs each week on our series reel america, saturday and sunday on American History tv. Heres a quick look at a recent program. Viruses, and there are many different kinds of them, can be scattered with every particle of saliva and mucus. When one sneezes or coughs, for example. Dont think for a moment that coproducing viruses are only spread by sneezing and coughing. If by some magic the tiny particles of saliva and mucus could be made visible as a black smudge, we would quickly realize how many other ways we are apt to scatter bacteria and viruses around us. For instance, jane has a cold. Smudge. That look at the germs on the doorknob. Here is bobs hand picking them up. Bob with his hand covered with germs from the doorknob, transfers them to a book. Habit ofng the bad wetting her finger to turn pages, carries the book to her mom. She then passes them along with a pencil to ann, who carries them home and leave them on the family dinner table. Yes, even during an ordinary conversation, saliva and mucus particles escape our mouth and reach each other as we inhale them. Remember how breath becomes visible on a cold day. How then, with so many germs around us can we avoid having cold all the time . Fortunately, our body has defenses against this enemy. Normally we breathe to our nose. The nose as well as the sinuses and the throat are lined with a delicate membrane. If under a microscope you look at the lining of the nose, we call it the nasal membrane, you can say it is covered with tiny moving threads. They move back and forth like stalks of grain when the wind goes over a field. They are covered with a warm, moist sticky substance called mucus. The nose usually secretes about a quarter a court of this liquid every 24 hours. This mucus i warming and moistening the air we breathe, prepares a for our lungs. It also catches and destroys microorganisms like bacteria and viruses. If you have a cold, dont stay in school, because if you do, you may send others home with your cold. If you have a cold, stay home. Stay in bed. This is the prescription which common sense sense and medical science recommend. Only those your doctor prescribed. You can watch archival films on Public Affairs in their entirety on our weekly series reel america, saturday and sunday here on American History tv. 75 years ago in early 1945, u. S. Marines invaded the Pacific Island of iwo jima and fought Japanese Forces in one of the bloodiest contests of world war ii. Herschel Woody Williams reflects on the battle and the sacrifices made by american soldiers throughout history. He was one of two dozen americans to win the congressional medal of honor for actions on iwo jima. The National Museum of the marine corps hosted the event. All of the men who fought on iwo our heroes, and all of the men who fought in world war ii are heroes and pave the way for the way of life we have today. Jima, 22 marines receive the medal of honor. If there is a historian in the room and i got that wrong, tell me later. [laughter] of those medal of honor recipients with us. Am correct in saying that herschel Woody Williams is