Corporate kind of support along with matt from so many of you as individuals that enables the great lives series to thrive. So i would like to ask our good friends from the law firm trust so we can acknowledge them. [applause] also, a special group tonight that i would like to knowledge, that is the simpson circle, a group composed of former Mary Washington members. We are here tonight and we would like to have them stand so we can acknowledge them. 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 phd 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 has subsequently has 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, 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 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 National Book award from the society of historians of the early american republic. 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 dust 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. It 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, knives, duelsns, and threats of duals. With painstaking research, she penetrates the conspiracy of silence imposed by forces 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 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 talk,ou this evening to 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 good many decades, i have really good reasons 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 in black powder dueling pistol. Now thanks to the policeman who was supervising my target practice, i was very your shields and plastic goggles, trying to take something which kind of took something away from the 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 result, theys a 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 allocations, who based their careers on public opinion. In early america, it really was character and reputation that qualified you for public office, or talents. Ls 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 deserving proof elf a 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 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. Negotiations,h 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 caring that person to challenge you to a duel. These words included some that were logical like liar,. Oward two have lost their zing, rascal and scoundrel. They were serious in the 18th century. And my personal favorite, puppy. Someoneit is insulting and suggesting a man is a effeminate and a toy. It was a serious insult although it is hard to consider that today. Everyone at knew that that assaulting 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 their would be best to ignore the kind of dare would be to insult yourself. 1797. Ok place in Alexander Hamilton and james monroe became involved in a controversy. Hamilton believed that munro had leaked some damaging information to the press, and he was outraged. So he decided that he would go s munros house monroe house to demand and its donation. He wrote a note to munro to say, i hear you have done xyz. I am coming to your home fun information and i am bringing a friend. Or in other words, a second, a duel assistant in case they are talking and in these to something more serious. A you are monroe and you have note saying that someone is coming to your house with a friend, that means you are in dueling territory. He immediately knew that now we have moved into a realm where something bad might happen. Monro went and got a friend for himself. Luckily for us, monros 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. Logical was a really thinker who clearly wanted to rehearse the entire history of the controversy step by step lawyer would. Himoe kept interrupting 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, hamilton clearly getting redder and redder and monroe getting ice year and ice hamilton bluntly accused one row of leaking the information. One row denied it, hamilton said, this as your representation is totally false. He is not using the l d, or saying, you are a liar, he is just being careful with his words. Even though he did not use the , 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 a line had been crossed. As soon as the words left hamiltons mouth, both men jumped to their feet. Monroe responded by taking hamiltons there and pushing it one step further. He said, you say i represented falsely . You are a scoundrel. Grasps] [laughter] freeman thank you for the sound effect. Hamilton responded by saying, i will meet you like a gentleman. Meaning, i am ready to duel. Monroy replied, i am ready, get your pistols. Him downends called 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 honored disputes. Tempers,ost their which is not help men of honor were supposed to behave. Most disputes followed really predictable ritualist steps. In a more conventional ritualized steps. In a more conventional dispute, a gentleman would have written a formal letter to the other with five basic statements. The first would have said, i am told you insulted me and you said xyz. It would have recorded precisely the words recorded this is what i am told you said. Third, the letter would ask, is this true or false . Fourth, it would ask, do you have in the nation for this . An fifth would demand, 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 in form letter. It is an alarm bell. Whoever was offended was ready to fight. It gave the recipient a chance to explain himself or deny the insult or apologize. And sometimes that happened. , as soonthis point on 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 one row did. Rom and monroy for months, they exchanged said, readyach one 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. This goes on for months and in the end both men walk away and say, well, i showed him. Something butd not something easy for us to see with the distance of time. The negotiating process was extremely ritualized because it enabled those involved to really display their honor, their superior character, i being calm and passionless and even haughty in the face of death. Ideally, the ritual of dueling allowed honor to be satisfied without any balance. Aspect ofe come to an dueling that is really counterintuitive. 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. Field tooing into a 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 he went to the dueling ground, i standing there, you are proving your willingness to risk your life for your honor as with your opponent. Tople didnt had to die redeem their reputation, they didnt even have to get to the theirg ground to redeem reputation dependent on negotiations. Obviously, in that kind of situation, debts were relatively were relatively rare in duels. 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. [laughter] there are a lot of shin wounds. The point of a dualistic prove you are willing to die for your is to prove you are willing to die for your honor. Often fell victim to such outrage that he had to state. He in. Many ways, into a list who killed his opponent was a failed dualist, 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 which alleged 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 came near fighting, but he did not end up going to the drooling ground. He even negotiated himself out of a fight with berenberaa ron burr before. 10 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. In other words, the burrhamilton duel was not a grand exception, but rather part of a larger trend. When you look at these other duels, you do see patterns. First, you noticed that a lot of these occurred shortly after an election. Discoveringemember 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, you discover that many of them were predictably 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. Ou 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 due a duel. 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. Are is why these details 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. Duels,merican political 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, or pop lost his election for governor of new york with hamilton campaigning against him. Losing, after 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. Berg did not redeem his urrutation, if mr. B does not redeem his repetition, why should his followers follow him . He must do something. Or pop 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. Clipping toe 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 doing. 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 duell. 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 condemning as a murderer and press 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. Deathshat vocationally happened in dueling, he just went back to his job once the coast was clear. , in reading the letters of men who were in the room, congressmen and senators who were in the room when burr came back to my 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. , it isuld see basically 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. Some americanw 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