Starts here. That tradition that military tradition, and its usually important. So one thing i do, when i do military history, as i theres a modern phrase, im not a fan of the phrase, because it gets misconstrued. It is too impersonal, it makes you forget that there are real men real women, who are wearing these boots, who are off doing things, to be able to keep us safe. Right. We need to remember that. So every time we fight about it, we have the boots, here to remind us of those people. And like i said its been a long time, 250 years since we fought this war with these guys, with george with a continental army. We need to honor their sacrifice. We need a new tier. You all voted for independence, and so we cant yell god save us anymore. But in 1775 will yield hustle. The 18th century way. We yelled hip hazza. Company dismissed. Hello everybody good evening, welcome to tonights presentation. Also special bus tonight, they would like to acknowledge that this is simpson circle, that is a group comport composed of members so lets acknowledge them. And introducing tonight speaker, doctor john freeman, id like to mention at the outset, that one of her most commendable qualifications is she received her ph. D. From the university. That is right, uva, in any case not long after receiving that degree, she was recognized as one of the nations top historians. She subsequently, has achieved widespread recognition as a scholar of the revolutionary, and national periods of American History she is the author of numerous subjects, the journal of policy history and other journals she is written opted pieces for the New York Times has appeared in numerous documentaries on pbs and npr and bbc we have seen or just the last week on the History Channel on the series and with george washington. She has written several books including the study of Alexander Hamilton, also affairs of honor, national politics, one of the best book award, for the society of historians for early american. The base of tonight venture is field of blood published in 2018. With regard to that book, they wrote that with insightful analysis and vivid detail, she explores the human relationships, before the civil war, and find a culture of astonishing violence, and fistfights, jewels and mass brawls, her innovative account detects steps towards this union, and changes how we think of political history. Another prominent historian wrote, she describes many of situations of congressional violence, bullying, fighting in the house of congress, threats of jewels, with painstaking research, she penetrates the conspiracy of silence, by sources reluctant to the truth. Such an important story should not have waited so long to be told. We are honored that she will stare that share that story with us as we welcome doctor joanne freeman. 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 History. It will not surprise you to learn as for somebody who was studying Alexander Hamilton for many decades, i have had a good reason to study doing. Over years i have watched reenactments of dueling in one case standing close enough to the action to get spluttered by hamiltons blood really being up close and personal with the subject another case, i had a chance to shoot a black powdered doing play still. Thanks to the policeman who is overseeing the practice, i was wearing your shields and goggles at the time, which took away from the historical accuracy of the 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 dual is one thing understanding doing is another because when you get right down to it doing doesnt make sense one person insulting other 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 now. Is there a risk of life and limb, definitely yes. So what is the logic of dueling and what drove americans to become duellists. Or put it another way giving doings lack of logic why did hundreds and hundreds of american men reason their way onto a dueling ground and that is what i want to explore with you this evening and im going to do that in two parts. First i will briefly look at how american dueling really works and the logic behind it and i note that i am talking about american doing here it, is different than america than european doing, but in one key way, that i will talk about later. And im going to focus on specific duellists, and look at how they put doing into practice and why. No one of the first things that i really had to grapple with discussing dueling, is the concept of honor in early america any gentlemen you assumed his honor with his most valuable possession. To be dishonourable you lose your manhood or your status. To be a shame to do to see your family friends. Honor was more important for public politician who base their careers on public opinion. Elections went to the men 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 need to have the right sort of reputation so for an early american politician honor was not just some kind of vague sense of self worth if represented his ability to prove himself a deserving political leader so it was practical in some ways and in a sense were gonna be coming back to that. Among men who were so touchy about the reputations rules of behavior were very important and that makes sense if you think about it where insults can really have such grave consequences or the wrong word might be to the dueling ground they have to be clearly defined rules and standards so the accidental insults and violence can be avoided. The rules of honor the code of honor sit a clear standards of conduct certain words that youre supposed to avoid certain actions you are supposed to avoid, and one line was crossed an honor was offended the code of honored offered a regular regulated way to settle the dispute. For example there were a number of what i call for myself alarm bell words, words that you could never use in relation to another gentleman because it was almost like tearing that person to challenge you to a dual, these words included some that were logical liar and coward, they seem to be alarm bell words and to have lost losing rascal and scoundrel and probably not going to shoot someone over the today but there are serious back then, am i perfect my favorite. I guess its insulting to someone,. Everyone knew insulting a man with one of those words was like just like challenging him to a dual. It was a deer that remanded demand a response. And to ignore that there would be to dishonor yourself. I want to show you an example of one of those actually to those words inaction so this takes place in 1797 and Alexander Hamilton and james mineral local guy james monroe became involved in a controversy. Hamilton believed that monroe had leaked some damaging information to the press. He was outraged. So he decided he would go to monroes house to demand an explanation and he wrote a note to monroe that said i heard you have done xyz im coming to your home for an explanation i am bringing a friend or another words a second. A doing assistant and kasich top ends up leading to something more serious if you are monroe and you hads a note this is somebody is coming to your house with a friend, that means you are in dueling territory. Now youre in the realm or something bad might happen so monroe went and got a friend for himself and lucky for us, monroes friend recorded the entire conversation which 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 the can tell right off the cuff they hate each other hamilton was else also a logical thinker who clearly wanted to rehearse the entire history of the controversy like a lawyer would monroe kept interrupting incomplete frustration saying i know already ive lived through this can you get going and hamilton would begin again at the beginning of his account so things got worse as the conversation went on it didnt take long for both men ultimately to lose their patience with hamilton clearly getting redder and redder admiral getting ice here in i. C. E. Here 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 quote this as your representation is totally false he is not using the l word and hes not say you are a liar but hes basically saying youre a liar he has to be very careful with his words. Even though he did not use the buzzword, his accusation was serious enough to have a big impact, and what happened at that moment is fascinating because as soon as hamilton said that, this is a reputation is so false it was clear the line had been crossed, as soon as the words left his mouth they both jump to their feet now the two minute assumed they were going to be involved in an affair of honor, so they pushed it one step further he said do you say i represent falsely you are a scoundrel thank you for the sound effects thats exactly what someone wouldve said hamilton responded as any man of honor whatever smollett saying i will meet you like a gentleman meeting i ready to duel monroe replied im ready to get your pistols at which point the two mens friends, separated them and calm them down and basically convince them to act, as if some of what happened hadnt happened so they could negotiate. As i just suggested this incident unfolded much more quickly than thought. The two men lost their temper, and thats not how a man of honor was posed to behave. They followed predictable ritualized steps in a more conventional dispute a person who felt insulted would have written a form letter to the oath that the other and would have five statements first would say im told you insulted me in this way. And it would suggest what the insult was then it would be quoted very precisely the words quoted to me are, this is what you said 30 letter would ask is it true or false have you done this was a vow it or deny it forth it would ask do you have an explanation for this and fit it would demand an Immediate Response typically by saying Something Like i demand in responses man of honor saw if you get that that is a dual to be form letter whoever got at the other had been offended and the writer was ready to fight. You can see how that would give the recipient a chance to explain himself or deny or apologize and sometimes that happened. But from this point on as you receive that kind of whether you are engaged in a fair hotter which any word or action could be fragile and this is typically the point where each man would appoint a second to represent him somebody that was trying to appease them without emily insulting defender and it could take days or weeks or months as in this case as hamilton in row did for months they exchanged letters and each letter basically said ready to fight when you are and the other one say well im ready to fight nothing happens in the end this goes on for months and the enable said all i showed him hes a coward kind of difficult it accomplish something certainly didnt accomplish anything easy for us to see now the negotiating process was extremely important and ritualized because it enabled those involved to really display their honor their superior character by being calm and passion knit and haughty in the face of death. Its really we come to a point where now its counterintuitive the point of a dual was not kill your appointment your pony it its if youre swimming if to are going to kill each other or to shoot each other it was an idea to tell each. Other but that was not the point of dual the point was to show that you are willing to die for your honor so when you went to the dueling ground by standing there you are proving your willingness to risk your life people did not have to die to redeem their reputation they dont have to get to the dueling ground they didnt even have to get to the dueling ground to redeem their reputation dependent on negotiations. Obviously, in that kind of situation, debts were relatively rare deaths 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 honor 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, 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 berenbergaa 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 disputes and duels, 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, 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. 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 winnersfriends 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. 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. Berg did not redeem his reputation, if mr. Burr does not redeem his repetition, why should his followers follow him . He must do something. So 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. 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 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. Given that deaths occasionally happen 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 to me 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 here. 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