talks about the logic behind the american dueling culture before and after the civil war. she describes the so-called "code of honor" that led to dueling and explains the political strategies behind these confrontations. she is the author of "the field of blood, violence in congress and the road to the civil war." great livest of the lecture series hosted by the university of mary washington. [applause] >> hello, everybody. good evening. welcome to tonight's "great lives" presentation. i would like first to find the program sponsor, the law firm, for their generous support, not this year but for several years now.

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. that's 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 op-ed 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 tonight's 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 burr-hamilton duel, in one case, standing close enough to the action to actually get splattered by hamilton's 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 hands-on sense of a duel is one thing. understanding dueling is another, because when you get right down to it, dueling doesn't 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 dueling's 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. i'd 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 wasn't some kind of vague sense of self-worth, 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 munro's 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, monro's 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 don't 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 hamilton's mouth, both men jumped to their feet. monroe responded by taking hamilton's 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 didn't had to die redeem their reputation, they didn't 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 burr-hamilton 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 self-interested 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 burr-hamilton 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 couldn't really apologize. in the end, with men felt insulted during the negotiations and obviously, they ended up doing. i don't 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 doesn't 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 hamilton's 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 book "affairs of honor : national politics in the new republic her."

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 ar." the book explores violence in congress in the decade leading up to the civil war. most of the violence i found actually was not or even do all negotiations, most of the uelsence -- was not d or even duel negotiations. most of the violence was gunfights, fistfights, mass brawls. in the course of my research, i found 70 physically violent incidents in the house and senate between the 1830's to the civil war. including the most famous incident of all, the infamous caging of abolitionist senator charles sumner by represented is

rustenburg's best representative preston brooks. took me many years to write this book because i had to uncover theviolence, almost 100% of 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 ng.i some of this violent scum of the 75 found was a product of the fact that the u.s. was violent in these decades. .ongress was representative but some of the violence was a matter of strategy. part of that strategy. because by the 1830's, dueling was increasingly seen as a southern custom, something that southerners boasted about as being a son of their culture. something that northerners demeaned as being barbaric.

by the 1830's and 1840's, north and south had two really different fighting cultures. southern culture obviously, the slavery-based culture, favorite violence and in particular, man-to-man combat. both things were vital in a slave-based culture. northerners were more prone to writing. north and south -- prone to rioting. one wasn't necessarily better than the other when it came to violence, but dueling became southern. in congress, it was different. in congress, southerners knew that they were willing to duel and that their northern colleagues were probably not willing to duel, particularly by this point, because by this point, congressmen from the north 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. intimidatedned and 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 bein risk being humiliated on the floor of congress. i want to show you an example of this in action. in 1838, one congressmen killed another in a duel, the only time when congressmen killed another. clashunch the duel was a between democrats and whigs on the house floor. who tried toig intimidate a northern democrat defendants. the southerner who was using intimidation to get his way was a virginian.

really interesting character. he ended up being the most frequent fighter in my book, which somehow frequent-flier and frequent fighter were going back-and-forth 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. an educated man who went on to become governor of virginia, the man who signed john brown's death warrant. but he was also constantly rolling up his shoes to throw a punch. so in 18 -- rolling up his sleeves to throw a punch. punch. in 1838, he strides into the house, with a newspaper above his head and announces, -- i have your proof that the democrats are corrupt. democrat 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. d we 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 eating a duels. -- there ended up being a duel. wise taunted him knowing full 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 discussedns, seeley

the fact that he did not want a duel, but he's constituents disapproved of it, but he didn't feel he could back down because by doing so, he could dishonor himself and all he represented. refer to this as the northern congressmen's dilemma. i don't 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 don't want that either. it was a difficult spot to be in. it influenced debate on the floor. northerners resigned from when bullied by southerners. they refuse to confront southerners because of it. there is a great diary entry from an ohio congressman describing what he sees. he says, there was a southern congressmen who was getting a per diem that he should not have been getting as a congressman. and this follow from ohio says, that is 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 thing to have him 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 burr-hamilton duel, dueling was still a form of politics which said a lot about a politician's character. southerners were really using that to full advantage. but now, in the 1830's and age communicated messages about politicians' characters in a more immediate and powerful way that he never great advancesof

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 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 what of the things i found striking when i was finishing up the book was that there was a chapter in telegraph, at the new form of technology. information spreading quickly. congressman suddenly do not control the spin. the public is learning all kinds of things and they cannot tell what is true or false.

conspiracy. 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 makes perfectit sense that they potentially scramble the working of democracy as well. the telegraph and social media was not a comparison i thought it 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 congress, he word throughout the negotiations, what are new england are going to think if i duel or if i don't duel? knew that his constituents would be part of dangling a duel to defend what he represented.

he even said so. henry wise is not only my most frequent-fighter, but he always said what he wanted 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. historiand be a happy because i had five other times. he is that guy. so someone in congress says to wise, you shoul ashamed of yourself -- you should be a sham of yourself. we should react. it. response, do 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. ways, he was right. this is a period when people cycled in and out of congress, sometimes serving one term, reelected ats least six times, which was unusual.

his constituents are prone to what he was doing. 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 don't 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 extra dinner document. it shows how the dynamics of dueling as i just described it in congress, percolated along for a while until the mid-1850's, when a new party came to congress, a northern party. an anti-slavery party. the republican party. unlike former northerners, republicans running for congress, in their promotional campaign material, insisted that they would fight the slave power. a congress, that had th real meaning to it. some republicans in the 1850's 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 see northerners rise to the feet when being bullied and they will say things like, you can't say that

about me to read i am a different kind of northerner. 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 americans with a difficult decision. what should they do when confronted with duels or challenges or insults aimed at provoking a duel? it is wanting 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 it as they could not stand the heat deletion of being assaulted in the longer. they couldn't bear the fact that bullying was intimidating northerners into silence. as they put it into the and herbalit was an en outrage that made them frantic with shame. endurable outrage that made them frantic with shame. his statements, willing to fight the most of 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 the ruling 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 wants to look to be in favor of liberty decimating their words -- to be in favor of liberty and to express such sentiments in the highest places of official life in the united states. they basically say in their words, we wanted those who come after us and study us to understand what it meant to oppose slavery in congress.

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. unless wesee it point to appear. have a document, joanne freeman. it is really handy and you can read a book. a powerful document. for these three duelists in the 1850's, dueling still had power. and although they did not end up fighting duels, their willingness to do all served as proof of their character much in the same way it had served for per pop and hamilton. the simple fact they were willing to duel tamed some of their southern colleagues down. they were slightly less willing to believe 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 all 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. had power.rners for example, when one southerner during a debate about southern states the readmitted to the union, attempted to be violent during debates, in northerners stood up and basically said, you see that? you all remember that? 18 59?57, 1850 8, 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 in meaning of dueling 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 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 didn't talk about because he was not a dualist, 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 parent 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 don't 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. will have a, we 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 question as sickly as possible. we will take as many as we can. ok? actuallyny duels 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 the dueling ground? occasionally, that happened.

sometimes, the way into a woodwork 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 a. occasionally, they managed to talk something out on the field that they have not done before. that is common. but the second half of your question, it is particularly interesting, what were they trying to do when they were shooting? as ie point of a duel, 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 i'm about the earth generally shooting in each other's directions. they are not the world's most accurate weapons.

it was not necessarily polite to shoot at the sky. you had to at least eight 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 burr-hamilton uel, burr shoots, hamilton is hit and burr's first instinct is to run towards him. along the lines of what i suggested, i don't 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 1970's 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 legal. the people doing the dueling were the lawmakers. they were elite and they felt that they could violet those laws with impunity -- a doing was illegal. there were people who were arrested for dueling but they weren't members of congress and delete folks. the question about swearing that , one of the duel ways in which anti-dueling folks tried to push their agenda was that sort of thing, basically saying to constituents, don't 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 we're 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 that will have some influence. state by state, there were that precise thing. national no anti-dueling law. >> questions here. enjoyed your talk tonight, but i guess after night,g the debates last i would figure time went by, the would be very a full this morning. my question is you mainly talked the rulingicians and class for lack of better words. butcher and al blacksmith solve a problem this and did wives h

ever get involved? out of the ver pull little pistols? >> i'll answer the second first, did women ever get involved, not with pistols, but some of them would learn in there was a duel and would try and intervene. one of ter of fact, hamilton's near duels, i don't if his wife -- someone inds out and hamilton says, i can't, i have to -- i'm working this out, it's become and his opponent said something along the lines f, i should think you would have control of your wife so we can go ahead and do this. intervene.imes did they certainly had power, personal power and cultural power, but i can't say that i know of a lot of duels that were way, but this relates to your other question nonelite hat about

folk. so there were average people dueling, they tended to be right.d, i remember finding a letter from says te 1790's and it something like the jails are duelists, those aren't the guys i write about that are jail they were dueling. what is fascinating to me is that everybody understood the implications of dueling and honor and the strongest example of that to me place in ng that took the early 19th century in boston insulted ne man another man in the newspaper and there ended up, one man ended up other man on the street and there ended up being a trial. on the street s or saw it testifying. and they testify to what they thinking.at they were the barrel makers, candle ofers, a barber, every level society. in one way or another, what they saw that newspaper

thing where one was going attack the other. personally to the street because something is going to happen here because it has to happen. newspaper.as in the what the trial makes clear is that everybody understood that it worked and what should happen. that was fascinating to me. of thing that is difficult to find. the testimony in this trial proved it. as he said, thank you for a great evening. >> thank you. with reference to your issue where ben wade and his two the big statement, they must have scared the be of the southerners, the ple years after republicans, lincoln was elected, they said that was it. statement that affected the whole republican party? >> that's an interesting question.

that those three men, benjamin franklin wade came into congress with a gun and put it down on his desk. that's a statement, right. i'm not like those northerners in the past. shifted the dynamics. away n't necessarily take power from the southerners in congress. so i wouldn't say that it southerners and how they were behaving particularly given that the reaching a very was peak at this moment. things.icated there is a great example in a northern kind of fighting man in congress and amidst the ng southerners and he objects to something and a fellow from outh carolina yells out, go object in your own part of the house, don't object near us. northerners who did the objecting says something like to listen to any

slave driver with a whip telling i'm going to do what i want to do. fellow s not make the from south carolina happy and he marches over there and gets the northerner and the northerner hits him first him.lattens what happens in this moment shows you that things have changed, but it hasn't. southerners who see one of their flattens begin to come across the house, dozens at a time, northerners who see running to the point of combat beginning jumping over to the d chairs to get spot to help their fellow and in brawl, there is a huge other, punching each brawl g spitoons, a real hat ends when one congress

grabs another's hair and it toupee.f because it's a the slapstick is eternal. it goes all the way back. that's a really striking moment in which north and south are battling in the speaker's ont of the chair. there is a reporter that says it looks like a battle. on the one hand the dynamic different, the scared, ers aren't they're unsettled and trying to figure out how to maintain with had rip of what they before. what is interesting along the lines of what you're suggesting, what this long tradition of northerners who think about what they did for southerners and 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 have seen these guys in congress, this is nothing. we can do this. quickly. this

these guys don't know how to fight. war e end and when the came, things were different. joanne.ion here, >> hi, out of curiosity, did the have any sort of mpact on the whole stereotypical wild west dueling? >> interesting question, the and ion between dueling sort of wild west gunfight, the similarity of idea and method is really striking, right, if you think of a southern shootout, two guys other and, you know, and a signal and they both grab and shoot, so there is a -- it feels very similar to a duel, but what is striking, at some point early in my project, looking to see how dueling and duels progress

across the country, right, they're happening on the east coast and what happens as the west. moves hat i found was just before statehood, there would be more gun fights, more duels, there more violence. if it's coming from the same ort of idea, the reason why is because people knew that statehood was coming and people so going to claim power there was like this shuffle of a moment where people are like, you, no,, i'm better to i'm better to you. we better show it now. a government l be and it's going to matter. i think the idea of it and the culture of it is similar, but i necessarily think that people drew that immediate connection and said this is just western duel. it was just very similar in the that you're proving your honor and your skill, but n shootouts, i think more people are dying than in is more which really

about the display. >> you said that dueling was illegal. was illegal, the fact that a group of men were 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, not trying towere kill each other and if there was killing, what was illegal? >> good question. differed in different states. ometimes it was sending and receiving a challenge that was illegal. sometimes, i think there was a second example that was just in mind.ind and just left my sometimes it had to do with the purpose to a dueling ground. sort of tweaks that

were assigned if you did those liability for e dueling. a document i found at the new historical society about burr-hamilton duel. burr took notes at his trial and people are trying to prove, he knew a challenge had been sent or he saw a duel taking both of those things would have been legally problematic. what is fascinating is, they get people to testify, so the doctor who was on the testifies, the boatman who rowed them across testifies it's very clear that anyone who knows hamilton lyrics, this is the document lyric.d to the the document the doctor testifies and he is asked what says, well i d he had my back to the dueling ground, i didn't see anything. at the water.out i heard two shots, but i have no idea what happened. guns in a sack

so during the trial when people see weapons, you nope. i didn't see any weapons. they're cooperating with each other to enable in this ando engage to get around the fact that different ings in states are illegal. these are all of the sorts of hings that make this fascinating to me and i'll explain actually the document. so the document actually leads lyric in the hamilton song, it's striking that it's in book, , it's in my first i talk about the rules of ueling and when i went to see the play, i heard that line, there is a line in a song about says les of dueling that the doctor turns his back so he can have deniability. show with a historian friend and i said document! that's my document! discovered that,

lin-manuel miranda had read my it had inspired parts of that song. hat is facinating about that, those aren't things that are commonly known, the ways these guys are trying to get around can engage in y the behavior that was important o 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 culture, i'm thinking ack to ron's hamilton biography, he talks about when the reynolds affair came eliza hamilton was was there a woman to attack to her honor on that level? interesting question, was there a way for women to attacks on their honor. not that they could get pistols ground, the dueling

they weren't part of that culture. a woman and a historian who really has a public presence in the late 18th some thingsshe does that kind of make john adams it's clear red and he somehow or other wants to better, honor feel 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 aren't really a part of that culture, insult, saw heard an an insult, in one way or another, were witnesses to it, a huge impact. so if there was an insult in the maybe lots of people didn't see, maybe it wouldn't matter. there, that's it, right. then you have really been humiliated. a big influence and sometimes they did find out in dvance and would do what they

could do to ideally make this not happen. but there wasn't an exact female equivalent of dueling. found an article in the late 18th century magazine of sorts and it was basically have thisou know, men handy thing called a duel that they settle their disputes and hands and they're done. women don't have anything like that. and n't get to shake hands be done with any of our fights. really interesting article and lines of of long the your question. >> thank you. uring your research, did you come into contact with the career of andrew jackson who if was a prolific caustic character? >> indeed. the fact that he was a prolific advertised that

about himself in some ways, that was held against him by northerners, he is bad because he is a duelist, among other people, that made a leader, he represents an interesting kind f moment when ideas about leadership in america are kind shifting. so is dueling sort of a pro and confor jackson, but it's more of a pro. i mpresses people. more es him a leader in a graphic and violent way than i have been talking about. center of er in the my book, benjamin brown french, he knows jackson. his diary, he spends a lot of of duels, ght a lot he is quite a guy, he is impressive. a littles a duelist is scary. not explicitly political, to do with one

lawyer attacking another or omething, but i went to the smithsonian room where they have weapons of various sorts because of nt to do see what all these weapons that i was writing about looked like, they had a duelling pistol sets. most sets are beautiful and arved with all kinds of little ivory things for show and most people don't ever use them. once.y do, they use them andrew jackson's dueling pistols were like death weapons. there was nothing for show, they bonk, they stood out on the table as being something for use as was there opposed to a handy thing to display. e was a different kind of a politician and his rise really changed the nature of politics ways.ot of >> here is a question, thanks an absolutely nlightening presentation, the

context of your presentation kind of goes to what's next. been said that the strategyies figures out to win grand strategyies figures out the piece of as the war. assassinated, johnson over. after john came in, u.s. grant, point in time, i would assume as you were saying the we blicans came in, hey, aren't going to take that any more, you have a warrior as the of the executive branch. through force of personality was into that more than just the presence of onlylican congress but not having the grand strategist warrior as well? >> that's an interesting question. i didn't go far enough to focus grant as president, however, above and beyond what i'm culture, out dueling

ack to our first president, there is military men as presidents and that matters. runs for when he president, that's held against him. he was never a military man. of virginia, he ran from the british, he is bad, t comes up in all of these contests. it's an issue because it supposedly said something about to acter and being able defend the nation and that's, i a long a way, that's tread in american leadership and in particular what people look presidents. so jackson is part of that same quincy n, not john adams. saw a, like a campaign broadside when jackson and on-quincy adams were running for st each other president. it says something like vote for the man who can fight, not for man who can write. [laughter] of o that shows you sort

jackson persona, so it mattered, that sort of thing mattered is your ort answer to question. >> thank you so much for your presentation. that there were differences between the american and european, ng but you didn't get into too much differences. when i was a young man long ago, sort of europe and i fraternity with the 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 on.ect them and so could you or did you get into that and could you give us a feedback on that? >> sure. i didn't write about it, but in of looking at america, i was looking at dueling and honor culture in places to be able to compare. you're absolutely right, what i about in my talk is

different the u.s. versus urope, americans advertising duels in the newspaper to make a point about their leadership sense.atic duels in a that was one big difference, but also in not every nation, but in some european nations, dueling went on as culture real social long after the period that i'm talking about in the united states. however, this was sword dueling, this was not guns. you could have a dueling scar nd have that be something that really shows you're a certain kind of man and you're not going to get killed. to what iit gets back was saying before that dueling kind about killing, that of dueling is more about making a statement showing who you are. 1908, i believe, there was an international anti-dueling in berlin. 1908. so this culture goes on, but it on in a different form, i

think, in europe than it does united states. in the united states they were never using swords, they were duels.fencing in guns were very democratic, they were just focused on guns in the united states, so the whole it is a little bit in europe. >> since aaron burr was vice president when he killed hamilton, was there ny attempt by congress to impeach him? >> impeachment, i didn't expect that to come up. [laughter] >> so that's interesting. there was a mixed response. killed hamilton, he was gone for a while in south carolina and he reappears and over the senate again. federalists, hamiltonian want to do something on the act that he is there.

they're horrified, they want to do something. to talk about, not in congress, but they begin to talk in new jersey and in new about pushing in one way or another, to really grab at the laws, these sort of individual laws about what is or isn't illegal to really take that out to really like get him in legal trouble for what he did. is interesting in congress, i don't remember how many, i 15 or 20 y like republicans, jeffersonian a ublican congressman sign statement in response to that never sically says we punish people for dueling, why burr,ou taking this out on it's not fair. really striking. i know i said it before, the logic of this is so so powerful and so sort of counterintuitive and great d, that's a

example. lawmakers and members of congress signing a statement say it's illegal, we don't punish people for this. why are you punishing burr is a example of the type of culture i'm talking about. students has a question. > i was wondering if in your research you came across the, i don't remember if it came like duel, but a challenge one en abraham lincoln and of his contemporaries in illinois, shields? yeah, so that's interesting. not something that i have it's not in , congress. however, there was something of lincoln dispute between and this fellow shields. it's often written about on the hand as it's kind of a joke, that it wasn't serious. people talk about the facts that lincoln got to pick weapons so e chose swords that were long

and his arms are longer so he could reach the other guy and the other guy couldn't reach him. of talking about it. here is a book that actually, this fellow was writing it when fellowship, icular doug wilson, i think it's honored call or something like that. we talked about this incident, we ended up feeling like there was seriousness to a joke, it wasn't just they don't necessarily end up ueling but when you look at what they were doing, they were taking it seriously and thinking bout what they were doing and as i suggested, you don't have to go to a dueling ground to make a point, right. 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 get to the dueling ground. a good example, i never heard of that. are out ofi think we

time, so thanks, let's give our joanne, thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] announcer: you're watching american history tv covering history c-span style with event eyewitness accounts,

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those your doctors prescribed. >> you can watch archival films on public affairs in their entirety on our weekly theories reel america. saturday at 10:00 p.m. and sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern. here on american history tv. >> next on lectures in history. university of north carolina at pembroke repressor jamie martinez teaches a class about the confederacy's economic policies during the civil war. she explains how the prewar focus on cotton exports over food production combined with wartime farm labor disruptions lead to food shortages and riots in the south in 1863. this, she says, force the confederate government into more nationalized policies for food production and resource allocation that ran counter to their constitutions infosys on a decentralized government.