you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. next, joanne freeman talks about the logic behind the american dueling culture before and after the civil war. she describes the 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." the greatwas part of lives lecture series hosted by the university of mary washington. [applause] >> hello, everybody. good evening. welcome to tonight's "greatatatt lives" presentation. i would like first to find the

the program sponsor, the law firm, for their generous support, not this year but for several years now. it is this kind of corporate support, along with that 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. bmv members. they are here tonight and we would like to have them stand so we can acknowledge them. [applause]

in introducing tonight's 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. right. [laughter] in any case not long after , receiving that degree, she was recognized already as one of the nation's top young historians. she has subsequently has achieved widespread recognition as a scholar of the revolutionary and early national periods of american history. she is the author of numerous articles on those subjects which will appear in print in proper academic journals including the "william and mary quarterly," yale law journal," 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. her most recent book, and of 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 detail, 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 prominent historian wrote back, "she describes many varieties of congressional violence including bullying, fighting in the halls of congress, fists-to-cuffs, guns, knives, duels 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 ."ited so long to be told tonight we are honored that she will share that story with us as we welcome joanna freeman to the university of mary washington and to the "great lives" podium. [applause]

joanne: thank you. thank you very much. it is my great pleasure to be with you this evening to talk, as was just suggested, about something of a juicy topic, and that is american duelists. now, it probably will not surprise you to learn that as someone who has studied alexander hamilton for good many decades, i have 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. [laughter] joanne: 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 eartice, i was wearing

shields and plastic goggles, 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 person, and as a result, they travel to a field at the crack of dawn and fire pistols at each other. does that solve anything? seemingly, no. is there a risk of life and limb? definitely, yes. so, what is the logic of dueling, and what drove americans to become duelists, or put another way, given 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 am going to do that in two parts. first, i will briefly look at how american dueling really worked, and the logic behind it. and i note that i am talking about american dueling here, because it differed from european dueling in several ways, but importantly in one key way that i will talk about later. secondly, i will focus on specific duelists, and talk about how they put dueling into practice 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 -- status, to be ashamed to face

your family and friends. honor was even more important for politicians who based their , careers on public opinion. in early america, it really was character and reputation that qualified you for public office, not job skills or talents. elections went to the man with the best reputation. the man who the public most respected. so basically, to get voted into office, to get your friends into office or to exercise any political power or influence, you needed to have the right sort of reputation. so for an early american politician, honor wasn't some kind of vague sense of self-worth, it represented his ability to prove himself a deserving political leader. so it was practical in some ways. in a sense, that is an idea i will keep coming back to. among men who were so touchy about their reputations, rules of behavior were very important, and that makes sense if you think about it.

where insults can really have such grave consequences, where the wrong word might lead to the dueling ground, there have to be clearly defined rules and standards so that accidental insults and violence can be avoided. the rules of honor, the code of honor, set out clear standards of conduct. certain words you were supposed to avoid. certain actions you were supposed to avoid. an when a line was crossed honor was offended, the code of honor offered a regulated way to settle the dispute. hopefully, with negotiations, but sometimes, with gunplay on a dueling ground. for example, there were a number of what i always call for myself, alarm bell words. words you could never use in relation to another gentleman, because it was almost like dairying that person -- daring

that person to challenge you to a duel. these words included some that were logical like "liar," or "coward." two have lost their zing, "rascal" and "scoundrel." they were serious in the 18th century. and my personal favorite, "puppy ." i guess it is insulting someone and suggesting a man is a effeminate and a toy. it was a serious insult although it is hard to consider that today. everyone 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 dare would be to insult yourself. this took place in 1797. and 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 to monroe's house to demand and explanation. letter to him and said, i hear you have done xyz. coming to your home for information and bringing a friend. or in other words, a second, a duel assistant in case they are talking and it led to something more serious. if you are monroe and you have a note saying that someone is coming to your house with a friend, that means you are in dueling territory. he immediately knew that now we have moved into a realm where something bad might happen. so monroe went and got a friend for himself. luckily for us, monroe's friend recorded the entire conversation

and 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. hamilton was a really logical thinker who clearly wanted to rehearse the entire history of the controversy step by step , like a courtroom lawyer would. but monroe kept interrupting him like ilete frustration, know already. i lived through this. can you get going? in which hamilton would begin again at the beginning of his account. [laughter] joanne: 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 icier and icier

until hamilton bluntly accused him of leaking the information. he denied it. hamilton said, "this as your representation is totally false ." he is not using the l world, or saying, you are a liar, he is just being careful with his words. even though he did not use the buzzword, the accusation 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. that as soon as the words left hamilton's mouth, both men jumped to their feet. now, the two men assume they will be involved in an affair of honor. monroe responded by taking hamilton's there and pushing it one step further. he said, you say i represented falsely? you are a scoundrel. [laughter] joanne: thank you for the sound effects. that is exactly what somebody

would have said at the time. , like a manponded of honor, by saying i will meet you like a gentleman. meaning, i am ready to douel. and monroe replied, i am ready, get your pistols. their friends calmed him down and basically convince them to act like what had happened had not happened so that the seconds could negotiate. as i just suggested, this incident unfolded much more quickly than honored disputes. two men lost their tempers, which is not how a man of honor is supposed to behave. most disputes followed really predictable ritualized steps. in a more conventional dispute, a person who was insulted would have written a formal letter to the other with five basic statements. first it would say, i have been told you insulted me and said xyz. it would suggest what that insult was. precisely. quoted

this is what i have been told you said. the letter would ask, is this third, true or false? fourth, it would ask, do you have an explanation for this? and fifth would demand, an immediate response typically by saying, i demand an immediate response as a man of honor. if you get that letter, that is it is an alarm bell. whoever got it new that honor had been offended and the writer was ready to fight. you can see how the letter gave the recipient a chance to explain himself or deny the insult or apologize. and sometimes that happened. but from this point on, as soon as you receive that kind of a letter, you were engaged in an affair of honor, in which any word or action could lead to a

duel. and this is typically the point where each man would appoint a second to represent him, a person who was kind of acting as a dueling lawyer negotiating terms for his client, trying to appease the offended party without humiliating the offender. and negotiations could take days or weeks, or even months, as, in this case, hamilton and monroe did. for months, they exchanged letters through their seconds, and each letter basically said ready to fight when you are. and then the other one would say, i am ready to fight when you are. no, i am ready to fight when you are. nothing happens. this goes on for months and in the end both men walk away and say, well, i showed him. he is a coward. kind of typical. it accomplished something, but certainly didn't accomplish

anything easy for us to see with the distance of time. the negotiating process was extremely important and extremely ritualized because it enabled those involved to really display their honor, their superior character by being calm and passionless and even haughty in the face of death. ideally, the rituals of dueling allowed honor to be satisfied without any violence. and here we come to an aspect of dueling that is really counterintuitive. it really does not make sense. probably opposite of what most people think dueling is. the point of a duel was not to kill your opponent. right? it is easy to assume that. two men are going to a field to shoot each other, probably one wants to kill of the other. but that was not the point of a duel. the point of a duel was to prove that you were willing to die for your honor. so when you went to the dueling ground, by standing there, you were proving your willingness to

risk your life for your honor as was your opponent. people didn't have to die to redeem their reputation, they didn't even have to get to the dueling ground to redeem their reputation depending on the negotiations. obviously, in that kind of situation, deaths were relatively rare in duels. that is particularly true in duels between politicians which i will explain in a minute. rules are usually not too serious. i remember finding a newspaper kind of poking fun at a recent duel. and it said something like, he suffered a wound in that fashionable area, the shin. [laughter] so there are a lot of shin wounds. the point of a duel is to prove you are willing to die for your honor. not to kill the man who dishonored you. and in fact the dualist who killed his opponent often fell victim to such outrage that he had to flee the state. in many ways, a duelist who killed his opponent was a failed duelist, because rather than redeeming his reputation, he risked damaging it. now once you understand political dueling in this way, so once you see that all of these letters and negotiations are really a ritualized part of

an affair of honor that might lead to a duel, you discover that there were many affairs of honor in america, more than most people assume. so for example, alexander hamilton was involved in at least 10 affairs of honor. so at least 10 times, he got into some kind of a dispute with someone. they had the ritualized negotiations. in some cases they came near fighting, but he did not end up going to the dueling ground. he even negotiated himself out of a fight with aaron burr before. 10 is a lot for someone to be involved in affairs of honor. tells you something about hamilton. in new york city alone in the 12 years surrounding the burr-hamilton duel, there were at least 17 other political

affairs of honor. in other words, the burr-hamilton duel was not a grand exception, but rather part of a larger trend. now when you look at these other honor disputes and duels, look like a historian, what do i see, do you see a pattern? you do see patterns. first, you noticed that a lot of these occurred shortly after an election. i actually remember discovering this with a calendar with elections on it and pinning the duels and going, this is an interesting pattern. second, when you look at the details of these political duels, you discover that many of them were deliberately provoked. a common ploy is that someone would call another someone a self-interested politician, and there is one obvious response to that. you are a liar. you have got yourself a duel. and in most cases, and this is the really striking point, the loser of the election, or one of his friends, would find a way to provoke the winner or one of the winners' friends into a duel.

these duels and not being ops, a slip of o the time. many of these tools where counter to lost elections. an election would try to redeem his honor. often it would be published in the paper and it would say mr. ying like, mr. x met on the field of honor and both behaved honorably. the subtext would be, both behaved honorably and are fit to be leaders, so full for them in the next election. thiseans were stunned at custom because it seemed like americans were advertising their duels for votes, which, in a

way, they were. this is a distinctly american practice.he these are not impulsive. they are not governed by suicidal impulses or murderous rage. early american duels , burr begins to feel compelled to redeem his reputation from that loss in this actually a pamphlet written by one of his supporters that said if he his reputation,

a leader for his followers? he was looking for a way to redeem his reputation and lo and behold, someone handed him a newspaper clipping where hamilton had insulted her. and burr used that clipping to initiate an affair of honor with hamilton, who had been attacking burr for 15 years by that point. because of sloppy exchanges between the two men during those long negotiations, along with 15 years worth of insults, hamilton could not exactly apologize and at the end, both men out insulted during the negotiations and obviously, they ended up doing. i don't think either one wanted to kill the other.

when you look at the letter before the duel, it does not seem that way at all. but they did end up dueling. won does not mean that burr the duel. in some ways he lost it. he fled town. the manpaper editor and who wrote them across the river to the dueling ground -- now he has killed somebody and his enemies united against him to basically condemn him as a murderer and press criminal charges. honorable -- vulnerable after killing hamilton. in southe, he hid carolina were people were not upset about hamilton's death and much more comfortable with dueling. after a time 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. it's interesting. , overomeone strolls back the years in leading the letters , it's really interesting. it wore on him. he looked as if -- basically, it's not all fun and roses when you are involved in a dual. you can see the impact. duelists used duels as a form of politics and that was a big part

of my first book. this leads to an obvious question. time?is change over that is the topic of my most recent book. the book explores physical violence in congress. found, the violence i literal physical violence in the house and the senate, pushing, shoving, people pulling knives and guns on each other, fistfights, mass brawls. in the course of my research i found 70 incidents between the

1830's and the civil war, including, of course, the most famous incident of all, the infamous caning of senator charles sumner and i should say over the years, and it took many to uncover the violence. , yout 100% of the time would not necessarily know the names, but they would say, there is that guy. they all knew about the sumner caning. there's no reason why they would know anything else. some of the 70 fights i found was a product of the fact that ,he united states was a violent but some of the violence was a strategy. dueling was part of that strategy.

it is a southern custom. this is something that northerners demeaned as being barbaric. in fact, by the 1830's, 1840's, north and south had two different fighting cultures. southern culture favored violence and, in particular, man-to-man combat. totherners were more prone rioting when it came to violence. is better when it comes to violence. with dueling, they become decidedly southern. in congress, that made a difference. in congress, southerners knew they were willing to duel and their northern neighbors probably were not willing to do

particularly by this point, because at this point they knew their constituents back home would disapprove of it. southerners accused that fact to their advantage during congressional debate. , hinting atned duels, knowing that northerners were likely to back down when confronted, or sometimes not stand up for confrontation, thancing themselves rather be confronted on the floor of congress. i want to show you an example of action. in 1830 eight, when congressman killed another in a duel. it the only time when congressman killed another. what launched that was a clash whigs ondemocrats and

the house floor. the southerner, who was using intimidation to try to get his way was named to henry wise. he's a virginian. really interesting character. he ended up being the most frequent fighter in my book, which somehow, frequent fighters -- he was my most frequent fighter. he wasn't a back alley brawler. he was an educated man. he goes on to be governor of virginia. he was also constantly rolling up his sleeve to throw a punch. he strides in and says i have proof the democrats are corrupt. they immediately stood up in

protest and said, that's not true. democrats are corrupt. at this, wise, slowly and dramatically turned and said "are you calling me a liar?" that's precisely what he was doing. this wasmediately knew going to be dueling territory. he insulted and newspaper editor . they're into that being a duel between two congressman. the important part is to know -- he knew the northerner would not want to fight the duel, but wise could score and easy point against

them across entering the later -- dualgotiations, negotiations, he discussed that he did not want to duel, that his constituents disapproved, but he did not feel like he could back down because in doing so, he would dishonor himself and all that he represented. , i refer to this as the northern congressman's dilemma. i don't want to duel, but constituents only to duel, but i cannot back down because that will humiliate me. it was a difficult spot to be in. northerners resigned from committees. becauses they refused of it. there's a great diary entry from an ohio congressman and he reports -- she is new in congress. he reports what he sees. and there's a southern congressmen who gets a per diem

that he should not have been getting as a congressman. he goes up to these friends from ohio and says why are none of you stepping up and saying, protesting he should not be getting that money? and he says, he has a dueling character. it's really blatant. and of course, that process of intimidation and threatening and silencing people was very handy y when the issue of slavery came up. that was an issue on which southerners have a lot to say and northerners kept being put in a difficult position again and again. dueling was still a form of politics that said a lot about a initician's character southerners were using that to their full advantage. communicated

messages about politicians' character in a more immediate and powerful way than ever before because of great advances in technology. all of these came together and they spread faster than ever before. bullyingrners potentially add more powerful international impact. it has been an interesting time in american history to come out with a book on politicians behaving badly and physical between competitions. it took me so long to rights. one of the things i found striking is there is a chapter on the paragraph.

the congressman, suddenly they spin. control the when you think about it, the telegraph does what social media does today. technology that scrambled the conversation, it makes perfect sense they scrambled the working of democracy as well. it's really a striking comparison. so, because of the telegraph and other things that were spreading news more quickly than ever before and further than ever worried throughout the negotiations, what are new englanders going to think if i duel? what are they going to think if i don't jewel?

henry wise is not only my most frequent fighter, but he always said what he was not supposed to say. someone would do something, threaten someone and he would say, this is like the last five times it happened and i would be a happy historian because i have five other times. he is that guy. says topoint, someone wise you should be ashamed of yourself for all this fighting. shame on you. we should throw you out and wise response, do it. go right ahead. i will be back in no time because my constituents put me on their behalf. they want me to behave this way. and in many ways, wise was right. this was a time when people

fought in in out of congress. he was elected at least six times, which was unusual. so you can see how dueling culture was one of many ways controlers exerted during this time. there was a slave power. in congress, southerners have a cultural advantage because of dueling culture and the political advantage of extra representation because of the 3/5 compromise. latteraning towards the part of my comments here, so what i want to do at this point is talk about a remarkable document that is going to help us look at how things change because they do not continue percolating along in congress

for decades identically. then they answer a question. it's an extraordinary document. it shows how the dynamics of dueling percolated along for a mid-1850's, when a new party came to congress, a northern party. anti-slavery party. the republican party. congressns running for , in their promotional campaign materials, insisted they would fight, and in congress that had a real meaning to it. some republicans were fighting men, unlike northerners who came before. they stood up to bullying. and they said so often. equivalent read the

of the congressional record, again and again you see them rise to their feet and they say things like you can't say that about me. i am here to stand up, not to bow down. it confronted republicans with a decision. what should they do when confronted with duels? it's one thing to stand up to autherners, but fighting duel? it probably crossed the line. the documents i found addressing this specific problem. it was signed by three

congressman and it tells the decision about dueling that they made in 1858. at a certain time, when the insults became particularly offensive, these men went on to make a group decision. they could not stand the familiar nation and they could not -- humiliation and they cannot bear that the southerners were intimidating them into silence. as they put it into this -- these threes men decided that when confronted by southerners they would show

themselves willing to fight duels. so, we should not be doing so, but we will. was risking their lives, but they decided they needed to fight. shows theriking is it decision that they made. what really struck me was why they made the statement. signed by all three men and it explains at the end of the document, they put this down on paper to explain to posterity what it took to be in favor of express suchto sentiments in the highest places

of official life in the united states. , we wantly it says those who come after us to understand what it meant to oppose slavery in congress. essentially they were talking to me. was.how difficult this you pointsee unless to it. have a document. it's really an amazingly powerful document. duelists --tential jeweleir willingness to served as proof of their character. , the facte degree that they were willing to jewel tamed some of their southern

colleagues down. they were slightly less likely to bully northerners. violentars or the most years in the history of the congress and we well know what came next. i want to close by answering an obvious question i am asked all the time, which is when did this change and how? this certainly did not go on. part of the answer has to do with the fact that after the civil war, the dynamics of congress changed. southerner attempted to , aviolent during a debate northerners stood up and basically said, you see that?

?ou remember that you want to let that back in here? that is a powerful statement to make and it really shows the northerners flaunting of power they did not have. in this sense, it changed the meaning of dueling in congress, -- inhe north in control congress. with the north in control, refusing to jewel became a way a politician's character. the series is a biographical series of lectures. the main character at the heart of my book, who basically enabled me to tell the story because of how he changed. if anyone is interesting about

-- interested in hearing about , i really could not have told this 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's a significant life. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, joanne. this is a little out of the program. to point out this will be our topic this coming tuesday because it was .escheduled it was supposed to be february 13.

we will have a lecture next tuesday night on john quincy adams. so, i hope you will be here for that. are we ready for questions? all right. questions. if you will raise your hand in stand and ask your question as the singly as possible, we will take as many as we can, ok? how many actual duels stopped or decided toit negotiate their? , were you question is required to shoot somebody, or to shoot them and kill them? ok, the first question is how

many went to the dueling ground and negotiated their way out? occasionally that happened. sometimes you would exchange fire once and then the second's would talk to each other and say, is on her satisfied? , they answer was yes would shake hands and go away. occasionally they managed to talk something out on the field. it's not that common. if the point of a duel is to prove you are willing to die for if your opponent shoots his gun in the air, he is depriving you of that. people are not trying to kill each other, but they are

generally shooting in each other's direction. it's not the lowest -- it's not the most accurate weapon. as i said, there's a lot of lead points. there are people who are killed and his first instinct is to go towards hamilton. along the lines of what i suggested, i don't think there's going to be bloodshed. >> in your research, i wonder if you came across the provision in the kentucky state constitution that you had to swear you had

never fought a duel? >> that's really interesting. custody ande state said if you are going into the legislature, i guess, you had to swear you had never fought a duel. that's really interesting. because in the time i'm speaking illegal.eling was the people doing the dueling where the lawmakers. couldelt that they violate those with impunity. interesting is the way tried todueling folk push their agenda, essentially saying to constituents, don't

vote for duelists. is the slow way to stop this. and your out, that will have an influence. state by state, there were people doing that precise thing. there was no national anti-dueling law. >> questions here. >> really enjoyed your talk tonight, but i guess after watching the debates last night, i would figure time went by, the

desert of nevada would be very full this morning. my question is you mainly talked about politicians and the ruling class for lack of better words. would the local butcher and blacksmith solve a problem this way in the south and did wives ever get involved? did ladies ever pull out of the little pistols? >> i'll answer the second question first, did women ever get involved, not with pistols, but some of them would learn in advance that there was a duel and would try and intervene. as a matter of fact, one of hamilton's near duels, i don't know if his wife -- someone finds out and hamilton says, i can't, i have to -- i'm working this out, it's become complicated and his opponent said something along the lines of, i should think you would

have control of your wife so we can go ahead and do this. women sometimes did intervene. they certainly had power, personal power and cultural power, but i can't say that i know of a lot of duels that were cast aside that way, but this relates to your other question which is what about nonelite folk. so there were average people dueling, they tended to be arrested, right. i remember finding a letter from the late 1790's and it says something like the jails are full of duelists, those aren't the guys i write about that are in jail they were dueling. what is fascinating to me is that everybody understood the rules and implications of dueling and honor and the strongest example of that to me is something that took place in the early 19th century in boston in which one man insulted another man in the newspaper and there ended up, one man ended up

killing the other man on the street and there ended up being a trial. everyone who was on the street or saw it testifying. and they testify to what they saw and what they were thinking. the barrel makers, candle makers, a barber, every level of society. in one way or another, what they all say is i saw that newspaper thing where one was going attack the other. i came personally to the street because something is going to happen here because it has to happen. i saw it was in the newspaper. what the trial makes clear is that everybody understood that culture and how it worked and what should happen. that was fascinating to me. that's the sort of thing that is difficult to find. the testimony in this trial really proved it. >> as he said, thank you for a great evening. >> thank you. >> with reference to your issue where ben wade and his two buddies made the big statement, they must have scared the bejeebers out of the southerners, a couple years after the republicans, lincoln was elected, they said that was it.

did they make a statement that affected the whole republican party? >> that's an interesting question. you are right that those three men, benjamin franklin wade came into congress with a gun and put it down on his desk. that's a statement, right. here you go, i'm not like those northerners in the past. it shifted the dynamics. it didn't necessarily take away

power from the southerners in congress. so i wouldn't say that it suddenly changed southerners and how they were behaving particularly given that the issue of slavery was reaching a peak at this moment. it complicated things. there is a great example in 1858, there is a northern kind of fighting man in congress and he is standing amidst the southerners and he objects to something and a fellow from south carolina yells out, go object in your own part of the house, don't object near us. and the northerners who did the objecting says something like i'm not going to listen to any slave driver with a whip telling me what to do, i'm going to do what i want to do. this does not make the fellow from south carolina happy and he

marches over there and gets ready to slug the northerner and the northerner hits him first and flattens him. what happens in this moment shows you that things have changed, but it hasn't. southerners who see one of their own flattens begin to come across the house, dozens at a time, northerners who see southerners running to the point of combat beginning jumping over desks and chairs to get to the spot to help their fellow and in the end, there is a huge brawl, 30 guys punching each other, throwing spittoons, a real brawl that ends when one congress grabs another's hair and it comes off because it's a toupee. the slapstick is eternal. it goes all the way back. on the one hand, that's a really striking moment in which north

and south are battling in the space in front of the speaker's chair. there is a reporter that says it looks like a battle. so on the one hand the dynamic is really different, the southerners aren't scared, they're unsettled and trying to figure out how to maintain with the grip of what they had before. what is interesting along the lines of what you're suggesting, think about what this long tradition of northerners who won't fight, 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 like are you have seen these guys in congress, this is nothing. we can do this. we can do this quickly. these guys don't know how to fight. by the end and when the war came, things were different. >> question here, joanne. >> hi, out of curiosity, did the dueling culture have any sort of impact on the whole stereotypical wild west dueling? >> interesting question, the relation between dueling and sort of wild west gunfight, certainly the similarity of idea

and method is really striking, right, if you think of a southern shootout, two guys facing each other and, you know, and a signal and they both grab a gun and shoot, so there is a -- it feels very similar to a duel, but what is striking, at some point early in my project, i was looking to see how dueling and death and duels progress across the country, right, they're happening on the east coast and what happens as the nation moves west.

what i found was just before statehood, there would be more gun fights, more duels, there would be more violence. if it's coming from the same sort of idea, the reason why is because people knew that statehood was coming and people were going to claim power so there was like this shuffle of a moment where people are like, oh, yeah, i'm better to you, no, i'm better to you. we better show it now. soon there will be a government and it's going to matter. i think the idea of it and the culture of it is similar, but i don't necessarily think that people drew that immediate connection and said this is just a western duel. it was just very similar in the logic of it that you're proving your honor and your skill, but in shootouts, i think more people are dying than in duelling which really is more about the display. >> you said that dueling was illegal. what exactly was illegal, the fact that a group of men were peaceably assembling on a certain spot, the fact that one man had a gun, the fact that two men had guns which they were entitled to bear arms, the fact, you said they were not trying to kill each other and if there was no killing, what was illegal? >> good question. it differed in different states. sometimes it was sending and receiving a challenge that was illegal. sometimes, i think there was a second example that was just in my mind and just left my mind. sometimes it had to do with meeting for the purpose to a dueling ground. there were sort of tweaks that

were assigned if you did those things, you were liability for dueling. a document i found at the new york historical society about the burr-hamilton duel. burr took notes at his trial and what people are trying to prove, he knew a challenge had been sent or he saw a duel taking place, both of those things would have been legally problematic. what is fascinating is, they get all of these people to testify, so the doctor who was on the ground testifies, the boatman who rowed them across testifies and the doctor, it's very clear that anyone who knows hamilton lyrics, this is the document that led to the lyric. the document the doctor testifies and he is asked what

did you see and he says, well i had my back to the dueling ground, i didn't see anything. i was looking out at the water. i heard two shots, but i have no idea what happened. they carried the guns in a sack so during the trial when people are asked, did you see weapons, nope. i didn't see any weapons. so in a way they're cooperating with each other to enable themselves to engage in this and to get around the fact that specific things in different states are illegal. these are all of the sorts of things that make this fascinating to me and i'll explain actually the document. so the document actually leads to the lyric in the hamilton song, it's striking that it's in my book, it's in my first book, i talk about the rules of dueling and when i went to see the play, i heard that line, there is a line in a song about the rules of dueling that says the doctor turns his back so he can have deniability.

i was at the show with a historian friend and i said that's my document! that's my document! i later discovered that, lin-manuel miranda had read my book and it had inspired parts of that song. what is fascinating about that, those aren't things that are commonly known, the ways these guys are trying to get around the laws so they can engage in the behavior that was important to them but illegal in all of these small ways. >> a question back here. >> thank you. to go back to the question of how women interacted with dueling culture, i'm thinking back to ron's hamilton biography, he talks about when the reynolds affair came forward, how eliza hamilton was bousted, was there a woman to attack to her honor on that level? >> really interesting question, was there a way for women to

respond to attacks on their honor. not that they could get pistols and go to the dueling ground, they weren't part of that culture. john adams and a woman and a historian who really has a public presence in the late 18th century and she does some things that kind of make john adams feel dishonored and it's clear he somehow or other wants to make his honor feel better, warren writes to a male friend and she is like, now what i do? this is not my realm. the male friend has to come in. on the one hand, women aren't really a part of that culture, but if they heard an insult, saw an insult, in one way or another, were witnesses to it, they had a huge impact. so if there was an insult in the street that maybe lots of people didn't see, maybe it wouldn't matter. if a woman was there, that's it, right. then you have really been humiliated.

so women had a big influence and sometimes they did find out in advance and would do what they could do to ideally make this not happen. but there wasn't an exact female equivalent of dueling. i once found an article in the late 18th century magazine of sorts and it was basically arguing, you know, men have this handy thing called a duel that they settle their disputes and shake hands and they're done. women don't have anything like that. we don't get to shake hands and be done with any of our fights. really interesting article and it's kind of long the lines of your question. >> thank you. during your research, did you come into contact with the career of andrew jackson who if memory serves was a prolific duelist of caustic character? >> indeed. the fact that he was a prolific

duelist, that he advertised that about himself in some ways, that was held against him by particularly northerners, he is bad because he is a duelist, among other people, that made him kind of a leader, he represents an interesting kind of moment when ideas about leadership in america are kind of shifting. so is dueling sort of a pro and a con for jackson, but it's more of a pro. it impresses people. it makes him a leader in a more graphic and violent way than i have been talking about. the character in the center of my book, benjamin brown french, he knows jackson. in his diary, he spends a lot of time he fought a lot of duels, he is quite a guy, he is impressive. jackson as a duelist is a little scary. not explicitly political, sometimes it had to do with one lawyer attacking another or something, but i went to the smithsonian room where they have

weapons of various sorts because i want to do see what all of these weapons that i was writing about looked like, they had a table of duelling pistol sets. most sets are beautiful and carved with all kinds of little ivory things for show and most people don't ever use them. if they do, they use them once. andrew jackson's dueling pistols were like death weapons. there was nothing for show, they were just bonk, they stood out on the table as being something that really was there for use as opposed to a handy thing to display. he was a different kind of a politician and his rise really changed the nature of politics in a lot of ways. >> here is a question, thanks for just an absolutely

enlightening presentation, the context of your presentation kind of goes to what's next. it's been said that the strategist figures out to win the war, the grand strategist figures out the piece of as the war. lincoln assassinated, johnson takes over. after john came in, u.s. grant, at what point in time, i would assume as you were saying the republicans came in, hey, we aren't going to take that any more, you have a warrior as the head of the executive branch. through force of personality was he able to dig into that more than just the presence of republican congress but not only having the grand strategist there, but the warrior as well? >> that's an interesting

question. i didn't go far enough to focus on grant as president, however, above and beyond what i'm talking about dueling culture, back to our first president, there is military men as presidents and that matters. jefferson when he runs for president, that's held against him. he was never a military man. he was governor of virginia, he ran from the british, he is bad, it comes up in all of these contests. it's an issue because it supposedly said something about character and being able to defend the nation and that's, i mean, in a way, that's a long tread in american leadership and in particular what people look for in presidents. so jackson is part of that same tradition, not john quincy adams.

i saw a, like a campaign broadside when jackson and on-quincy adams were running against each other for president. it says something like vote for the man who can fight, not for the man who can write. [laughter] >> so that shows you sort of jackson persona, so it mattered, that sort of thing mattered is the short answer to your question. >> thank you so much for your presentation. you did mention that there were differences between the american nature of dueling and european, but you didn't get into too much of the differences. when i was a young man long ago, i was in europe and i sort of had a brush with the fraternity that was part of their tradition had to do with dueling and the scar on the face and the operation of the second man to protect them and so on. could you or did you get into that and could you give us a little feedback on that? >> sure.

i didn't write about it, but in the process of looking at america, i was looking at dueling and honor culture in other places to be able to compare. you're absolutely right, what i talked about in my talk is different the u.s. versus europe, americans advertising duels in the newspaper to make a point about their leadership democratic duels in a sense. that was one big difference, but also in not every nation, but certainly in some european nations, dueling went on as serving a real social culture long after the period that i'm talking about in the united states. however, this was sword dueling, epee, this was not guns. so you could have a dueling scar and have that be something that really shows you're a certain kind of man and you're not going to get killed. in a way, it gets back to what i was saying before that dueling isn't about killing, that kind

of dueling is more about making a statement showing who you are. in 1908, i believe, there was an international anti-dueling conference in berlin. 1908. so this culture goes on, but it goes on in a different form, i think, in europe than it does the united states. in the united states they were never using swords, they were never fencing in duels. guns were very democratic, they were just focused on guns in the united states, so the whole culture of it is a little bit in europe. >> since aaron burr was vice president when he killed alexander hamilton, was there any attempt by congress to impeach him? >> impeachment, i didn't expect that to come up. [laughter] >> so that's interesting. there was a mixed response. aaron burr killed hamilton, he

was gone for a while in south carolina and he reappears and presides over the senate again. some federalists, hamiltonian federalists want to do something on the act that he is there. they're horrified, they want to do something. so they begin to talk about, not in congress, but they begin to talk in new jersey and in new york about pushing in one way or another, to really grab at the laws, these sort of individual laws about what is or isn't illegal to really take that out on burr, to really like get him in legal trouble for what he did. what is interesting in congress, i don't remember how many, i want to say like 15 or 20 republicans, jeffersonian republican congressman sign a statement in response to that that basically says we never punish people for dueling, why are you taking this out on burr, it's not fair. really striking. so, again, i know i said it before, the logic of this is so fascinating and so powerful and so sort of counterintuitive and backward, that's a great example. lawmakers and members of congress signing a statement say we know it's illegal, we don't

punish people for this. why are you punishing burr is a striking example of the type of culture i'm talking about. >> one of my students has a question. >> i was wondering if in your research you came across the, i don't remember if it came like an actual duel, but a challenge between abraham lincoln and one of his contemporaries in illinois, shields? >> shields, yeah, so that's interesting. not something that i have written about, it's not in congress. however, there was something of an honor dispute between lincoln and this fellow shields. it's often written about on the one 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 he 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. that is one way of talking about it. there is a book that actually, this fellow was writing it when i had a particular fellowship, doug wilson, i think it's honored call or something like that. when we talked about this incident, we ended up feeling like there was seriousness to it, that it wasn't just a joke, they don't necessarily end up dueling but when you look at what they were doing, they were taking it seriously and thinking about what they were doing and as i suggested, you don't have to go to a dueling ground to make a point, right. you just have to show yourself to be a certain kind of person and to be willing to do something during the negotiations. if you have a good second, they can kind of stop things that way

before they get to the dueling ground. >> a good example, i never heard of that. all right, i think we are out of time, so thanks, let's give our thanks to joanne, thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2020] [interesting conversations -- >> san antonio is very much a bicultural community. the latino story is the san antonio story. >> the c-span cities tour is on the road, exploring the american story. we take you to san antonio, texas. >> san antonio is here because of these missions. >> this is power sent -- this is airpower central. tv, wey at noon on book learn about the city from some

of its authors. sunday at 2:00 on american history tv, we traveled to museums and historic sites as we learned about the history of the city and surrounding areas. the cities tour, taking you on the road to explore the american story. tv,oday on american history kermit roosevelt, a constitutional law professor and the great-great-grandson of theodore roosevelt delivers a title called -- a talk title to the constitution and declaration of independence, -- and if independence, a contrary view. >> if you look back at the constitution and tell the story of an american identity, it was born and has endured through the years, you can do it. story.s not a very happy if you are looking for a continuous theme in american history, this theme is really putting unity ahead of justice. putting unity ahead of equality.

this is a story about the shadow of slavery hanging over the nation. it's what i call the darker story of america. this story also starts with the declaration, bringing together the free states and the slave states. america is going to fight for weedom is one -- as one, have to do that to achieve independence, because the states acting separately cannot defeat the british. this is the most powerful empire in the world. but it means free states and slave states must join together, and that means the declaration is not going to say much about slavery. so jefferson's first draft says something, two things. first it blames king george for the existence of slavery in america. jefferson did think that slavery should never have come to america. it also blames king george for inciting slave rebellions. jefferson thought that slaves can't be freed, they would be dangerous.

the final draft takes out the attack on slavery itself but leaves in the complaint that king george is encouraging slaves to rebel. so even as the declaration announces principles that are inconsistent with slavery, which i don't think it does, it deliberately does not criticize the practice. you can see it, it's in there, it gets taken out. excepting slavery is the price of independence. it's also the price of union. after the revolution we get the articles of confederation, those are a treaty among independent states. the people who draft the articles of confederation remember the tierney of the tierney -- tyrann y of the british. they succeed in that, but the central government that they create is too weak to govern effectively. it cannot keep the states in line. a new government is needed, that's what the constitution

gives us. but once again, we have to get everyone on board. we have to get the free states and the slave states together. if we cannot get one single dominant nation on the north american landmass, the european powers may pick off the isolated states one by one. france, spain, england, it will dismember the united states. so the constitution except slavery, it protects it in the way that i mentioned before and it rewards slave states with extra power in the federal government. >> watch the full program today at 2:00 eastern, 11:00 pacific, here on american history tv. >> 75 years ago in early 1945, u.s. marines invaded the pacific island of iwo jima and fought japanese forces in one of the bloodiest contests of world war ii. next, herschel "woody" williams reflects on the battle and the sacrifices made by american

soldiers throughout history. he was one of two dozen americans to win the congressional medal of honor for actions on iwo jima. the national museum of the marine corps hosted the event. >> all of the men who fought on iwo are heroes, and all of the men who fought in world war ii are heroes and pave the way for the way of life we have today. but on iwo jima, 22 marines receive the medal of honor. if there is a historian in the room and i got that wrong, tell me later. [laughter] >> we have one of those medal of honor recipients with us. i believe i am correct in saying that herschel "woody" williams is the last surviving iwo jima medal of honor recipient. he is here to talk about that