. this talk was part of the william be crawly great lives lecture series hosted by the university of mary washington. [ applause ] >> hello, everybody. good morning. welcome to tonight's great last presentation. i'd like first to thank the program sponsors, the hearse 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 to thrive so i would like to our our good friends from herschel to stand so we could acknowledge them. where are you? i know you're there. [ applause ] also, special group with us

tonight that i would like to acknowledge and that the the simpson circle and that is a group composed of former mary washington b.o.v. members and they're here tonight and we'd like to have them stand so we could acknowledge them. [ applause ] in introducing tonight's speaker, dr. joann freeman, would you like to mention at the outset that one of her most commendable qualifications is that she received her ph.d from the university. that's right. uva, right. in any case, not long after receiving that degree she was recognized already as one of the nation's top young historians. she subsequently has achieved

widespread recognition as a scholar of the revolutionary american history. she's the author of numerous articles in those subjects which include the journal including the william and mary journal and the yale law journal among others. she's written op-ed pieces for "the new york times" and has appeared in numerous documentaries on pbs and the history channel and on radio programs for npr and the bbc. and you may have seen her just in the past week on the history channel series on george washington. she's written several books including study of alexander hamilton and her first book kiteled "affairs of honor, national politics in the new republic" from the early american republic. her most recent book and the basis of tonight's lecture is

titled the field of blood published in 2018. with regard to that book, historian tj styles who you may recall as a former great live speaker wrote that, quote, with ininsightful analysis and vivid detail she explores the human relationships among congressman before the civil war and finds a culture of astonishing violence in fistfights, duels and mass brawls. her innovative account detects steps toward disunion and changes how we think of political history. another prominent historian wrote that, quote, she describes many varieties of congressional violence, including bullying, fighting in the halls of congress, fist-a-cuffs, guns, knives and threats of duels. with painstaking research she penetrates the silence imposed by sources frequently reluctant

to publicize the em bears truth and what a surprise an important story should wait so long to be told. tonight we're honored to share is that story with us as we welcome dr. joann freeman to the university of washington and the great lives podium. [ applause ] >> 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 duellists. now, it probably won't surprise you to learn that as someone who has studied alexander hamilton for a good many decades, i've had really good reason to study duelling. over the years, i've watched

re-enactments of the burr/hamilton duel 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 a black powdered duelling now thanks to the policeman who was supervising my target practice, i was wearing ear shields and plastic goggles, which kind of took something away from the accuracy of the historical moment, but still, it was an amazing opportunity to get some small sense of the physical sensation of firing a dueling pistol. but getting a 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 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

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 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.

and when a line was crossed and honor was offended, the code of honor offered a regulated way to settle the dispute. hopefully, with negotiations, but sometimes, with gunplay on a dueling ground. for example, there were a number of what i always call for myself, alarm bell words. words you could never use in relation to another gentleman, because it was a most like daring that person to challenge you to a duel. these words included some that were logical like "liar," "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 effeminate and a toy. it was a serious insult although it is hard to consider that today. however, everyone knew that insulting a man with one of

those words was as good as challenging him to a duel. it was like a dare that demanded a response, and to ignore the kind of dare would be to dishonor yourself. i want to show you an example of one or two of those words in action. so this takes place in 1797. alexander hamilton and james monroe, local guy james monroe, became involved in a controversy. hamilton believed that monroe had leaked some damaging information to the press, and he was outraged. so he decided that he would go to monroe's house to demand explanation, and he wrote a note saying i hear you have done x, y and z. i'm coming to your home for an explanation, and i'm bringing a friend. or in other words, a second, a duel assistant in case they are

talking and it lead 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. monroe immediately knew that now we moved into the 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 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. 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. monroe kept interrupting in complete frustration. i know already. i lived through this. can you get going?

at which hamilton would begin again at the beginning of his account. [laughter] so things went worse as their conversation went on. it did not take long for both men ultimately to lose their patience, with hamilton clearly getting redder and redder and monroe getting icier and icier until hamilton bluntly accused monroe of leaking the information. when monroe denied it, hamilton said, "this as your representation is totally false." he's not using the l word, not saying you're a liar, but he's just being careful with his words. even though he did not use the buzz word, 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 that a line had been crossed. as soon as the words left hamilton's mouth, both men jumped to their feet. now the two men assumed they'll be involved in an affair of honor. monroe responded by taking hamilton's dare and pushing it one step further. he said, do you say i represented falsely, you are a scoundrel. thank you for the sound effects. that's what someone would have said at the time. hamilton responded by saying, i will meet you like a gentleman. meaning, i'm ready to duel. monroe replied, i'm ready, get your pistols. at which point the two men's friends, their seconds, separated them, calmed them down and convinced them to act as though some of what had happened had not happened so the seconds could negotiate. now, as i just suggested, this incident unfolded much more quickly than most honor disputes. the two men lost their tempers, which is not how a man of honor was supposed to behave.

most disputes followed really predictable ritualist steps. in a more conventional dispute, a gentleman would have written a form letter to the other with five basic statements. first it would say, i have been told you insulted me and said x, y and z. and it would suggest what that insult was. and it would have quoted precisely -- the words quoted to me are -- this is what i'm told you have said. third, the letter would ask, is this true or false? avow it or deny it. fourth, it would ask, do you have an explanation for this? and fifth would demand, an immediate response typically by saying, i demand an immediate response as a man of honor. if you get that letter, that is a duel to be form letter. it is an alarm bell. whoever got it knew honor was defended and the writer was ready to fight.

it 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 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 monroe did. for months, they exchanged

letters through their seconds. each one said, ready 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. nothing happens in the end. this goes on for months and in the end both men walk away and say, well, i showed him. he's a coward. kind of typical. it accomplished something but 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, being calm and passionless and even haughty in the face of death. ideally, the ritual 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 to what people think dueling is. the point of a duel was not to kill your opponent. it is easy to assume that. two men going into a field to shoot each other, probably one wants to kill 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 you went to the dueling ground by standing there, you were proving your willingness to risk your life for your honor as with your opponent. people didn't had 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. wounds were usually not too serious. 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. 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.

the opponents often fell victim to such outrage that he had to leave the state. in many ways, a duelist who killed his opponent was a failed duellist, 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 ritualistic 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 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, i think once before. burr says twice, hamilton says once.

ten 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. at least three actual duels. so, in other words, the burr-hamilton duel was not a grand exception, but rather part of a larger trend. when you look at these honor disputes and duels, you do see patterns. first, you notice a lot of these duels 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 many of them were 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 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 duel. now, in american duels, often the results were published in newspapers. sometimes they would be summarized, say something like

mr. x met mr. y on the field of honor, and both men behaved honorably. the subtext of that would be both men behaved honorably, both are fit to be leaders so vote for them in the next election. that is why these details are being published. and europeans were stunned at this custom, because it seemed like americans were advertising their duels for votes, which in a way, they were. this is a really distinctly american twist on the european practice of dueling. as i just suggested, these are not impulsive or irrational duels, not guided by uncontrolled suicidal impulses or murderous rage. early american political duels, at least for a time were 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 burr lost his election for governor of new york with hamilton campaigning against him. not long after losing, burr felt compelled to redeem his name and reputation from that loss. there is actually a pamphlet written by one of his supporters at the time that says, if mr. burr didn't redeem his reputation, why should his followers follow him? what does he have to offer? he must prove he's a leader to offer something to his followers, so he has to do something. so burr did. after losing the new york election, he was looking for a way to redeem his reputation, lo and behold someone handed him a newspaper clipping that contained news of a dinner party were hamilton had insulted burr. burr used the clipping to initiate an affair of honor with hamilton, who had been attacking burr for 15 years at that point.

because of some sloppy insulting exchanges between the two men during those long negotiations, along with 15 years' worth of insults, hamilton couldn't really apologize. in the end, both men felt insulted during the negotiations and obviously, they ended up dueling. 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 at well. but they did end up dueling and there were tragic consequences. as i suggested earlier, this does not mean that burr won the duel. in some ways, he lost it. he fled town as did a flurry of his supporters, his newspaper editor, and the man who rode them across the river to the dueling ground. now new york is upset. he has killed somebody. his enemies united against him to basically condemn him as a murderer and press murder charges.

he was vulnerable and for some time, he hid in south carolina, where people were less upset about hamilton's death and more comfortable with dueling. after several months, he vice-president of the united states, because he was vice-president when he killed hamilton. he was finishing up his term and not coming back for a second term. given that deaths occasionally happened in dueling, he just back to his job, once he felt the coast was clear. it's easy to assume he strolled his way back into the senate and went back to work, but over the years, in reading the letters of men who were in the room, congressmen and senators who were in the room when burr came back, it's really interesting. a lot of them say things like, looked like it wore on him.

he looked as though he was weighted down. they could see basically, it is not all fun and roses when you are involved in a duel and you are being thrown out of town. people could see the impact of what happened. you can see how some american duelists, particularly political ones, use duels as a form of politics in the first decade or two of the new american that was a big part of my first book "affairs of honor: national politics in the new republic." this leads to the question, did this political use of dueling change over time, and if it did, how? that is the topic of my recent book mentioned earlier, "the field of blood: violence in congress and the road to the civil war." the book explores violence in congress in the decade leading up to the civil war. most of the violence i found

actually wasn't duels or even negotiations, most of the violence was pushing, shoving, people pulling knives and guns on each other. fistfights, mass brawls. in the course of my research, i found 70 physically violent incidents in the house and senate from the 1830s to the civil war. including the most famous incident of all, the infamous caning of abolitionist senator charles sumner by representative preston brooks. i should say, it took me many years to write this book because i had to uncover the violence, and almost 100% of the time when i would say to people, i'm writing a book on violence in the congress. they would not necessarily know the name, but they would all basically say, there is that guy. they all knew about the sumner caning. there's no reason why they would know anything else.

some of this violent of the 70 fights that i found was a product of the fact that the united states was violent in these decades and congress was representative. but some of the violence was a matter of strategy. dueling was part of that strategy. because by the 1830s, dueling was increasingly seen as a southern custom, something that southerners boasted about as being a sign of their culture, something that northerners demeaned as being barbaric. and, in fact, by the 1830s and 1840s, north and south had two really different fighting cultures. southern culture obviously, the slavery-based culture favored violence and in particular, man-to-man combat. both things were vital in a slave-based culture. northerners were more prone to

rioting when it came to violence. so north and south are violent in this period. neither one is necessarily better than the other when it comes to violence, but dueling by this point is becoming decidedly 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 were assuming their constituents back home really disapproved of it, thought it was barbaric and southern and would not want their representatives to take a part in it. southerners used that to their advantage during congressional debate. they threatened and intimidated northern opponents, hinting at duels, knowing full well the northerners were likely to back down when confronted or sometimes not to even stand up for confrontation.

silencing themselves rather than risk being humiliated on the floor of congress. i want to show you an example of this in action. in 1838, one congressman killed another in a duel, the only time when congressmen killed another. what launched the duel was a clash between democrats and whigs on the house floor. a southern whig who tried to intimidate a northern democrat into silence. the southerner who was using intimidation to get his way was henry wise, 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. he was my most frequent fighter. he fought several duels, he was the second of several duels. he wasn't a back alley brawler, he was an educated man. he goes on to become governor of

virginia, the man who signed john brown's death warrant. but he was also constantly rolling up his sleeves to throw a punch. so in 1838, wise strides into the house, waving a newspaper above his head and announces, i have here proof that the democrats are corrupt. a maine democrat, in his first year in congress, immediately stood up in protest and insisted that's not true. at this, wise slowly i wouldn't come to it with the a named democrat who was in his first year in congress immediately stood up in protest and insisted, that's not true. democrats aren't corrupt. at this wise slowly and dramatically turned around to face silly and with a bit of a sneer on his face said, are you calling me a liar? you are excellent with sound effects. precisely. that's precisely what he was doing. and silly immediately knew that

this was moving into duel territory. and he immediately back pedaled and eventually backed down. in the process of backpedaling he insulted a newspaper editor through a series of details that i won't go into, there ended up being a duel between two congressmen. the important part of that story is wise's reactions. wise taunted him knowing full well that as a northerner silly would not want to fight a duel so wise could score an easy point against democrats. during the later duel negotiations, silly discussed the fact that he didn't want a duel, that his constituents disapproved of it, but he didn't feel like he could back down because in doing so he would dishonor himself and all that he represented. in my book i refer to this as the northern congressman's dilemma. i don't want to duel, but if i'm in this situation, i can't back

down because that humiliates me and my constituents don't want that either. it was a difficult spot to be in and it influenced debate on the floor. northerners resigned from committees when bullied by southerners. sometimes they refused to confront southerners because of it. there is a great diary entry from an ohio congressman and he reports he is new to congress and describing what he sees and he says there was a southern congressman who was getting the per diem that he should not have been getting as a congressman, and this fellow from ohio says that's not right. he goes up to these friends from ohio and says, why are none of you stepping up and saying, protesting that he should not be getting his money? his friends respond, well, he has a dueling character. so we won't do that. there it is really blatant. of course, that sort of process of intimidation and threatening and silencing people was a very handy thing to have in play when the issue of slavery came up. there is an issue which southerners had a lot to say and

northerners kept being put in this difficult situation again and again. now, when you see here is that all of these years after the burr-hamilton duel, dueling was a form of politics that said a lot about a politician's character. and southerners were really using that to full advantage. but now in the 1830s and beyond it communicated messages about politicians' characters in a more immediate and powerful way than ever before because of great advances in technology. steam powered printing presses, railroads, the telegraph, all of them came to the fore and they spread rumors of what was happening in congress faster than ever before, farther than ever before. so southern bullying and duelling potentially had a more powerful national impact. it's interesting.

it's been an interesting time in american history to come out with a book on politicians behaving badly and violence between politicians. it took me so long to write it that i could not have known this would be the moment when my book came out. one of the things i found striking when i was finishing up the book, there is a chapter in the book on the telegraph. new form of technology. information is spreading quickly. congressmen suddenly don't control the spin. the public is learning all kinds of things from all kinds of people and they can't tell what's true or false. conspiracy theories spread because of the confusion. it's very easy to spread them. if you think about it, the telegraph did what social media does today, which is if politics is basically a conversation between politicians and the public, technology that scramble that conversation makes perfect sense that they potentially scramble the working of democracy as well. so the telegraph and social media is not a comparison i

thought i would ever make, but it's really a striking one. silly, because of the telegraph and other things that were spreading news much more quickly than ever before and further than ever before about what was going on in congress, he worried throughout the negotiations what they were going to think if i do duel. what are new englanders going to think if i don't duel? and wise knew that his constituents would be proud of him for dangling a duel to defend everything that he represented. and in fact, he even said so. always a handy thing. henry wise always said what he wasn't supposed to say. someone would do something, threaten someone, and wise would stand up and say this is like the last five times that happen and i would be a happy historian because i had five other times. so he is that guy. in congress someone says to wise, you should be ashamed of yourself for all of this fighting.

shame on you. we should throw you out. and wise responds, do it. go right ahead. i will be back here in no time because my constituents put me here to fight on their behalf. they want me to behave this way. and in many ways, wise was right. this is a period when people cycled in and out of congress, sometimes serving one term, maybe two. wise was re-elected at least six times, which was unusual and clearly his constituents approved of what he was doing. so, you can see how dueling culture was one of many ways in which southerners exercised a great deal of control over the national government in this period. there was a reason why people spoke in very general terms about a slave power. it was one.

in congress, southerners had a cultural advantage because of dueling culture, and a political advantage of extra representation because of the three-fifths compromise. now, i'm sort of leaning towards the latter part of my comments here, and so what i want to do is at this point is talk about a remarkable document that's going to help us look at how things change, because they don't continue percolating along in congress identically for all of these decades and change is important. then at the very end i want to answer a question because it's the question i get asked all the time when i talk about this topic. first the document, because it's an extraordinary document. and it shows how the dynamics of dueling as i just described it in congress percolated along for a while until the mid 1850s 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 they would fight the slave power, and in congress that had a real meaning to it. some republicans in the late 1850s were fighting men unlike northerners who came before, that came to congress armed. they stood up to bullying. and they said so often. so when you read in this time period the periods equivalent of the congressional record, again and again you see northerners rise to their feet when being bullied and they will say things like, you can't say that about me, i'm a different kind of northerner, i'm here to stand up, not to bow down. i'm a different kind of person. i am not going to take this. and you better be careful. but clearly, the arrival of the republican party and these different kinds of northerners changed the dynamics of bullying in congress.

but it also confronted republicans with a difficult decision. what should they do, duels or challenges at provoking a duel? it's one thing to stand up to southerners, but fighting a duel? when it came to their constituents, that probably crossed a line. i found things addressing this specific problem. a formal statement of sorts signed by three republican dueling 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 all of this in the statement. they couldn't stand the humiliation of being insulted any longer and they couldn't bear the fact that southern bullying was denying their constituents full representation in congress by intimidating northerners into silence. as they put it in this document, it was an undurable outrage that made them frantic with rage and shame. powerful statement. so these three men decided that from then on when confronted by southerners they would declare themselves willing to fight duels and in a statement they said willing to fight duels to the coffin. so, we shouldn't be doing this, but we will. and in the statement they say, we knew that this would probably ostracize us back 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. now, what's striking first about that statement is that it exists. it shows three northerners attesting to what dueling meant and the situation they were in and this decision that they made.

as a historian, the part that struck me is why they made the statement. it's signed by all three men, and they explain at the end of the document they have put this down on paper to explain to posterity what it once took to be in favor of liberty -- their words, to be in favor of liberty and 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. when i found that statement, you know, essentially they were talking to me, and anyone else who was studying them. it basically was them saying look what this felt like. look at how difficult this was. you won't see it unless we point to it, so, here, have a document, joanne freeman. it's handy and you can write a book. strikingly, amazing powerful document.

for these three potential american duellists in the 1850s, dueling still had power. and all these men didn't end up fighting duels, their willingness to duel served as proof of their character in the same way it served for hamilton. and to some degree the simple fact that they were willing to duel tamed some of their southern colleagues. they were slightly less willing to bully northerners after the three men make their declaration. that was not enough to make a difference, and 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. now, i want to close by answering an obvious question. i'm asked it all the time. when did this change and how? that's what happens after the civil war. it certainly doesn't go on. part of the answer as to when does it change and how has to do

with the fact after the civil war, this is going to be very logical, the dynamics of congress shifted and now northerners had power. so, for example, when one southerner during a debate about southern states being readmitted to the union attempted to be violent during debate, a northerner stood up and basically said, you see that? you all remember that? from 1857, 1858, 1859? you want to let that back in here? that's a powerful statement to make and that really shows you northerners flaunting a kind of power that they didn't have before. in this sense, the northern victory in the civil war changed the meaning of dueling in congress. with the north in control, refusing to duel became a way to

display a politician's character. now, before i close, and we will have questions in a moment, i want to throw something out there in case folks are interested because this series is a biographical series of lectures. i have spoken in a general way about duellists. one thing i didn't talk about is the main character at the heart of my book who basically enabled me to tell the story because of how he changed from the period at the beginning of the book to the period at the end. if anyone is interested about that guy, it's benjamin brown french, and i thank him all the time because i really couldn't have told this story without him. i would be happy to talk about that as well. i don't know if it's a great life, but it's a significant life. thank you very much. [ applause ]

>> thank you, joanne. this is a little usually we go to the very end. i want you to see this now to point out that this will be our topic on tuesday, this coming tuesday, and because it was rescheduled, the original schedule, this was supposed to be february 13th. couldn't do it then. had to reschedule. so bear in mind that we will have a lecture next tuesday night. john and -- john quincy adams. the title of that book is "the problem of democracy." i hope you will be here for that. all right. now questions, right? questions. if you are -- raise your hand and stand if you will and ask a question as succinctly as possible. we will take as many as we can, okay?

>> how many duels actually stopped when the duellists were on the field with their guns? how many decided to negotiate there? and second question is, when you were -- when you are a dualist, were you required to shoot somebody, injure them, kill them, or just shoot them? not kill them. >> okay. the first question is how many went to the dueling round and negotiated their way out? occasionally, that happened. sometimes, you know, the way that a duel works is you would exchange fire once and then the second would talk to each other and say is honor satisfied? this person was offended. does he feel satisfied now? and if the answer was yes, they would shake hands and go away. occasionally, they managed to talk something out on the field that they hadn't done before. that's not that common. but the second half of your

question is particularly interesting. it's about what were they trying to do when they were shooting. so it's the point of a duel, as i suggested earlier, to prove that you are willing to die for your honor. if your opponent shoots the gun in the air, he is depriving you of that. there is a reason there are a lot of shin wounds. they are shooting in each other's direction. i have to say with a police sharpshooter firing that dueling pistol with me, they are not the world's most accurate weapons. it wasn't necessarily polite to shoot at the sky. you had to at least aim in the general direction of the other person. as i said, there are people -- there are a lot of leg wounds. people who are killed in the case of the burr/hamilton dual. so the duel when his second said

who should we bring as a doctor, burr said we don't need doctors, let's just get this over with. 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 still in effect in the 1970s when i went into the legislature that you had to swear that you'd never fought a duel or offer a duel. >> so, that's really interesting. in kentucky, the state constitution that said if you were going into the legislature, i guess, that you had to swear that you had never fought a duel. state officials. that's really interesting. in the period that i'm speaking about from burr all the way through, dueling was illegal. the people doing the dueling were the lawmakers. right? they were elite and they felt,

and as they did, they could violate the laws with impunity. people were arrested for dueling, but they sure weren't members of congress and elite folks. what's interesting about this question about swearing you wouldn't duel, one of the ways anti-dueling folk tried to push their agenda is that sort of thing, is by, you know, basically saying to constituents don't vote for duellers or to legislators, you know, put something in that swears they won't duel. that was a slow way to solve the problem. but it very much recognized along the lines of what i was talking about. we are talking about men representing constituents and doing what they feel they need to do to represent them. if those people step forward and say, yeah, you do this and you are out, that's going to have influence. but, so, state by state there were different people doing some version of that precise thing, and there were different aspects of dueling that were illegal state by state.

there was no national anti-dueling law. >> question here. >> really enjoyed your talk today. i guess after watching the debates last night, i would figure a time went by the desert in nevada would be very cold. my question is you mainly talked about politicians and a 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 the ladies ever pull out 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 it's his wife. someone finds out and hamilton

says, i can't -- i have to -- i'm working this out. it's complicated. his opponent says something along the lines of, i should think you would have control of your wife so we could go ahead and do this. so 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 non-elite folk. so there were average people dueling. they tended to be arrested. i remember finding a letter from the late 1790s and it says something like the jails are full of duellists. those aren't the guys i write about who were in jail. so, yeah, there were a lot of people dueling. but fascinating to me is that also everybody understood the

rules and implications of dueling in 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 one man ended up killing the other man on the street. and there ends up being a trial. everyone who was on the street or saw it testifies. and they testify to what they saw and what they were thinking. the barrel makers, candle makers, a barber. it's like every level of society. what they all say is, well, i saw that newspaper thing where one was going to cap the other. so i came to the street on person because i knew something is going to happen here because it happens to happen. i saw what 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's difficult to find. but the testimony in this trial really proved it. >> thank you. great evening. 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 because a couple of years later, as soon as lincoln, the republican is elected, six weeks, they said that's it. did they make a statement that affected the whole republican party? >> that's an interesting question. you are right that those three men, you know, they do it, frankly, wade came into congress with a gun and put it down on his desk. that's a statement, right? here you go. i am not like the northerners in the past. it didn't -- 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 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. the northerner, 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 this northerner, and the northerner hits him first and flattens him. now, what happens in this moment shows you that things have changed but they haven't.

southerners who see one of their own flattened begin to stream across the house. dozens at a time. republican northerners, who see the southerners running to the point of combat, begin jumping over desks and chairs to get to the spot to help their fellow. in the end, there is a huge brawl, 30 guys punching each other, throwing spittoons, you know, a real brawl that ends when one congressman grabs someone's hair to throw a punch and his hair comes off because it's a toupee. what i love about that is that slapstick is just eternal, right? goes all the way back. what's interesting about that about, on the one hand, that's a striking moment in which north and south are battling in the

space in front of the speaker's chair. and there is a reporter that says that looks like a battle. on the one hand, the dynamic is really different, but the southerners aren't scared. they are just unsettled and trying to figure out what to do to maintain a grip of what they had before. so, what's interesting along the lines of what you are suggesting is think about what this long tradition of northerners who won't fight, think about what that did to southerners and what they thought they were up against when the war started. there is a lot of statements by southerners giving speeches in the south and they say things like, we 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. >> okay. 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 gun fight. 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, a signal or something they both grab a gun and shoot. so there is a -- it feels very similar to a duel. but at some point earlier in my project i was looking to see how dueling and deaths and duels progress across the country. it's happening on east coast and what happens as the nation moves west. what i found was just before statehoods, there would be more duels, more violence. so it's coming from the same sort of ideas. 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 were like, oh yay? i'm better than you. sooner or later, there is going to 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. but you are proving your honor and your skill, but in shootouts i think more people are dying than in dueling, which is really 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, two men had guns, they were entitled to bear arms? they were not trying to kill each other and if there was no killing, what was illegal? >> good question. so sometimes it was sending or receiving a challenge that was illegal. sometimes, i think it was a second example that just left my mind. sometimes it had to do with meeting for the purpose of going to a dueling ground. if you did those things, a great example of this, a document i found at the new york historical society about the burr/hamilton duel.

aaron burr's second ended up being tried for his participation in the duel. clearly, he took notes at his trial. clearly, what people were trying to prove, this challenge had been sent or he saw a duel taking place. both of those things would have been legally problematic. but what's fascinating is they get all these people to testify. so the doctor who is on the ground testifies, and the doctor, it's very clear, this is the document that led to the lyric, right? so the document that the doctor testifies and he's asked what did you see? and he said, 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. 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 are 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. but these are all the sorts of things that make this

fascinating. so the document actually leads to the lyric in the hamilton song. kind of striking. but it's my first book. i talk about the rules of dueling and when i saw that play, i heard the song, the line about the rules of dueling, the doctor turns his back so he can have deniability. i was at the show with a historian friend, i was like, that's my document. i later discovered, yeah, actually, they had read my book and it had inspired parts of that song. so, but what's fascinating about that is those are all things that aren't commonly known. the ways in which these guys were trying to get around the laws so they could engage in this behavior that was important to them, but illegal in all of

these small ways. >> a question back here. >> to go back to the question of how women acted with dueling cultures, in the biography they talk about when the reynolds affair came forward, how eliza hamilton was ousted. was there a way for a woman to respond to an attack on her honor on that level? >> really interesting question. is there a way for women to respond to attacks on their ing honor? not in the sense that they could get pistols and go to a dueling ground. they weren't part of that culture. an interesting example of that has to do with john adams and mercy otis warren, who is a woman and historian who has a public presence in the late 18th century. she does some things that make john adams feel dishonored and it's clear he somehow wants to make his honor feel better, and she writes to a male friend. she is like, now what do i do? this is not my realm.

you know, the male friend has to sort of 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 is 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. 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 equivalent of dueling. i once found an article in a late 18th century magazine of sorts. it was arguing men have -- they can call them duels. they settle disputes and shake hands. 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 along 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 duellist of constant character? >> indeed. so i would focused on congress. in that sense, i wasn't really focused on jackson. however, the fact that he was a prolific dualist, that he advertised that about himself in some ways, and that was held against him by particularly northerners, that he is bad because he is a dualist, but among other people that made him a kind of a leader, he represents an interesting kind of moment when ideas about leadership in america are kind of shifting. so, his dueling is still kind of a pro and a con for jackson, but i think for him it's more of a

pro because it impresses people. he is kind of that leader in a more kind of graphic violent way than maybe i've been talking about. but this main character at the center of my book, his name is benjamin brown french. and he knows jackson. benjamin brown french. he knows jackson. in his diary, he spaends lot of time saying, basically, he's fought a lot of duels. he's quite a guy. he's really impressive. jackson is a little scary as a duelist. though some of his duels were not explicitly political sometimes it had to do with one lawyer attacking another or something but i went to the smithsonian room where they have weapons of various sorts because i wanted to see what all the weapons i was writing about looked like. they had a table full of dueling pistol sets. most are beautiful, carved, for show and most people don't ever

use them and 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 from what i saw 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. his rise really changed the nature of politics in a lot of ways. >> thanks for the presentation. what i have is the context of your presentation kind of goes to what's next. it's been said that the strategist figures out how to win the war, the grand strategist figures out how to figure out the peace after the war. looking at lincoln's assassinated, johnson takes over, who is no match as a southern democrat for the northerners, after johnson 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 anymore, but now you have a warrior, the head of the executive branch. through force of personality was he able to dig into that more than just the presence of the republican congress but not only having the grand strategist there but warrior as well? >> that is an interesting question. i didn't go far enough to really focus on grant as president. however, above and beyond whatever i'm talking about here with dueling culture all the way back to our first president there is a really strong tradition of military men as presidents and that that kind of military service really matters. so jefferson when he runs for president, that's held against him. right? he was never a military man. he was governor of virginia and he fled from the british. he's a coward. he's bad. always comes up in all of these contests and it's always an issue because it supposedly says something about character and

being able to defend the nation. and that's in a way a long thread in american leadership and in particular what people look for in presidents. so, you know, jackson is part of the same tradition. not john quincy adams. i saw a, like a campaign broadside when jackson and john quincey adams were running against each other for president. it said something like, vote for the man who can fight not for the man who can write. [ laughter ] so that sort of thing matters 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 sort of had a brush with a 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 and other places to be able to compare. you are absolutely right. what i talked about in my talk is being different in the u.s. versus europe was americans advertising duels in the newspaper to basically 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. this was not guns. so, you know, 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 also more about making a statement showing who you are. you know, in 1908, i believe, there was an international anti-dueling conference in berlin. so this culture goes on but in a different form i think in europe than it does in the united states. the united states they were never using, you know, 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 is a little different in europe. >> since aaron burr was vice president when he killed

alexander hamilton, was there any attempt by congress to impeach him? >> wow. okay. impeachment. i didn't expect that to come up. so that's interesting. there was a mixed response. aaron burr killed hamilton. he's gone for a while in south carolina and then he reappears and goes back to preside over the senate again. and some federalists, hamiltonian federalists, want to do something to act on the fact that he is there. they are horrified of the fact they're sitting and being presided over by this guy who just killed one of their supreme leaders. 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 and one way or another to really grab at the laws, sort of individual laws about what is or isn't illegal to really take that out on burr, get him in legal trouble for what he did.

what's interesting in congress is i don't remember how many. i want to say like 15 or 20 republican, jeffersonian republican congressmen 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. you know? so again, i know i've said it before. the logic of this is so fascinating and so powerful and so sort of counterintuitive and backward. that is a great example. lawmakers, members of congress signing a statement saying, yeah we know it's illegal. we don't punish people for this. why are you punishing burr? is a striking example of the kind of culture i'm talking about. >> one of my students has a question. >> ah ha. >> i was wondering if in your research you came across the -- i don't remember if it became

like an actual duel but there was a challenge between abraham lincoln and one of his contemporaries in illinois, shields? >> shields. yeah. so that is interesting. it's not something i've 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 though it is kind of a joke, that it wasn't serious. people talk about the fact that lincoln got to pick weapons and 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. but there is a book that actually this fellow was writing it when i was -- had a particular fellowship, doug wilson i think i want to say called honor's 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. that 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 kind of 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 willing to do something during the negotiations and if you have a good second they can kind of stop things that way before they get to the dueling ground. >> that was a good example of the student knowing more than the professor. i never heard of that. all right. we are out of time. so thanks to you. let's give our thanks to joann. thank you so much. [ applause ]

over the next few hours here on american history tv on c-span 3, lectures in history where we take you to history classrooms at colleges and universities across the country. we begin with a look at george washington's character and then the career of civil rights activist and academic ron walters. after that, women's contributions to the allied fight in world war ii. and later, a comparison of the american and british military during the revolutionary war. >> american history tv products are now available at the new c-span online store. go to c-spanstore.org to see what's new for american history tv and check out all of the c-span products. >> next on lectures in history texas christian university professor gene allen smith teaches a class about george washington's character and examines how george washington

interacted with his contemporaries, how he viewed himself, and how we remember him today. >> okay. today what we're planning to do is spend a little time talking about george washington. and the character that he developed over a lifetime. if you think about what we've done for the duration of this course, we've brought him into the story intermittently throughout, whether it's talking about individual battles or talking about how he organized men or how he kept men -- recruited men to get them to maintain or stay in the service. one of the things i try to get across whenever i'm talking about washington is that washington is a bit of an enigma to a modern audience. why? because we really don't know who he was, what he was, how he looked. i mean, when i show you these