blood still flows in the veins of descendants; and in our country, almost to the present period, men of great renown sustained the duel by precept and example.

But great men have at last ceased to fight duels. Such men as General Charles Lee and Colonel Laurens, Generals Cadwallader and Conway, General McIntosh, and Button Gwinnett, of revolutionary fame, have retired from the lists. No Alexander Hamilton or De Witt Clinton or William H. Crawford now sacrifices or risks a life that belongs to the country on the altar of a strange god-strange to the very breath of true Christianity and to the civilization which that breath is everywhere warming into peaceful and beautiful life. No illustrious naval officer like Decatur is likely again to fall before the fire of a dueling pistol in the hands of a brother officer or a stranger to the service. No man like President Jackson will again live to regret, when crowned with all the honors of a great country, that he had once encouraged a practice which duty to that country and justice to its service required him to repudiate and forbid. Never more shall patriotic statesmen and orators like Clay, Randolph, and Benton make the walls of the capitol ring with eloquence, and yet risk the brain that conceived and the tongue that uttered such power on the chance of a shot. It should be remembered, in behalf of our dueling fathers, that the absence of those stringent laws which now, in most of the States of the American Union, make dueling felonious and disqualify for office all directly or indirectly engaged therein, gave them tacit license to follow that example of many illustrious men of Europe, which itself, as we have seen, followed the example set by law of adjudicating in a similar mode the title to land, the guilt of committing certain classes of crime, and the violation of the etiquette and discipline essential to the efficiency of military service. Had public sentiment, molded into law, been then as now, it is reasonable to suppose that they would not have deliberately vio lated the laws of that country which they loved so much and served so faithfully.

It may, too, be justly said that the field was open and the fight in a certain sense was fair. No mean advantage was taken of an antagonist, no concealed pistol was suddenly drawn and leveled with fatal effect at an unarmed man. Of such conduct, Mr. Benton well said: "Certainly, dueling is bad, and has been put down, but not quite so bad as its substitute

revolvers, bowie-knives, blackguarding, and street assassinations, under the pretext of self-defense." Let us rejoice with him that dueling has been put down; but let us see to it that what he termed its substitute be buried in a deeper grave. The grogshop and the concealed pistol are the roots of all this evil.

It is generally believed, not only that the settlement of personal difficulties with deadly weapons is more prevalent in the Southern than in the Northern States, but that public sentiment approves the practice on Southern soil. It may be conceded

that the settlement of difficulties by the duel has been more common amongst us than with our Northern brethren, and that at the close of the late civil war affrays, riot, and bloodshed were of very frequent occurrence; but if all the facts are candidly examined, fair-minded men will be led to the conclusion that it is highly creditable to the old Southern civilization, and much to be commended in those who live amongst the graves of their fathers, that the disparity is not infinitely greater than it is.

In respect to the reasons which made the duel more resorted to in the South than in the North, it may be observed that the temper and tone of the two sections of our great country were infused into each by the blood which the fathers who settled them respectively brought across the water. New England derived hers in largest measure from Puritan settlers. Sturdy, courageous, energetic they were, as those who followed Cromwell to victory and the Protectorate; yet through all their character flowed veins of deep piety, which at times ran wild into superstitious fanaticism. But that force moved them as a community rather than as individuals. New England organizes before she moves. When she moves, the individual is swallowed up in the mass. Corporate power, aggregate combinations,-these have been the pillars of her strength, as they have been the habit of New England's life, and much of that life she imparted to the broad territories above the Ohio to the Pacific coast.

On the other hand, the dominant population of the South had more cavalier than Puritan blood in its veins. There was in its character more individuality and less capacity for combination; more dash and less deliberation in its action. It, too, had its faith in God and its reliance on him for the right, but its zeal was not always according to knowledge. Its individuality made it ready to fight on the instant; reliance on self grew out of

that individuality; it was not disposed to wait for company or for law; a word and a blow were instantaneous; and if the blow fell from muscle too strong, the heart was unconquered and panted for equal arms. Its faith, however erroneous, gave it reliance on protection and assistance from God in what it deemed a righteous cause. Hence the more frequent single combat, the prepared ground, the equal arms- the duel.

Reliance upon God for intervention on the dueling-ground was as much the fruit of faith, uncontrolled by reason, in the South, as the passage of blue laws and burning of witches was in New England. With the Southern fathers this faith often went to the extent of deeming it dishonorable and presumptuous to practice or prepare for the wager of battle. Knowing that an ancestor, whose honored name he bears, had figured largely in the politics of Georgia and of the Union, from the close of the Revolutionary War to the year 1806, when he died in the Senate of the United States, and had fought duels more than once during that period, the writer has recently read again the biography of that ancestor, and now transcribes the following paragraph:

"In March, 1780, he was unhappily the antagonist of LieutenantGovernor Wells, in a duel which terminated fatally to the latter gentleman. He was himself shot through both knees. Confined by his wounds for months, refusing amputation, and abandoned by his surgeons, he was prevented from taking part in the military operations of the spring of 1780. Justice to him requires the declaration that, although he was forced into this difficulty by a gross personal indignity, which his honor as an officer and the spirit of the period compelled him to resent, and although he had done nothing wherewith to reproach himself, yet he afterward deeply lamented the dreadful catastrophe. He was no duelist from principle; he abhorred the practice. It was his lot on several occasions in subsequent life to be similarly involved; but he went always to the place of combat without preparation, with no vindictive passion, confiding in the rectitude of his cause, and convinced that duty to his country demanded the exposure of his person."

In like manner, many a duelist abhorred what he felt constrained to do, and deeply lamented a result fatal to his adversary. Another instance is within the knowledge of the writer: A felon, under the guise of friendship, obtained access to the fireside of a Georgian, and, during the absence of his host from home, dishonored his bed. A challenge and duel resulted in the death of the seducer; but he who was thus wronged, and thus avenged himself, went to his grave a miserable man. Often, instead of sleep at night, he walked his chamber in the anguish VOL. CXXXVII.-NO. 322.

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of a conscience that would allow him no rest during the whole night.

In respect to the reasons which, at the close of the war, rendered the South more frequently a field for riotous conduct and bloody rencontre than the North, let the plain facts be submitted to a candid public judgment. Southern soil was the four years' battle-field of that war. It was practically a foreign war to the North. Rarely was a hostile foot on Northern ground. With the exception of Gettysburg, no battle-field bears a Northern name. President Lincoln, whose heart was big enough to forgive and forget, and whose hand would have restrained vengeance, was slain by an assassin, who cried, "The South is avenged!" Alas! poor South! how often has the folly or fanaticism of some erring child soiled the garment and stained the honor of the innocent and spotless mother!

After the war, there was a reign of bedlam in the South, and it seems almost miraculous that it did not become a reign of universal bloodshed. Of course, every man who could procure a pistol carried it, and, lest it should be taken from him by force, he carried it concealed. Despite the penalty of law, and its enforcement in the courts, too much of this habit lingers yet. With no such palliating circumstances, the same habit exists largely at the North. In fact, the whole country is badly afflicted with the awful plague.

It is unjust to judge an entire community by one man, or a great section by one little community therein, or by a portion of its inhabitants. The mass of the Southern population are as honest and earnest for a peaceful Christian civilization as the mass of the North. The echo of the public sentiment of a free people reverberates from the laws they make and the men they put into office to expound and enforce them.

The State of Georgia, at least, may invite comparison of her laws on the subject of dueling and carrying concealed weapons with those of any other. Any person who participates as principal or second in a duel in this State is disqualified for holding office; if death ensue, it is murder chargeable on all who participate; if any one sends or accepts a challenge, it is a misdemeanor punished by fine, imprisonment, or hard labor in the penitentiary; if any one consents to be a second while in this State, no matter where the duel is to be fought, the crime and penalty are the same; if a duel be fought and it does not

result fatally, the principals and seconds are all guilty of a high misdemeanor, and are punishable by imprisonment and hard labor in the penitentiary; if any one publishes another as a coward, or uses other opprobrious epithet toward him, for declining to fight a duel, he shall be held guilty of a misdemeanor, and punished by fine or imprisonment or the chaingang, or all of these combined; if the printer of such publica tion fails to give the name of the author, he stands in his shoes and is punished in the same way; and if any peace officer neglects to put a stop to any contemplated duel of which he knows or has notice, he is dismissed from office.

So the act of carrying, openly or concealed, any deadly weapon to church, religious meeting, court-ground, election precinct, or any other public gathering, is a misdemeanor, and punishable with fine and imprisonment; and carrying such weapon concealed anywhere, in-doors or out-of-doors, on street, highway, or private path, is a misdemeanor and is punishable in the same manner. Grand juries are sworn to present all such offenders, and the Circuit judges are required to give these laws in special charge to grand juries at every term of the court. The judiciary of Georgia strive to enforce these laws, and day by day the evil lessens and crime diminishes.

The writer ventures to subjoin the concluding paragraph of the opinion of the Supreme Court of Georgia delivered by himself in the case of the State vs. Hill, reported in Sixty-fourth Georgia Reports, page 453. In 1879, Hill had premeditatedly killed a man who was guilty of adultery with his wife. A jury had pronounced him guilty of murder, and recommended that he be imprisoned for life, and he had appealed for a new trial.

"We add but a single remark: If men will take the law into their own hands, become themselves the judges of their own cases, and their own sheriff to execute the sentence they themselves pronounce, they must be certain that they adjudge the case according to law, and execute the sentence which that law pronounces, or they must suffer the consequences of their mistake of the law. Homicide for revenge of past offenses, however heinous, deliberately planned and premeditated, and carried into execution after reason has had time to assert her supremacy over passion, is murder; and he who judges that in his own case it is not, and executes sentence in such a case on a fellow-being, must suffer the penalty which the law imposes upon the murderer."

The people of the North, and of the world, may rest assured that life and limb and property are held as sacred at the