them to demand "the pound of flesh," the heart's blood of their brother in atonement for a contemptuous look or word-this code, so exquisitely nice in its guardianship of their honor, permits these same gentlemen to go under her shield to the gambling table, the grog shop, and the brothel. They may be unfaithful to a wife, but not disrespectful to a gentleman. They may be profane, and oppressive to their dependents, nuisances in their families and neighborhoods; and yet all honorable, very honorable men; so much so that the prescribed penalty of a doubt, expressed in word or look, is death in cold blood. Admirable hypocrisy !

6. The real courage of duelists is very questionable. It is not courage, but cowardice, that prompts the giving and receiving of challenges. It is done because they are afraid of being regarded as cowards and without spirit, by their corrupt friends, and by that portion of the public who uphold dueling. It has been frequently and publicly said by duelists, that they abhor the custom-their own judgment condemns it, and they offer no other apology than the fear of a corrupt public sentiment. It is therefore palpable cowardice that sustains the custom. Duelists involve themselves in mortal combat simply because they have not nerve and courage to resist absurd opinion, and follow the decisions of their own reason and conscience. Cowardice more base and contemptible cannot be easily conceived of, than that which thus meanly succumbs to a vulgar and abhorred prejudice, against which the man's own reason remonstrates, and where all the dear interests of life are at stake. What a perfect coward must that man be who is afraid to do right, afraid to refrain from what he professes to abhor, lest he should alienate a few unreasonable men!

That the dueling system is a code for cowards, is manifest upon the very face of it. It is an agreement among those who adopt it, to behave respectfully and honorably in their intercourse, and this agreement is enforced by the mere fear of the pistol or the rifle. They thus proclaim to the world that they are destitute of those principles which secure decorous and gentlemanly conduct among other men, and that they can be kept decent and wellbehaved only by being placed in peril of their lives. Their only dependence is upon each other's fears. Indeed their code derives all its efficacy from their cowardice.

But

7. The duelist commits murder without the remotest prospect of gaining the alleged end. The alleged end of the challenger in a duel is to obtain satisfaction for an insult, and to vindicate his impeached honor. A. alleges that B. is not a gentleman; and thereupon B. invites A. to meet him in mortal combat: and upon exchanging shots, A. is killed. What does that prove? It proves that B. at a certain distance may hit a mark the size of a man. does it prove that B. is a gentleman? Does it prove that he is not a knave or liar? Have the public reason to feel assured that B. is an honorable man because he can hit a mark the size of a man? Would not hitting a tree, or any other inanimate object, prove his good character equally well, besides being a more innocent way of earning an honorable reputation?

But what satisfaction does B. get by killing his neighbor? He does not satisfy a revengeful feeling, for he disavows such feeling. Well, has A., who thought him no gentleman, had his ignorance enlightened and his judgment rectified by being shot down? Or is B. now any better satisfied of himself that he is a gentleman? Then

he must have had some doubts before, and should have had some charity for A.'s misgivings. Or is B.'s character reinstated with the public by the fact that A. is killed? And is the killing of a man the criterion by which we are to gauge character and worth? The system is as ridiculous as it is wicked. It is murder without any tendency to the end for which it is professed to be committed. Would the fighting of any number of duels have bleached the character of Benedict Arnold, or Aaron Burr, and made them honorable men?

The absurdity of the duelist is obvious in another view. By engaging in a duel, he virtually concedes that his character is questionable, and an appeal to arms is necessary to establish it. It would not be thought necessary for Franklin, or Madison, or Washington, or Marshall, were they living, to engage in a duel. Their characters were above reproach or suspicion. They were acknowledged as honorable men, without a certificate that they had shot down their traducers. But the duelist, by his own showing, is of so dubious a character, even among his personal friends and constituents, that he must fight to convince them he is a man and not a poltroon. The evidences of his courage and honor have been so few and doubtful, that he must go to the field of blood to sustain them.

8. The duelist is a murderer, not upon some unlooked for provocation, but by profession, by rule and system. His position on the list of blood is not accidental-it is chosen. Dueling is a part, and a boasted part of his scheme of life. He has studied his subject. He has acquired skill in the use of deadly weapons for the express purpose of being qualified to kill such of his fellow men as he may choose in the course of his life to call into the field.

The common murderer, whom we hand over without hesitation to the hangman, perhaps never dreamed of committing the dreadful deed till a few moments or hours before he inflicted the fatal blow. "But the duelist has made it a part of his general system, and a deliberate purpose, to destroy human life; and to a mind thus trained and prepared, no event of this kind can come wholly unlooked for, or be as in the other case a matter of mere and absolute surprise."

9. The principles of the duelist are without a parallel despotic, sanguinary and subversive of all government. He takes upon himself the adjudication of his own wrongs and the redress of his own grievances, and thus lends his influence to resolve society into a state of nature and savage ferocity. All laws of God and man must give way while this man adjusts his quarrels. He must have the whole field of social, civil and domestic relations subject, to his fury. What though his enemy be a citizen, charged with duty to the state; or a representative entrusted with the interests of his constituents; or a friend, gladdening many a social circle; or a son, sustaining and blessing fond and white-haired parents; or a husband, cherishing a devoted, faithful wife; or a father, surrounded by affectionate, helpless children;--what though he be all these and more;--the claim of the duelist for his blood, on account of some unguarded or disrespectful word, is paramount to every other. other. God, and law, and nature, with all her tenderness, must be despised and trampled under foot, while this incarnation of ferocity gnashes his teeth, and gluts his

and quenches his fevered thirst with blood. Good heavens! are these the inspirations of honor? Is this magnanimity, that stalks over the land, scowling at law and virtue, and collecting tribute in tears and agonies of widow

ed wives and children "smitten amid their playthings," and in broken hearts of parents bereaved in old age of their only hope?

Such is the practice of dueling :--a practice staining with blood-spots that "will not out" the history of this country, amid all the light and civilization of the nineteenth century—a practice which has already carried off its hundreds of victims, without punishment and almost without rebuke; selecting them, in some instances, from the pride and strength of the nation.

It is time to consider the question, whether this abominable and bloody relic of barbarous times shall be tolerated any longer. The land is defiled with blood unrighteously shed, and its cry has gone up to Heaven; and the men of violence who have shed it, not only escape, "unwhipt of justice," but are endured among honest men, and elevated to places of trust and honor. Will Christians hold their peace, and wink at the enormity? Will patriots entrust despisers of life with the guardianship of life? Or scoffers at law and government with the making of law? Shall public sentiment tamely acquiesce in a system of ruffianism that is a disgrace to the nation and the age, and an insult to the throne of Jehovah? We trust not. We trust and believe there is courage, and patriotism, and virtue enough among us, speedily to give this practice its true place in the catalogue of crime, and consign to merited infamy every man who shall hereafter be engaged in a duel.

This may be done,-

1. By the cultivation of a deep seated reverence of law,