ith the matchless simplicity of
greatness: "I do not believe I ever would have the courage to fight a
duel. If any man should wrong me to the extent of my being willing to
kill him, I should not be willing to give him the choice of weapons
with which it should be done, and of the time, place, and distance
separating us when I executed him. If I should do any other such a
wrong as to justify him in killing me, I would make any reasonable
atonement within my power, if convinced of the wrong done."

With this little preliminary, I shall briefly review a few of the most
noted duels in our history.

I. A Tragedy of Old New York

On Wednesday, the 11th of July, 1804, at seven o'clock on a bright,
sunny, summer morning, two men, pistol in hand, confronted each other
on a narrow shelf of rocky ground jutting out from the cliffs that
overlook the Hudson at Weehawken, on the Jersey shore. One was a
small, slender man, the other taller and more imposing in appearance.
Both had been soldiers; each faced the other in grave quietude, {247}
without giving outward evidence of any special emotion.

One was at that time the Vice-president of the United States; the other
had been Secretary of the Treasury, a general in command of the army,
and was the leading lawyer of his time. The Vice-president was
brilliantly clever; the ex-Secretary was a genius of the first order.

A political quarrel had brought them to this sorry position. Words
uttered in the heat of campaign, conveying not so much a personal
attack as a well-merited public censure, had been dwelt upon until the
Vice-president had challenged his political antagonist. The great
attorney did not believe in duels. He was a Christian, a man of
family; he had everything to lose and little to gain from this meeting.
Upon his great past he might hope to build an even greater future. He
was possessed of sufficient moral courage to refuse the meeting, but
had, nevertheless, deliberately accepted the other's challenge. It is
believed that he did so from a high and lofty motive; that he felt
persuaded of the instability of the Government which he had helped to
found, and that he realized that he possessed qualities which in such a
crisis would be of rare service to his adopted country. His future
usefulness, he thought--erroneously, doubtless, but he believed
it--would be impaired if any one could cast a doubt upon his courage by
pointing to the fact that he had refused a c