ngue of the
calumniator, who, by secret whisper or artful innuendo, has sapped and
undermined his reputation, he must be more or less than man to submit in
silence.

The indiscriminate and frequent appeal to arms, to settle trivial
disputes and misunderstandings, cannot be too severely censured and
deprecated. I am no advocate of such duelling. But in cases where the
laws of the country give no redress for injuries received, where public
opinion not only authorizes, but enjoins resistance, it is needless and
a waste of time to denounce the practice. It will be persisted in as
long as a manly independence, and a lofty personal pride in all that
dignifies and ennobles the human character, shall continue to exist. If
a man be smote on one cheek in public, and he turns the other, which
is also smitten, and he offers no resistance, but blesses him that so
despitefully used him, I am aware that he is in the exercise of great
Christian forbearance, highly recommended and enjoined by many very good
men, but utterly repugnant to those feelings which nature and education
have implanted in the human character. If it was possible to enact
laws so severe and impossible to be evaded, as to enforce such rule of
behavior, all that is honorable in the community would quit the country
and inhabit the wilderness with the Indians. If such a course of conduct
was infused by education into the minds of our youth, and it became
praiseworthy and honorable to a man to submit to insult and indignity,
then indeed the forbearance might be borne without disgrace. Those,
therefore, who condemn all who do not denounce duelling in every case,
should establish schools where a passive submission to force would be
the exercise of a commendable virtue. I have not the least doubt, that
if I had been educated in such a school, and lived in such a society,
I would have proved a very good member of it. But I much doubt, if a
seminary of learning was established, where this Christian forbearance
was inculcated and enforced, whether there would be many scholars.

I would not wish to be understood to say, that I do not desire to see
duelling to cease to exist entirely, in society. But my plan for doing
it away, is essentially different from the one which teaches a passive
forbearance to insult and indignity. I would inculcate in the rising
generation a spirit of lofty independence; I would have them taught that
nothing was more derogatory to the honor of a gent