The Duel

Reading I

Prepare to Meet Your Maker

Examine all the dictionaries of ancient and modern languages, search even the huge folio lexicons of the copious Arabick, and I am persuaded you will find no word which conveys a just idea of that monster whom, for want of a proper term, we call a DUELLIST.

When anyone has made us a present, tho’ ever so trifling, we keep and cherish it, for the sake of the donor. The Almighty has given us a body; into that body he has infused a living soul, a spark of his spirit; he has commanded us to keep them pure and undefiled, until, by his almighty fiat, he is pleased to reduce the former to dust and ashes, and dispose of the latter as be, in his wisdom and justice, shall think fit; for we are in his hands like clay in a potter’s vessel. It is he who gives, and it is he who takes away. But the Duellist arrogates to himself the right of disposing of his soul and body, how and when he chooses. He ungratefully disposes of the most previous gifts, which are granted him conditionally.

We all know that the soul, which presumptuously sins against its Maker, shall die, die the death eternal. Can anyone then, who is previously acquainted with his Maker’s will and decree, in open contempt of his declarations, temerariously rush into the Divine presence, loaded with guilt, horror and revenge? Dreadful, beyond conception, must be the situation of such a man! Was anyone unaware that for some capital offence, he was, during the tediously rolling years of a long life, to be confined in a dark dungeon, accompanied by those ghastly fiends, pinching hunger, gloomy reflection, and tormenting despair, with what emotion of horror and dread would he hear the awful sentence pronounced? Yet this, shocking as it is, deserves the appellation of a most exquisite felicity, compared to the severest punishment an omnipotent and angry GOD can inflict. It is like a bed of down compared to a heap of thorns.

Yet this is exactly what the Duellist has to expect, who comes to the field of slaughter, to murder, or be murdered. His soul, harassed with the passions of anger, revenge, and despair, he, with na impious temerity, defies that Being who has expressly said, “Thou shalt not kill,” and perhaps at a time when the burden of his sins is greater than he can bear, sinks with them into the lowest pit of destruction. And what do you think is his motive? To save his honor! A mere aerial bubble, a creature of the imagination, a term not understood by those who sacrifice their lives, and every chance of future happiness to this vain phantom!

Is it not astonishing, nay incredible, that there should be men, who, under pretence of preserving their reputation, should hazard all which they have dear in the world? But admitting this plea, is it the part of a man who is COMPOS MENTIS, to run the risk of forfeiting forever the love, favour, and protection of a Being to whom he is indebted for his existence, and everything he enjoys, in order to preserve the esteem of the ridiculous part of the world? No certainly.

But, the truth is, it is that abominable vice, pride, which is the root of this evil. If a man treats us with some coarse epithets, we must either send him unprepared before the awful tribunal of his GOD, or go there ourselves. Can a man seriously profess and call himself a Christian, who can forgive no injruies, bear with no insults, and receive no affronts with impunity? Does his Maker deal thus with him as he did, a myriad of lives (if he could be so frequently renovated in one person) would not atone for the common transgressions of a tolerably well spent life. But it is no less true than astonishing that it is now the highest fashion to value our own ideal honor, more than the honor of GOD. It, by inducing your men of HONOR to reflect a moment on the dreadful consequences of DUELLING, I should save but one nearly lost sheep. I shall esteem myself exceedingly happy, and bless that merciful and long suffering GOD, who suggested these thoughts to me.

—An anonymously published sermon from the July 7^th, 1787 issue of the Newport Herald. One of the most consistent aspects of anti-dueling laws and literature is the idea that dueling is a secular crime against divine law.