conforming to the laws of his country, has a right to the peaceable enjoyment of life and all its immunities. Nor has any individual a right, directly or indirectly, to interrupt this enjoyment. No man has a right to tempt his neighbour to renounce the protection of law, and much less to punish him with heavy penalties for refusing to do it*. But this is precisely the despotic privilege which duellists have arrogated to themselves. The man who refuses a challenge, so far as their accursed influence extends, is out-lawed-is branded with infamy, and exposed to perpetual insult. But what has he done? He has feared to offend his God; and under trying temptations to the contrary, has bowed submissive to the laws of his country! And for this he is punished-substantially punished, in a free country, without trial, without law, in spite of law!

If the despotic principles of duelling, however, terminated in theory, they might excite our compassion as mere distempers of the brain; but their practical influence is powerful and fatal, as inimical to our rights in fact as it is in theory, tending directly and powerfully to the destruction of civil liberty. These tendencies, in a few particulars, permit me to notice-And,

(1.) Equal laws are essential to civil liberty, but equal laws are far from satisfying the elevated claims of duellists. That protection which the law affords to them in common with others, they despise. They must have more-a right to decide upon and to redress their own grievances. When we please, (say they,) we will avail ourselves of the law; and when we please we will legislate for ourselves. For the plodding vulgar, the dull forms of law may suffice; but for a reputation so sacred as ours, and for feelings so refined, they are vastly inadequate. Nor shall they restrain our hand from the vindication of our honour, or protect the wretch who shall presume to impeach it. Is this liberty and equality? Are these gentlemen, indeed, so greatly

* Hence the mere sending of a challenge is punishable by law.

superior to the people? Is their reputation so much more important? Are their feelings so much more sacred? Is pain more painful to them? Must we bear all injuries which the law cannot redress? Must we stifle our resentments, or if we vent them in acts of murder, swing upon the gallows, while they with impunity express their indignation, and satiate with blood their revengeful spirits?

But education, it is said, has inspired these men with sensibilities peculiar to themselves, for which the cold process of law has made no provision. So has the education of the savage given him peculiar feelings, for the gratification of which the dilatory forms of law are equally inadequate. But will you let loose the relentless savage, with tomahawk and scalping-knife, because educational feelings can find no consolation in the regular administration of justice? The feelings for which the law makes no provision, are feelings for which it ought not to provide-ungodlysensations of haughty pride and relentless revenge; and which, instead of a dispensation for indulgence, deserve the chastisement of scorpions. To reduce such unruly spirits, the law should brandish its glittering sword, and utter all its thunders. Nothing is needful to make legal redress as adequate to them as to us, but habits of self-government. And are they not under the same obligation that we are, to acquire these habits? And if they will not take the trouble to govern their tempers-if they will not encounter that self-denial which the laws of God and man inculcate if they will be savages in a civilized land, let them be treated as savages. And when they murder, elevate them not to posts of honour, but to the gallows.

(2.) The administration of justice ought, above all things, to be impartial; the rich and the honourable to be equally liable to punishment for their crimes with the poor, and, according to their desert, punished with equal severity. But while duellists bear sway, this can never be. It is a fact in this state, at the present moment, that the man who steals a shilling is more liable to detection, and more sure

to be punished, and to experience a heavy penalty, than the man who, in a duel, murders his neighbour. Is this equal? Shall petty thefts excite our indignation, and be punished with exemplary severity, while murderers, with bold impunity, walk on every side?

In

(3.) A sacred regard to law is indispensable to the existence of a mild government. In proportion as obedience ceases to be voluntary, and the contempt of law becomes common, must the nerves of government be strengthened, until it approach in essence, if not in name, to a monarchy. We must have protection; and the more numerous and daring the enemy, the more power must be delegated to subdue and control them. That contempt of law, therefore, which is manifested by the duellist, is a blow at the vitals of liberty. It is the more deadly, because, from the genius of our government, the example has a peculiar influence. despotic governments the example of the legislator may not be so efficacious. Chains, dungeons, racks, and gibbets, may keep the people in their place, although their rulers should give themselves a license to sin. Viewed at such an abject distance, the example loses also much of its influence. But under the mild government of a republic, there is no such immense distance between the rulers and the ruled, and no such terrific restraints to deter from the imitation of their example. To elevate to office, therefore, 'duellists, those deliberate contemners of law, is to place their example in the most conspicuous point of view, and to clothe it with most woful efficacy to destroy public virtue. Select for your rulers, men of profligate example, who contemn the religion and despise the laws of their country, and they need not conspire to introduce despotism; you will yourselves introduce it-you will flee to it as the damned will to rocks and mountains, to shield you from the operation of more intolerable evils.

(4.) The tendency of duelling to restrain liberty of speech and of the press, is certainly direct and powerful. The people have a right to investigate the conduct of rulers,

and to scrutinize the character of candidates for office; and as the private moral character of a man is the truest index, it becomes them to be particular on this point. But who will speak on this subject? Who will publish, when the duellist stands before him with pistol at the breast? If a few, duellists themselves and mad with ambition, will brave the danger, how many are there who will not? And what aggravates the restraint, the more unprincipled and vile the man, and the greater the need of speaking, the greater the danger of unveiling his enormity; while bent upon promotion, and desperate in his course, he is prepared to seal in death the lip that shall publish his infamy. What should we think of a law that forbade to publish the immoralities of candidates for office-which made death the penalty of transgression, and which produced annually as many deaths as this nefarious system of duelling? We should not endure it a moment. If Congress were to sanetion by a law the maxims of duelling, it would produce a revolution. And will you bear encroachments upon liberty from lawless individuals which you would not hear a moment from the government itself? Would you spurn from your confidence legislators who should make such laws; and will you, by your votes, clothe with legislative power, individuals who, in contempt of law, do the same thing?

Nor let any imagine that the influence of this engine of despotism is small; it is powerful already, and is every year becoming more so, as duelling increases; and God only knows where its influence will end. The actual encroachments of Britain, when we first began to resist them, were not one half so alarming as the encroachments of duellists. To have been parallel she must have executed wantonly, without judge or jury, as many as have fallen in duels. What sensations would such conduct have excited? Had it depended on our votes merely, would England have continued to legislate? And shall lawless despots at this day perform what all the fleets and armies of England could not?

(5.) Duelling, in its operation, exposes to additional risk and danger, those who would rise to usefulness and fame in civil life. With what views can a christian parent look to the law as a profession for his son, where, if he rise to fame, he must join the phalanx of murder-or if he refuse, experience their united influence against him? If the road to Albany or to Washington was beset with robbers—if they sacrificed yearly as many as are now slain in duels, could the wretches live unmolested? Their crimes notorious, could they mingle in society? Could they boast of their prowess, and glory in their shame? Could they enjoy your confidence, receive your suffrage, and be elected the guardians of civil liberty?

4. The inconsistency of voting for duellists is most glaring.

To profess attachment to liberty and vote for men whose principles and whose practice are alike hostile to libertyto contend for equal laws and clothe with legislative power those who despise them-to enact laws, and intrust their execution to men who are the first to break them, is a farce too ridiculous to be acted by freemen. In voting for the duellist, you patronize a criminal whom, in your law, you have doomed to die. With one hand you erect the gallows, and with the other rescue the victim. At one breath declare him unfit to live, and the next constitute him the guardian of your rights. Cancel, I beseech you, the law against duelling-annihilate your criminal code-level to the ground your prisons, and restore to the sweets of society, and embraces of charity, their more innocent victims. Be consistent. If you tolerate one set of villains, tolerate them all. If murder does not stagger your confidence, let it not waver at inferior crimes.

In your prayers, also, you entreat that God would bestow upon you good rulers; and you always pray, in reference to their moral character, that they may be just men, ruling in the fear of God. But by voting for duellists you demonstrate the hypocrisy of these prayers-for when, by the