providence of God, it is left to your choice whom you will have, you vote for murderers. Unless, therefore, you would continue to mock God, you must cease praying for good men, or you must cease to patronize men of blood.

Do you not pray also for the preservation of liberty and the continuance of national prosperity? And do you not know that good rulers are the instruments of the divine blessing; and that when God would chastise a people, unprincipled rulers are the rod of his anger? When, therefore, the selection of rulers is left to yourselves, will you disregard his chosen instruments of mercy, and expect his bles sing? Will you put into his hand the rod of his anger, and expect to escape chastisement?

5. To vote for the duellist is to assist in the prostration of justice, and indirectly to encourage the crime.

Laws in republics depend, for their prompt execution, upon the spirit of the people. The highway robber need not to publish his daring exploits in a newspaper, to attract notice. A common indignation glows in the public mind -in all directions the murderer is pursued, and when arrested and convicted, is sure to die. In several districts of the United States, a murder, committed in a duel, would excite equal exertion to detect the murderer, who, on detection, would be equally sure to die. The great officers of government, and other influential characters, dare not, if disposed, connive at the crime. The public indignation, like a high swollen river, would sweep as a besom of destruction, any one who should presume to turn aside, or obstruct its course. But in this state, the frequency of the crime, and its immemorial impunity, has deadened the pub lic feeling. We disapprove, but we do not sufficiently abhor-we are sorry, but we are not indignant-we wish the officers of government would execute the law, but we do not compel them. Our rulers and great men know perfectly our debilitated state, and are therefore not afraid to contravene our feeble will. It is not a torrent unmanageable and dreadful, but a puny stream which they dare to oppose. and which they have learned to manage:

C

When, therefore, a murder is committed in a duel, im

mediately a great bustle is made. The culprit is arrested, or is to be arrested-but, alas! he cannot be found; or if found, alas! there are no witnesses or if there are witnesses, alas! the indictment is defective, and this is the last we hear of it. The first effect of our indignation is a little feared. Justice may not as yet be "turned backward," without some little manoeuvering; and this blustering is made just to amuse, until the first emotion subsides; and when the danger is over, the sword of justice, drawn only to deceive, is returned to its scabbard. The criminal creeps from his hiding place, triumphs in his guilt, and if insulted, fights again. We blame our rulers, but by whom are such men made rulers, and by whose negligence are they emboldened to wink at this most accursed sin? Were the officers of government, from the governor to the justice and grand juror, men of moral principle, who really abhorred duelling and desired to put a stop to it, would the laws be thus inefficacious? Would it be so difficult to make a law that should fasten upon the culprit-so difficult to arrest, convict, and execute? Is there any such difficulty in bringing to justice the thief, the robber, and the common murderer? I tell you, nay. The traitor is in the citadel; we have ourselves put him there, knowing also that he would let the criminal go; of course we are accessory to his escape, and to the prostration of justice, as really as if with our own hands we unbarred and threw open the gates of his prison. Indeed, by removing the only restraints which duellists can feel, we indirectly encourage the crime.. By appointing them to legislate, you remove all fear of legal punishment -all fear of pecuniary loss-all fear of disgrace. You say to the aspiring politician, "Be of good courage, and avenge yourself; it shall be no stain upon your character, no im"pediment to your promotion. We have made a law, in"deed, but we mean nothing by it. If you please not to de"stroy your fellow men, we shall be glad; but if you do please "to destroy them, it shall not have the weight of a straw "to prevent your elevation." By removing, in this way, all.

restraints from the commission of the crime, you encourage it, though indirectly, yet really and effectually, as if you rewarded the culprit from the public treasury. Nay, by elevating to important stations men whose hands are stained with blood, you do little less than reward them for their crimes; and it has been asserted, and by men long conversant in the affairs of the state, that the fighting of a duel is at this moment a passport to honour.

6. The contempt with which duellists treat the opinions and feelings of the community, is a reason why we should cease to confide in them.

The people, whatever men of honour may think of them, constitute the strength, the virtue, and glory of the nation; and their opinions and wishes demand respect from those who legislate for them. The feelings of the great body of the people are decidedly opposed to duelling. This is manifest from their law on this subject, and from the fact that the mass of the people discard those notions of Gothic honour, resting satisfied with that protection and redress which the law can afford. It is but a handful of men only, compared with the whole, that uphold this bloody system. That which by duellists is denominated public opinion, and which constitutes the dire necessity of spilling each other's blood, is the opinion of duellists only-the opinion of not more than one in a thousand of the inhabitants of the state. But the opinion of this handful is, by those who compose it, deemed of far greater consequence, than the opinion and feelings of the great mass of the people. Duellists well know your aversion to their crimes, your grief at their conduct, and your desires to wipe off this disgrace of a christian land. But little do they care for your opinions or your feelings. They move in a sphere too much above you, to let themselves down to the standard of your conceptions, or to give themselves concern about your petty pains. When an election is depending-when they need your votes to gratify their ambition or satiate their avarice, then indeed they sympathize most tenderly with the people. The people are every thing; their wishes

are sacred, and their voice is the voice of God. But let this end be accomplished, and a challenge or an insult be given, and neither liberty nor patriotism, nor the voice of the people, nor the voice of God, can avail to deter them from deeds the most barbarous and despotic. Will you then vote for men who treat with contempt your opinions and your feelings-who basely prostrate your laws, when you have nothing to bestow; and who again creep through all the dirty windings of hypocrisy, when their promotion depends on your will? What are all their professions of patriotism, contradicted by their conduct? And shall they deceive you still? Let them plead for liberty with the tongue of men and angels, and adore her cause with the fervour of seraphs, they are hypocrites-mere sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.

7. Withhold your suffrage from the duellist, and the practice of fighting duels will speedily cease.

Two causes will ensure this effect.

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(1.) When duellists are expelled from all legislative influence the law against this crime will be promptly executed. Duelling does not prevail now, because the penalty of law is inadequate, but because it is never inflicted; and so long as duellists retain the confidence of the people, and are clothed with power, it never will be inflicted. We might as reasonably expect horse-jockies, gamblers, and thieves, if intrusted with government, to execute the laws against themselves, as that duellists in office will give efficacy to the law against duelling.

But let men who, in this respect, betray the confidence reposed in them-who not only fight duels themselves, but have pleasure in those that do the same, be driven from their stations, and their places supplied with men of firmness and principle, and the end is accomplished. The penalties of the law, uniformly and faithfully applied, will prevent duelling; and to ensure this, nothing is necessary but to expel traitors, and substitute rulers of a decided character-men who, partaking of the public sentiment, will attempt in earnest to give to that sentiment, as expressed in the law, its entire efficacy.

(2.) The withholding our suffrage from duellists, will tend to annihilate the practice, by arraying the public opinion against it in such a manner, that the real unavoidable disgrace of fighting, will be greater than that of 2 refusing to fight.

The reason why men of honour, (falsely so called,) pay homage to the law of honour, is because the maxims of this ghastly code are, among a certain class of men, assumed as their opinion; which opinion is made to affect, in a sensible manner, those who presume to disregard it. The opinion of the great mass of the people is also just as well known; but with this important difference, that it inflicts no penalty on those who disregard it. It is vague, feeble, and inefficacious. But let the opinion of society, on the subject of duelling, be collected, combined, and expressed in the votes of the people, and it will operate most sensibly upon that class of men who now most despise it. It will involve a penalty which they cannot but feel, and which they evade. No defect in the law-no absconding of witnesses-no flaw in the indictment-no connivance of the great, can come to their assistance in this dilemma. If they will violate our laws, they shall not be intrusted with power. If they will murder, we will invest with power men who will punish them. In this way we cut the sinews of duelling, and bind to good behaviour by the motive which before impelled to the crime. The opinion of the people, that which is in fact public opinion, becomes prominent, assumes influence, and overwhelms the absurd opinions of bloody men.

Motives of compassion, and of justice, both demand this expression of the public mind. These honourable men admit the sin and the folly of their deeds. They disclaim all motives of revenge or hatred. Their only plea is necessity; and the only necessity is the imperious mandate of public opinion. They even lament such a state of things should exist; but while it does exist they must fight or encounter disgrace. Is it not our duty to undeceive these deluded men-to rescue from death the reluctant martyrs of honour? Must they be haunted all their days, and be driven to d