The Code of Honor | Page 2

for supremacy. Plants of the same kind, as well as
trees, do not stop their vigorous growth because they overshadow their
kind; but, on the contrary, flourish with greater vigor as the more weak
and delicate decline and die. Those of different species are at perpetual
warfare. The sweetest rose tree will sicken and waste on the near
approach of the noxious bramble, and the most promising fields of
wheat yield a miserable harvest if choked up with tares and thistles.
The elements themselves war together, and the angels of heaven have
met in fierce encounter. The principle of self-preservation is
co-extensive with creation; and when by education we make character
and moral worth a part of ourselves, we guard these possessions with
more watchful zeal than life itself, and would go farther for their
protection. When one finds himself avoided in society, his friends

shunning his approach, his substance wasting, his wife and children in
want around him, and traces all his misfortunes and misery to the
slanderous tongue 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 gentleman, than to
wound the feelings of any one, however humble. That if wrong be done
to another, it was more an act of heroism and bravery to repair the
injury, than to persist in error, and enter into mortal combat with the
injured party. This would be an aggravation of that which was already
odious, and would put him without the pale of all decent society and
honorable men. I would strongly inculcate the propriety of being tender
of the feelings, as well as the failings, of those around him. I would
teach immutable integrity, and uniform urbanity of manners.
Scrupulously to guard individual honor, by a high personal self respect,
and the practice of every commendable virtue. Once let such a system
of education be universal, and we should seldom hear, if ever, of any
more duelling.
The severest penal enactments cannot restrain the practice of duelling,
and their extreme severity in this State, the more effectually shields the
offenders. The teaching and preaching of our eloquent Clergy, may do
some service, but is wholly inadequate to suppress it. Under these
circumstances, the following rules are given to the public, and if I can
save the life of one useful member