Public Opinion on Dueling: Newspapers
The Role of Newspapers
Newspapers then and now serve as a way for the public to express their views and opinions. Newspapers act as a medium to convey a message to a wider audience, and in the days before mass media, a newspaper was able to reach a wide audience to convey information and views. It was common for someone to make public attacks on their rivals in newspapers, publishing incognito denunciation or even examples of private correspondence. This provided the public forum for one to challenge their opponent on a particular issue, all while enjoying anonymity.
The Genius of Liberty
This first article is an address published in the February 10, 1819 edition of The Genius of Liberty. In this address, dated January 31, 1819, Senator Armistead Mason, the grandnephew of George Mason, responds to claims made against him by John McCarty. The Mason-McCarty affair was originally rooted in a political dispute based on an upcoming election. McCarty, coming to the aid of a friend, published scathing articles against Mason, who responded in kind. This article was written before, but ultimately published following Mason’s death in a duel on February 6, 1819.
The second article was published anonymously to The Genius of Liberty and is printed following Mason’s address to the public. In this brief article, the author expresses disgust with those they see as getting involved in the Mason-McCarty affair, noting that continued inflammation will result in a duel, which would ‘destroy general Mason as a public man’. He derides this ‘class of people in this place’ who back McCarty solely to ‘make him the instrument of general Mason’s ruin.’
In this rebuke, the author does not assert Mason’s need to defend his honor, nor do they condone the dispute between the two men. The author recognizes the dangers within this conflict, and the damage that a duel would bring. In this way, a duel is not the defense of honor, it’s a means of destruction. In the view of the author, the duel is not some glorious undertaking befitting of gentlemen, it is something which will bring ruination upon Mason and McCarty, and no good will come of it.
How to Make a Duel
The third article comes from the June 7, 1822 edition of the Alexandria Herald, originally published in a Philadelphia newspaper. The author of this article presents a scenario of two men of different states coming to blows over a political dispute, driving the two men to a duel. Here, the article charts the course of how a disagreement turns to a duel: the two men, labeled ‘A’ and ‘B’, express differing opinions on a political matter. Soon, this disagreement turns into personal attacks, but would calm down following the upcoming election. However, passions were inflamed again, with both men leveling threats at the other. The two men then agree to a duel.
The article closes with the following speculation:
‘If men of their knowledge and acquirements can thus be brought to risqué their lives, shall we wonder if men of inferior intellect, and less experience of the world do the same thing from causes still more trifling and less likely to produce the effect?’
The rhetorical question by the author challenges the conception of dueling, considering it an illogical result of a trivial matter, of which nothing good can result. The author attacks the practice of dueling by highlighting the triviality of the whole affair, that two men would be willing to risk their own lives over the relatively small matter of politics. With the closing rhetorical question, the author suggests that those not belonging to the upper classes as this scenario’s protagonists would not be willing to come to such blows over lesser matters. This encapsulates the public view of the lunacy of the practice. The author notes that the scenario did come to pass and is not a mere fiction. Two lawyers, ‘col. Cummings (B.) of Georgia, and Mr. Mcduffie (A.) of South [Carolina].’ These two men were men of status, with the author describing them as ‘distinguished lawyers, men of worth, of honor and of talents’, but it is incredible that these two men of prestige would resort bloodshed over a disagreement.