A catalogue of affrays between politicians, commonly known as “street fights,”--I use the phrase furnished by the land of Slavery,--would show that these authorities are not mistaken. That famous Dutch picture, admired particularly from successful engraving, and called _The Knife-Fighters_,[86] presents a scene less revolting than one of these. Two or more men, armed to the teeth, meet in the streets, at a court-house, or a tavern, shoot at each other with revolvers, then gash each other with knives, close, and roll upon the ground, covered with dirt and blood, struggling and stabbing, till death, prostration, or surrender puts an end to the conflict. Each instance tells its shameful story, and cries out against the social system tolerating such Barbarism. A catalogue of duels would testify again to the reckless disregard of life where Slavery exists, while it exhibited Violence flaunting in the garb of Honor, and prating of a barbarous code disowned equally by reason and religion. But you have already surfeited with horrors, and I hasten on. Ancient Civilization did not condemn assassination. Statues were raised to Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who slew Hipparchus. Brutus and Cassius were glorified. Modern Civilization judges otherwise; but Slavery, not content with the Duel, which was unknown to Antiquity, rejoices in assassinations also,--rejoices in both. Pardon me, if I stop for one moment to expose and denounce the Duel. I do it only because it belongs to the brood of Slavery. Long ago an enlightened Civilization rejected this relic of Barbarism, and never was one part of the argument against it put more sententiously than by Franklin. “A duel decides nothing,” said this patriot philosopher; and the person appealing to it “makes himself judge in his own cause, condemns the offender without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the executioner.”[87] To these emphatic words I add two brief propositions, which, if practically adopted, make the Duel impossible: first, that the acknowledgment of wrong, with apology or explanation, can never be otherwise than honorable; and, secondly, that, in the absence of such acknowledgment, no wrong can be repaired by gladiatorial contest, where brute force, or skill, or chance must decide the day. Iron and adamant are not stronger than these arguments; nor can any one attempt an answer without exposing his feebleness. And yet Slave-Masters, disregarding its irrational character, insensible to its folly, heedless of its impiety, and unconscious of its Barbarism, openly adopt the Duel as regulator of manners and conduct. Two voices from South Carolina have been raised against it, and I mention them with gladness as testimony from that land of Slavery. The first was Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who, in the early days of the Republic, after asking if there were “no way of abolishing throughout the Union this absurd and _barbarous_ custom,” invoked the clergy of his State, “as