“Hamilton had publicly called Burr unprincipled, dangerous, despicable, an American Cataline--oh, many other derogatory epithets! Would not Mr. Burr have been generally held as despicable if he had not defended his good name?” “By killing his defamer?” “Well, sir, how else could he have done it?” “In politics men call each other all sorts of ill names. They even invent new ones for their opponent. And though in Paradise the lion will lie down with the lamb, in Paradise they will not have to submit their rival political views to general elections. Say that Mr. Hamilton was vituperative--it was a war of words. Mr. Burr Had a tongue and a pen, as well as Mr. Hamilton. If Mr. Hamilton had insulted Mr. Burr’s wife, or run off with his daughter, there might have been some excuse for a bloody settlement, but words, words, words, the tongue or the pen would have answered them.” “Then, judge, you do not approve of the duel?” “I do not. But I think that Mr. Burr’s fatal mistake will eventually put duelling as much out as witchcraft. We shall probably also have strong repressive laws against it.” “Yet as long as public opinion respects duelling, no repressive law will be as strong as public opinion. We are as moral and intelligent now as any people can be, yet the duel is not obsolete, nor has Mr. Burr’s ostracism been a deterrent.” “I know that. Last year two men quarrelled about an umbrella in the hall of Scudder’s Museum, and the next day one of them shot the other dead. Nine out of ten people called the dead man a fool for his pains. Mr. Murray, the duel has become perilously close to the ridiculous. Men may talk about blowing out brains for an angry word, but the majority quietly laugh at the absurdity. Such conduct is totally unworthy of American common sense. For no man of intelligence would fight a duel if he remembered that he would render himself liable to form the text for an article in _The Morning Chronicle_. To be treated either with its satire or its morality would be equally depressing--it would make him intensely ridiculous in any case. But we shall never give up duelling on moral and intelligent grounds.” “Then on what other grounds?” “The class duellists come from are the brainless class; and if the custom was strictly confined by this class to their fellows, it would be one of the most innocent of their amusements. We must make duelling ridiculous, for when mockery and satire are constant about any subject, you may know that thing is dead, and its shell only remains.” “But, judge, if a man’s honour is assailed----” “If we were all Hotspurs, Mr. Murray, and ready to plunge into the deep and pluck honour by the locks, we might count on sympathy; but when the majority think with Falstaff, that ‘honour is a mere scutcheon’ we get a chill, until we remember the divine law. For after all, sir, the Decalogue remains as a finality. Look up the sixth clause of that code.” “There is nothing to add to it, sir.”