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.
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