renowned of public men, of unsurpassed ability, should be shot to death
like a mad dog, because he had expressed the general feeling about an
unprincipled schemer, was an exasperating public misfortune. But that he
should have been murdered in deference to a practice which was approved in
the best society, yet which placed every other valuable life at the mercy
of any wily vagabond, was a public peril. From that day to this there has
been no duel which could be said to have commanded public sympathy or
approval. From the bright June morning, eighty years ago, when Hamilton
fell at Weehawken, to the June of this year, when two foolish men shot at
each other in Virginia, there has been a steady and complete change of
public opinion, and the performance of this year was received with almost
universal contempt, and with indignant censure of a dilatory police.

The most celebrated duel in this country since that of Hamilton and Burr
was the encounter between Commodores Decatur and Barron, in 1820, near
Washington, in which Decatur, like Hamilton, was mortally wounded, and
likewise lived but a few hours. The quarrel was one of professional, as
Burr's of political, jealousy. But as the only conceivable advantage of
the Hamilton duel lay in its arousing the public mind to the barbarity of
duelling, the only gain from the Decatur duel was that it confirmed this
conviction. In both instances there was an unspeakable shock to the country
and infinite domestic anguish. Nothing else was achieved. Neither general
manners nor morals were improved, nor was the fame of either combatant
heightened, nor public confidence in the men or admiration of their public
services increased. In both cases it was a calamity alleviated solely by
the resolution which it awakened that such calamities should not occur
again.

Such a resolution, indeed, could not at once prevail, and eighteen years
after Decatur was killed, Jonathan Cilley, of Maine, was killed in a duel