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"If Men Should Fight"
Dueling
as Sectional Politics, 1850-1856
By Annie
Powers
University of
California, Berkeley
I
focus upon three duels arising out of debates in Congress shortly
before the Civil War, and consider the perceptions of the political
conflicts in both Northern and Southern newspaper accounts. The first,
between Northern Congressman William Bissell and Southern Senator
Jefferson Davis, emerged as a result of debate over the Compromise of
1850 but was ultimately resolved by President Zachary Taylor. In the
wake of the conflict, newspapers North and South condemned dueling in
general terms and applauded the reconciliation of the parties as a
symbolic settlement of sectional differences. In the second conflict,
an argument in Congress between Cutting and Breckenridge over the
Kansas-Nebraska bill nearly led to a duel. In response, the Northern
and Southern press criticized dueling as an institution, just as they
had done after the altercation between Bissell and Davis. Unlike its
1850 predecessor, however, the Cutting-Breckenridge conflict was
represented in the Northern press as a symptom of sectional discord.
Southern newspapers noted and reinforced this interpretation,
commenting most heavily on the duel by censuring Northern coverage
because it focused too heavily on the sectional implications of the
affair. Finally, the third confrontation occurred after Massachusetts
Congressman Anson Burlingame condemned South Carolina Congressman
Preston Brooks for his violent caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of
the Senate. The conflict between the two symbolized the escalating
tension between North and South. And both the Northern and Southern
press assessed the duel as fundamentally sectional in character. By
this time, Southern papers had dropped their criticisms of affairs of
honor, while Northern newspapers split – some still staunchly opposed
to dueling, and others beginning to perceive it as a legitimate way of
combating Southern aggression. Southerners, in turn, saw the duel as
revealing the hostility of the North toward Southern society. Between
1850 and 1856, Congressional duels became sectionalized in both form
and popular perception, as exhibited prominently in the Davis-Bissell,
Cutting- Breckenridge, and Brooks-Burlingame conflicts. [Article]
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