Wilmington Expositor

DID I ACT AS A MAN.

Were the words of the Hon. Spencer Pettis, as he fell mortally wounded in a duel with Major Biddle—what a perversion of the word: what an insult offered to the name of MAN: two beings endowed by their Creator with a sense of right and wrong; understanding as they must have done, that the laws of God and their country; were opposed to the murderous and barbarous practice of duelling, and yet, to meet with the full purpose that one should fall to appease the blind fury of the other, is a paradox mercy revolts at. Has not God fixed his everlasting canon against such acts? Have not the laws of our country forbidden it? Does not the perverted word honor forbid it? Why then is it practised? 'Tis ignorance founded upon a misconception of the words insult and honor. We sympathize with the friends and relatives of both the deceased; we feel for them on such a heart rending calamity, yet we should not withhold our detestation and abhorrence of a practice, which places Man, the proudest of Gods works, upon a level with the tiger; transforms the gentleman to the savage, and sinks the word honor to the meaning of that of murder.

Did I act as a Man? What ignorance is couched in these words; what man of noble feeling does not sicken, that there should be one of his kindred, who would so insult the name of man? Good God, are thy precepts to be thus trampled on to avenge a wrong, existing only in the delusive imagination of a fevered brain: a wrong of no matter what import, should never call two brothers to the field for the purpose of deliberately executing a deed, as far removed from true honor as earth thrice to the poles. What were the words of Lawrence when dying? they were such as ought to be remembered by every American that appreciates true merit; and Davis on the field of battle smiling in the arms of death, exclaimed, 'Thank God. I die in the best of causes.' When men are suddenly called from a field of battle, to the righteous bar of an eternal Judge, 'tis horrible, but how much more so when in personal combat, spurred on by a diabolical hate, or a false principle of honor, one sends the life of his fellow to the throne of a just God, unprepared and unprayed for. There is something great in the recollection of a brave man that falls in defence of his country, but one that falls in a duel, his memory is accursed.