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. I have not the least doubt, that if
I had been educated in such a school, and lived in such a society, I
would have proved a very good member of it. But I much doubt, if a
seminary of learning was established, where this Christian forbearance
was inculcated and enforced, whether there would be many scholars.

I would not wish to be understood to say, that I do not desire to see
duelling to cease to exist entirely, in society. But my plan for doing
it away, is essentially different from the one which teaches a passive
forbearance to insult and indignity. I would inculcate in the rising
generation a spirit of lofty independence; I would have them taught
that nothing was more derogatory to the honor of a gentleman, than to
wound the feelings of any one, however humble. That if wrong be done
to another, it was more an act of heroism and bravery to repair the
injury, than to persist in error, and enter into mortal combat with
the injured party. This would be an aggravation of that which was