Joanne B. FreemanReseñas

So much of what we learn from Dr. Freeman’s “The Field of Blood: Violence in the Congress and the Road to Civil War” is relevant to today’s Congress that I shudder to think of what could happen were US legislators today allowed to pack guns on their bodies in either the House of Representatives or the Senate, as they were allowed to do in the 19th century.

Many of the ingredients for civil war in the 19th century are there again: refusal to compromise between party factions, incentives to back up strong words with stronger medicine (“Lock her up!”), and powerful outside interests to keep the warring factions apart.

Few Americans today recall that their early representatives fought physically in the houses of Congress, that they sat and spat tobacco juice from their chairs sometimes hitting, sometimes missing their targets, and that they legislated well into the night sometimes so thoroughly intoxicated that they spread themselves out over their desks.

In some ways, the American Civil War had several dress rehearsals in Congress: men fought and yelled and bullied each other. Southerners bullied some northerners into duels, caned them when they wouldn’t yield, and insulted them to feed the frenzy.

They fought on the floor of the House, they attacked one another outside the Capitol on the streets of Washington, and they abused them while at a meal or drinking session in public houses.

The institution of slavery was the source of many disputes and they did not wait very long after Confederation before they came front and centre to the operation of government.

The American experiment grew quickly: many new states came into being not long after the original ink was dry. With new states inevitably came the question of whether they were to be free or slave states. John Quincy Adams, only the sixth US President, stayed on after his Presidential term in office (1825-1829) in the House of Representatives and repeatedly fought the “gag rules” intended to prevent a discussion to ban slavery in the United States.

I picked up this work because I am thoroughly engrossed in the question of why were southerners so intent on perpetuating violence against their former slaves. This volume held some hints.

For one thing, the culture of a code of honour prevented southerners from forgetting that their birthright had been stolen from them. They continued to believe that the blacks were inferior to them and it enraged many that after the 1860’s blacks were equal to them before the law.

But it is also so because violence was so common and in many ways acceptable behaviour when one was wronged. This culture seeped into the American response to aboriginal groups no less than against the imported black population.

And that undercurrent of violence feeds present obsession with the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.

Violence came with the untethered frontier, but it was not only the frontier where men were expected to defend the homestead. It happened wherever personal or state rights were believed under threat.

The presence of bullying and violence in the national capitol led me to ask a question Dr. Freemen does not broach in this book: given the culture of intimidation present, how good were American legislators during this period? There was no parallel experiment in operation during the same years, although we Canadians and our Australian cousins had similar institutions of self government on the frontier.

That Civil War actually broke out leads us to the conclusion that they ultimately failed, either because they were poor legislators, or because the early framers of the Constitution stacked the deck against them. Because States’ right were so integral to the system, Civil War was bound to develop eventually.

And that very same structure today inhibits US governments from acting in concert with other nations to slow global warming. That goose called “sovereignty” will cook us all.

Very good. Follows Benjamin Brown French of New Hampshire through his detailed dairies the years in congress leading up to civil war and his transformation from sympathetic 'live and let live' attitude to slaveholders to yankee abolitionist by witnessing the thuggery of southern congressmen.

"The United States is no longer to be triumphed over as if it were a coward and dared not protect himself!"

Essential book on the origins of the Civil War that establishes the importance of violent clashes in Congress to the emotions and mentalities of either side. Southerners asserting their honor by violently resenting anti-Slave Power denunciations, and Northerners and Whigs first suffering attack then Republicans priding themselves on fighting back, were issues of critical public importance as the conflict developed, and helped create an atmosphere in which backing down became unacceptable.

Ugh. All of these research books that take up an inordinate amount of space with footnotes. 65% of the book this time. Anyway.

This is a look into fighting in Congress (more specifically the House, and even more specifically in the period of roughly 1833 to 1860). Freeman has chosen B.B. French, a Democrat clerk in the House, as her looking-glass into the personalities in the House at this time.

The style of writing is probably pretty close to how I would have liked to have written my history papers. This means there's a little too much emphasis on specific events, when I would like a broader overview of what's going on, and all of the trends in Congress. I'd like more quantitative data.

Freeman obviously read all of these accounts (seriously, hundreds of pages of footnotes), but it would have been nice if she could have uncoupled from French a bit more to show other points of view. He was a very behind-the-scenes guy, and wasn't really being accosted or challenged because he wasn't a Congressman, so his opinions for or against dueling weren't really with the expectation that he would have to face them regularly (unlike Giddings or perhaps John Quincy Adams).

I thought her premise was interesting but it was just buried in piles of stories of physical violence and threatened violence and the culture of duels and actual duels and more. I did think the diaries of B. B. French would prove to be a interesting connection point but she kept diverting away from them and I lost the thread more than once. I would have enjoyed it more if it was more focused and a bit more chronological. By the end it did just feel like a slog.

An interesting look at Congress in the years before the Civil War. Freeman goes over the many conflicts (including one fatal one) that occurred between 1800 and 1860. And how the Northern representatives began to finally fight back in the 1850s; another step towards the war.

An excellent exploration of violence in Congress during the antebellum period, using the entirely appropriate Benjamin Brown French as the focal point. Freeman manages to tell an extremely complicated and difficult story very effectively.½

Those folks who have taken the time to study Antebellum U.S. history are aware of the culture of violence that suffused the time, culminating in the assault on Sen. Charles Sumner by Rep. Preston Brooks. However, the author's signal service is to uncover the depths of that culture (mostly a Southern phenomena) and how, over time, it soured the political culture of the United States, and contributed to the outbreak of civil war. Freeman's methodology in uncovering the details of this culture is a commentary on how Congress, particularly in the peak of Jacksonian politics, went to some lengths to mask the level of personal aggression that was taking place, aided and abetted by a political press that aimed to serve the parties, not appeal to the general public. Once the telegraph and the railroad facilitated the rise of a national press, that was not beholden to government subsidy, "if it bleeds it leads" journalism became more prevalent. It didn't hurt that Freeman had access to a private commentator, Benjamin Brown French, who was in a position to see it all and who kept a diary that was meant to be a secret history, and which, fortunately, has come down to us. While there are times that one gets a bit more of Ben French than one might like, this book is nothing but timely and I'm giving it the highest marks on the grounds of relevance and the historiographic skill it took to shine a spotlight on the events covered.

Not a page turner, but very readable and full of interesting information.

5635. The Field of Blood Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, by Joanne B. Freeman (read 30 Jun 2019) This is a prodigiously well-researched book published in 2018. It tells of violence in Congress in the years from about 1830 to the time of the Civil War. A congressman was killed by another congressman in a duel in 1837 and that is discussed extensively. The book is held together by what Benjamin Brown French (born in New hampshire in 1800, died in Washington, D.C. in 1870) saw and noted in his diary while he was a clerk with the House of Representatives from the 1830s till near the time of the Civil War. French knew everybody and kept a diary. and the author, Joanne Freeman, also researched in the Congressional Globe and newspapers . The text of 295 pages is supported by 100 pages of notes. The best known instance of violence in Congress was on 22 May 1856 when Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina went to the Senate floor and found Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts sitting at his desk and Brooks beat Sumner with his cane till the cane shattered. That occurrence is fully related in the book and also other violence between Southerners addicted to slavery and members of Congress opposed to such. There is so much detail that I confess, though I have long had an intense interest in doings in Congress (in my youth I perused issues of the Congressional Record daily, and started doing that in 1941 and continued to do so till into the 1960s, so hat I knew of all the Senators and Representatives during those years), I found the detail a bit overwhelming.

Great, disturbing book about how much violence there was in the antebellum Congress—a guy died in a duel, and that’s not even the thing you know about (Sumner’s caning). John Quincy Adams deliberately used his elderly, decrepit statesman status to say things that other Northerners couldn’t say without getting called out for a literal duel, because Southerners were amazing bullies and used that bullying to prevent discussion of slavery. Eventually Northerners got fed up and started electing representatives who professed themselves willing to fight back, though Northerners still disapproved of dueling and so it was always a tightrope. But white Southerners were committed to their ideals of slavery and manhood as aggression, and so we got the Civil War. Not promising for today’s situation.

In the early days of our republic, serving as an elected official in either house of Congress could prove to be a mortal hazard. In antebellum America, the carrying of knives and guns on one’s person was common, as was drunkenness and gambling. Add to this already volatile mix the sectional tensions regarding the slavery issue, and, as author Joanne B. Freeman clearly shows, the cup of violence soon runneth over. The generally well-known incident of Representative Preston S. Brooks (D-S.C.) beating Senator Charles Sumner (R-Mass.) with a cane is only one example of Congressional passions run amok. Many more are outlined within these pages.
This book is more than a mere recounting of duels, fistfights, and other bloodshed within the hallowed halls of our nation’s capital. Using the diary of one Benjamin Brown French, a minor bureaucrat that nevertheless was acquainted with 12 presidents and kept a diary over the course of 42 years, Freeman traces the trajectory of our decent into civil war. Brown had a ringside seat to the daily mayhem and he duly recorded such in often pithy remarks in what eventually ran to eleven volumes. As both French and Freeman show, despite the turmoil, speeches were made, compromises agreed to, and laws were passed. It is a fascinating record of American politics before it became professionalized, as handshakes now have replaced handguns.
While duels and derring-do among our elected officials of yesteryear may be news to some in the here and now, it comes as no surprise to students of American history or American politics. Over twenty years ago, in the pages of the four volume reference work The Encyclopedia of the United States Congress (Bacon, Davidson, and Keller, eds., Simon and Schuster, 1995), there may be found a lengthy article entitled “Violence in Congress.” In part, it reads, “Congress in the 1800’s was no place for the timid…From frontier states came rugged individualists, some more accustomed to settling disputes with fists or weapons than with gentlemanly compromise. From the south came a number of hot-tempered aristocrats schooled in the manly arts…and alert to any slur on their honor. From the north came a veritable human menagerie, including agitators whose moral zealotry stirred constant turmoil and discontent.” (Vol. 4, page 2062). By all accounts, not a pleasant place to conduct the people’s business. And yet, Congress, and the nation, endures.

As good a story as is being told, however, it is marred somewhat by the author’s workmanlike style. The sometimes pedestrian prose makes for a bit of a slog in places. That quibble aside, this is a thoroughly researched volume, with copious citations to sources consulted and an ample bibliography for further reading. Freeman, a professor of history and American studies at Yale University, specializes in early national politics and political culture. She has previously written Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, which has received excellent reviews. This book is highly recommended for all those who wish to know more about how our government operated back in the bad old days.

Rousing, first-class bit of history regarding the history of Congressional violence in the generation leading up to the Civil War, and its origins and ties to ongoing disputes over the future of slavery in the United States. Some of the material (like the caning of Senator Sumner) is old territory, but there is a great deal of fresh material, including one on an 1830s duel that killed a Maine congressman, an affair that poisoned Congressional relationships quite seriously. The author, quite cleverly, has chosen to have us see things through the diary and eyes of B.B. French, a New Hampshire man that was briefly the clerk of the House, and later a bureaucrat under President Pierce. There's a wealth of well-chosen illustrations, though my one complaint about them is that they're hard to read at the size they're reproduced. If you like American history, you are going to love this book.

A rich and engaging book. Freeman argues that early American politics can only be understood by taking into account cultures of honor and the emotional experiences of the men in charge, or who wanted to be in charge. Obtaining and retaining honor required certain behaviors and barred other ones. In the absence of political parties as we know them, personal alliances were everything, which is why everyone hated Burr, who was plainly willing to switch whenever it might do him good. Men had to be willing to duel if sufficiently insulted, but they had to refrain from betraying private confidences, but did anyway on occasion. This resulted in a hierarchy of ways of communicating—including anonymous pamphlets (intended to be read by a limited number of important people; Adams never saw a key Hamilton pamphlet and had to have its contents relayed by a friend who’d seen a copy that a friend owned), newspapers (intended to be read by the general public and circulated via other newspapers to other places), private letters (intended to circulate among an even more limited number of important people, and gaining credibility because the speaker’s name was attached), broadsides (intended to be read by everyone literate in a jurisdiction, and thus only used to call someone out for cowardice/to deliver the clearest insults), and conversation (which Jefferson often limited his communications to for more wiggle room, though he took detailed notes that caused a scandal when ultimately printed after his death—what Freeman calls “a ticking time bomb” whose very delay was supposed to bolster Jefferson’s neutrality and control future understanding of the Founders).

Using the right mechanism could be devishly effective—when Hamilton’s anonymous newspaper campaign against Jefferson was widely known to be Hamilton’s, it had the authority of his name without explicit attribution and thus gained extra power without exposing Hamilton to potential dishonor—no wonder Jefferson was so mad, and he wasn’t alone in expressing what Freeman calls “blood-lust” in response to attacks in print. They especially feared lingering dishonor. I loved Adams’ statement in a letter that Jefferson “cannot be a lover of history. There are prominent traits in his character, & important actions in his life, that he would not wish should be delineated, & transmitted to posterity.” Which is why, Freeman posits, he tried to write it himself, as did many others in the founding generation. Hamilton and Burr suffered most from this process, especially Burr, who almost never wrote anything down and thus lacked a record of his thoughts and actions through the relevant period (though he did try to justify himself in later writing).

Gossip was the currency of politics, and letters are full of hints about what can only be said in person, e.g. “With regard to Burr’s election I have a secret to tell you which I cannot communicate till I see you…. This hint is most confidentially communicated.” Freeman also emphasizes how difficult it was to get news across such great distances; people were often left wondering what happened for weeks or months. Receiving a letter could be a big deal, and post offices were political entities because the postmaster could keep track of who was talking to whom—often enough, indeed, letters sent by congressmen and received back at home were read publicly. Republicans were better at disseminating gossip to the public at large, with the notable exception of the Citizen Genet affair, which strained relations with France when the Federalists leaked certain unflattering information.

At the same time, the nature of public honor was changing, and people weren’t sure where it was going, which led to a lot of agonizing and not a few misjudgments, such as those of Hamilton and Adams, the latter of whom published in newspapers what he should have kept to letters, thus harming his reputation. Misjudgments bad enough, or anger roused enough, could lead to real duels, even though they were becoming less socially acceptable. National politics was a new sport, and no one knew quite what the rules were, made worse by each state’s congressmen’s general unfamiliarity with those from other states; Northern and Southern manners collided, while loyalties shifted unpredictably. Washington’s rigidity came in part from his attempts to perform in a way that got nothing wrong—once successful compromise was his inaugural suit, “made of plain brown American broadcloth and adorned with gilt buttons and diamond shoe buckles, … but the homespun was ‘so handsomely finished’ that ‘it was universally mistaken for a foreign manufactured cloth.’”

They seem very like Americans today (the President notwithstanding)—for example, even thirty years after the election of 1800, many of the participants and even their heirs were still really upset about it and tried to control the narrative. It was a tense and painful time, full of accusations against the other side. “Something seemed to be awry in the American political system, and someone had to shoulder the blame.” The major difference that made every difference, Freeman argues, was the personalization of politics—without parties with fixed positions, all politics was personal, so Jefferson’s potential rapprochement with Adams as Adams’ VP seemed like a personal betrayal. (One former Jefferson ally fumed that his first act in the Senate was to say nice things about Adams, “which was saying to his friends—I am in; Kiss my ---- and go to H-ll.”) Federalists and Republicans had difficulty maintaining political alliances over such long distances, making sectional loyalties potentially disruptive, and the partisan conflicts of 1800 were, Freemand argues, not evidence of party strength but instead “attempts to bolster national alliances that were dangerously divided along regional lines.”

Rather than reading the Jefferson-Burr tie of 1800 as evidence of party discipline, Freeman contends that the unanimity stemmed from fear of betrayal: each Republican elector feared betrayal by the others, so each one thought that he couldn’t risk leaving either one off of his ballot in case that invited further betrayals—drop Burr and the Northerners would revolt, and the same for the Southerners and dropping Jefferson. Meanwhile, Burr intepreted what was happening as a challenge to his honor: he refused to say that he wouldn’t serve if chosen President because he thought that he was as capable as anyone else to do the job, and because he’d already given his word to support Jefferson so being asked to repeat was insulting (and some because he did want to be President). Burr was offended by hearing about Madison’s letter saying that electing him would degrade America, and thus took the steps that, contrary to what he wanted, destroyed his reputation. But because this was all done by gossip and some indirection, Jefferson could accuse Burr of betrayal and Burr could just as truthfully deny that he had done so, and vice versa. “A politics of friendship was a politics of deniability.” Thus, partisan politics offered a useful solution to the otherwise “endless battle of reputations.”

One last, kind of awful, tidbit: “one unknown joker tried to provoke James Hamilton into a duel with Aaron Burr” by faking a note from James challenging Burr to a duel “where you murdered my father.” When confronted with the note, Hamilton said it was a forgery “but added that if Burr had accepted the challenge, Hamilton would adopt it as his own.” The person who brought the note, however, disrupted the duel ritual by insisting that he wasn’t there as a second but rather simply to confirm the forgery, and there the matter ended.

Joanne B. Freeman’s Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic uses the framework of honor culture to explore the underlying motives that drove the founding generation’s decisions during the first three presidencies of the Early Republic. Freedman draws heavily upon social and political history and relies on close readings of the Founders’ own writing in order to reframe the work in a seventeenth and eighteenth century mindset free of twenty-first century biases.
Freeman argues that, amid the chaos of the Early Republic, “the culture of honor was a source of stability in this contested landscape” (xv). Honor’s “ethic limited and defined acceptable behavior; its rites and rituals displayed superiority of character through time-honored traditions recognized the world over” (xv). Honor helped shape social relationships in a country without an aristocracy. Freeman defines honor as a public presentation, writing, “Honor was entirely other-directed, determined before the eyes of the world; it did not exist unless bestowed by others. Indeed, a man of honor was defined by the respect that he received in public” (xvi). Freeman structures her book into five case studies examining different aspects of honor. In the first, she uses a close reading of Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay’s public diary to demonstrate how politicians used public perceptions of honor to garner political clout with their constituents. The second case study examines the role of gossip in shaping concepts of honor and how it could challenge or reinforce a person’s public persona. The third case study uses this same methodology to examine what Freeman terms “paper war,” the use of public and private letters, newspaper publications, broadsides, and other written matter to define the limits of honor (105). Freeman’s fourth case study focuses on dueling, the most potent demonstration of honor. Finally, Freeman reinterprets the election of 1800 through the lens of honor in her final case study.
In her first case study, Freeman writes of the role of honor in congressional oratory, “Given the importance of reputation, an attack on a man’s honor was the ultimate trump card…When honor was at stake, all else fell by the wayside, for a man’s sense of self and possibly his life were at risk” (28). Despite the usefulness of such an attack, it had its own hazards. As Freeman writes, “An insult to a man’s honor was a dangerous weapon that could explode in one’s face” (29). Those who engaged in too much vitriol or attacked persons of sound reputations might lose face themselves for such a loss of composure. In her second case study, Freeman argues that gossip served as a tool for sizing up political enemies and forming political alliances (66). Gossip relied on honest transmitters of gossip in order to have weight. Freeman writes, “A truthful man could be trusted; a liar was weak, untrustworthy, and inferior – in sum, he was no gentleman. To give the ‘lie direct’ was equivalent to striking a man: it became an immediate justification for a challenge to a duel” (67). Politicians linked their reputation to their political successes and alliances. Freeman writes, “In this highly political realm, an attack on a government measure was an attack on a politician, and an attack on a politician immediately questioned his honor and reputation” (69). This system served to unite politicians in a time before formal political parties. Unlike gossip, paper war posed a greater threat to its wielder as they committed their thoughts to the more permanent medium of print. Freeman writes, "A signed attack bore the clout of its writer’s reputation but risked it by thrusting him into the public eye. Unsigned publications offered the safety of anonymity, but without the authority of a name they had less power. A poor choice of medium could backfire…Hence the ongoing stream of letters from men seeking advice on paper war" (113). The authors sought to present themselves as gentlemen, thus leading to their dilemmas in engaging in print war. Freeman writes, “A gentleman was always true to his word; such was the very definition of gentleman. It was the central importance of truth telling to genteel status that made ‘giving the lie’ an insult grievous enough to demand a duel” (128). More to the point, “Print combatants often adopted the language of the duel” in their publications and counter-publications (132). Duels, naturally, were the purest manifestation of honor, though even they had rules to ensure the honor of combatants. Freeman writes, “…To early national politicians, duels were demonstrations of manner, not marksmanship; they were intricate games of dare and counterdare, ritualized displays of bravery, military prowess, and – above all – willingness to sacrifice one’s life for one’s honor. A man’s response to the threat of gunplay bore far more meaning than the exchange of fire itself” (167). The duelist who accepted a challenge thus proved himself worthy of political leadership (170). Finally, Freeman argues that Aaron Burr’s unwillingness to concede defeat and the political machinations that decided the election of 1800 all resulted from the interplay of these ideas of honor.
Freeman bases her study on “thousands of letters, diaries, pamphlets, newspaper essays, and other assorted writings by roughly three hundred national political figures, their families, and friends” (292). Freeman benefited from the support and scholarship of Bertram Wyatt-Brown, author of one of the definitive volumes on honor culture, in her work. Freeman’s methodology borrows from Clifford Geertz’s methodology of cultural anthropology, especially in how she works to recapture the thoughts and emotions of her subjects and eschew twenty-first century understandings of honor culture.½

Joanne Freeman, "Dueling as Politics: Reinterpreting the Burr-Hamilton Duel" WMQ 53:2 (Apr. 1996), 289-318.

Early working out of ideas to be presented in the book.

Freeman begins the article by stating the problem -- why, in short, did Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr go to the dueling grounds in Weehawken, NJ on July 11, 1804? To answer that question, she needs to put the practice of dueling into cultural context. Fortunately, the duelists wrote a great deal about the practice. In the case of Hamilton and Burr, Hamilton's 4 page letter of justification to posterity, written on the night before the duel, was particularly revealing. He was highly conflicted over the coming duel, but felt compelled to defend his honor on the dueling field. Arguing in his letter that he exhausted all options to avoid the duel, and he had decided not to fire at Burr. Understanding why this was the case, why he made that decision, provides up a window into the values of the political leadership of the Early National Period.

"What men of the world denominate honor"

Honor was a value for which Hamilton was willing to risk sacrificing his life. Dueling to protect one's honor was a nationally significant political activity, as it provided the last check in the political system of checks and balances. In a system without political parties, where faction was decried as corrupt, every issue was a personal one. To be a leader, you needed to prove yourself honorable. The conduct of the honorable leader was governed by an intricate set of rules.

"If our Interview is conducted in the usual manner."

Freeman situates the language of dueling within the broader field of the language of political combat of the era. Recounting the stories of James Monroe's quarrel with John Adams, she notes that Monroe considered challenging Adams to a duel, but decided not to because Adams was "old and the President." The correspondence in which Monroe revealed this to Madison was part of the ritual correspondence surrounding an "affair of honor." When men felt their honor and personal reputation slighted, they began the process of brinksmanship that often (though not always) lead to the dueling grounds. The objective was not to kill your opponent, but rather to show yourself worthy of leadership.

"Political opposition, which ... has proceeded from pure and upright motives"

As Alan Taylor showed in "The Art of Hook and Snivey," the hierarchical political networks of the Early National Period were the means of exercising influence and affairs of honor were no different. Not only did the duelists have seconds, who aided and abetted the process, but the whole ritual of the affair of honor was facilitated by the "friends" of the principal parties. The cause of the affair was the individual around whom the lesser lights rallied. These bands of followers formed a fighting band not unlike the "interests" which Taylor describes. The affair of honor was often the result of a loosing politician trying to regain his honor after being defeated in an election. They were, in fact, ways in which political battles were fought. Appealing to public opinion, the objective of the affair was to show that your cause was upright and that of your opponent was corrupt. More than aristocrats fighting for a position at court, the American duelist was also a republican pursuing the public good!

"I shall hazard much, and can possibly gain nothing."

Burr and Hamilton came to the dueling ground through the course of an affair of honor that could have taken many different turns. It began six weeks after Burr had lost the NY governor's race. Anxious to remain a viable leader, he seized upon a reported slight of his character reported by a third party. An exchange ensued in which Burr demanded a humiliating apology from Hamilton. After the duel, the seconds of Burr (van Ness) and Hamilton (Nathaniel Pendleton) jockeyed to control public opinion about the outcome of the affair of honor. Burr ended up leaving NY state in dishonor. Because he failed to control the fallout coming out of the duel, Burr actually lost the affair of honor.

"I hope the grounds of his proceeding have been such as ought to satisfy his own conscience."

Hamilton and Burr dueled because they could not do otherwise. Especially Hamilton felt this deeply, and his refusal to fire reflects this internal conflict. He wrote his last letter to justify to posterity why he was dueling and to vindicate his memory to posterity. He doesn't seem to have done that, but he did leave a tortured record of the political culture of the period.

Other Readings:

Isaac Kramnick, "The 'Great National Discussion': The Discourse of Politics in 1787," WMQ 3d ser., 45 (1989): 341-375.

Sections include:" I: Civic Humanism and Liberalism in the Constitution and Its Critics," "II: The Language of Virtuous Republicanism," "III: The Language of Power and the State," and "Conclusion"

Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York, 1986).

Centered around the Hamilton-Burr duel, Freeman expands her analysis to cover other duels, laws, etc. An excellent analysis.½

Freeman delivers a convincing argument that it is the language and rituals of honor that allow men from disparate backgrounds and locales to come together and create a working American political system in a time before party and instant communication.