| Cilley got into the political line of fire, when he said before Congress that James Webb, an influencial newspaper publisher, had opposed the National Bank during the Jackson administration’s bank crisis, but later switched sides to line his pockets with loans from the same bank. Before the House of Representatives, Cilley had doubted Webb’s honor. This statement had Webb, an experienced dueler, and bully, looking for someone to carry a challenge to Cilley. The result was a week long intrigue among congressmen to plot a response. Cilley was an up and coming politician, from an influential state and the opposing party. Webb finally found the person he needed in the junior representative from Kentucky, William Graves, who was likely compelled by his superiors to deliver the challenge. Graves’ senior congressman, the powerful Henry Clay helped craft the challenge. Cilley refused to accept it and Graves, ever ambitious, challenged Cilley to a duel with him. Clay then helped Graves with his challenge, which was presented, leading to the shoot out. On February 23, 1838 Cilley received the challenge and the following day set off for the dueling grounds. As was the custom both men traveled with a group. They included each man’s second, who acted as their representative, who sought reconciliation without gunfire before and between shots. Cilley reluctantly responded to Graves’ challenge. New Englanders were not duelers. Cilley was the first New England Congressman to be drawn into a duel. Webb , Clay and their cronies thought he would decline. He chose single shot muzzle loaded rifles, at 80 paces. Cilley fired the first round into the ground in an attempt to resolve the duel harmlessly. But, more shots were fired. On the third round Cilley was wounded in the abdomen and died on the spot. It was his first duel. American politicians were enthusiastic duelers. First, it implied they were so honorable they would risk death to prove it. Second, the publicity was great and free. At the time, the winner was believed to have been God’s choice. For some, it was a way to eliminate a political opponent, either by humiliation or gunshot wound. Dueling can be traced back to Europe in the middle ages. A contrivance of the leisure class to get a little social fibre into their lives in the days before libel law and mood meds. It was a man’s game, though sometimes women dueled. Swords were used before guns and until being transplanted here, where it was “democratized,” it was associated with social class. The first duel here was at Plymouth Colony in 1621, between two servants. It could be political suicide to suffer an affront without challenging, or to decline a challenge. Deferring to better judgment got around, by newspaper articles under a pen name or the American custom of “posting,” popular until the 1890s. Posting was done in taverns and on street corners with posted notices that called the “coward” a coward. It was considered a wise career move to respond to a challenge and the code of honor. Dueling became popular during the revolution. The European class associations remained, in fact, it was seen by some as a means of social climbing to duel. Europeans had various codes for conducting a duel. Ireland, where dueling was big (likely among the English landlords), codified dueling in 1777. Those rules were commonly adopted in the U.S. By the early 1800’s dueling was common in America. There were critics, Ben Franklin and Lincoln among them. In addition to the countless lesser or unknown duelists, there are those duelists who have earned places in American history for better reasons. Shortly after signing the Declaration of Independence, Georgia’s Button Gwinnett was killed in a duel. Commodore Stephen Decatur, hero of Tripoli and the War of 1812, died in a duel with Admiral James Barron. Star Spangled Banner author, Francis Scott Key lost his son Daniel to a duel over, of all things, the speed of a steamboat. Revolutionary War generals Nathaniel Greene and Israel Putnam, Dewitt Clinton, Sam Houston, Jim Bowie, Henry Clay are a few of the better known names associated with dueling lore. Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster, even Mark Twain, were challenged but averted the act. In 1864, Mark Twain—at the time editor of the New York Sunday Mercury—narrowly avoided fighting a duel with a competing newspaper editor. This was brought about by the quick thinking of his second, who exaggerated Twain’s skill with a dueling pistol. Referred to as settling a dispute “on the field of honor” or “by the code of honor,” the reasons for dueling were commonly so trivial as to be laughable. During the early nineteenth century, with the increasing sophistication of the American legal system and, specifically, the passage of libel and slander laws, the practice of dueling declined. Public clamor over the death of the renowned Alexander Hamilton, led to the decline of dueling in the northern states. It was Cilley’s death 34 years later that brought about real efforts to broadly ban dueling. The following year, 1839, Congress passed an anti-dueling act. The result was duelists became more secretive, and continued shooting right up to the Civil War, after which most had had their fill of blood. But dueling was not uncommon even after the war and up through the turn of the century. At the same time, dueling took off in Texas, especially in the armed forces. The preferred weapon there was the rifle. Examples of the gravity of the circumstances of some Texas duels include the “Graham – Stanley” duel. In 1836 a Captain Graham killed a Captain Stanley on Galveston Island over the question of precedence in choosing cuts of beef for their respective companies. Gunfighters out west after the Civil War had their version of the duel. But, there were parallels in the east. Alex McClung of Virginia, 1811-1855, was one. He was a lawyer who didn’t practice law much, but shot a lot of people in duels. McClung, aka the Black Knight, got into a dueling war with the Menifee’s of Mississippi. He shot the first Menifee with a rifle at 60 yards before a large betting crowd. Six other Menifee’s seeking revenge died in separate duels with McClung. McClung took his own life with a dueling pistol. President, and military hero in the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson, was a hothead, who by one account, is said to have been in over 100 fights and duels. Having wounded many, he apparently killed only one opponent, with clear intent. In 1806, Jackson, drawn into a duel with acquaintance Charles Dickenson, showed up draped in a large cape that hid his body outline. Dickenson, known as the better marksman, was offered the first shot by Jackson. Jackson took that round in his chest and stood briefly stunned, bleeding into his shoes. Claiming to be only grazed by Dickenson’s shot, he raised his pistol to fire, but it jambed at half-cock. That should technically have ended the round and called for another round for both. Instead, he calmly pulled back the hammer again and fired, killing his opponent. The argument leading to the duel had developed over a horse racing bet. Jackson later became the widely beloved seventh U.S. President, the shooting being considered “what any gentleman would have done.” Jackson was of course the kind of guy it took would run through the Louisiana swamps with an irregular military force in 1814, routing the professional British army and defeating them in the Battle of New Orleans. The place of firearms in our society has changed quite a bit since Burr killed Hamilton. Today the act would be like Dick Cheney, who is at least Vice President, killing Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. But the fallout could be very different. Cheney’s “other priorities” may have left him without much training in the use of firearms, but lets say he got off a fatal shot. He probably wouldn’t go south, but to an undisclosed location. A media frenzy would follow, with talking heads droning on for months on TV and in every other media outlet. It would push the middle east stuff back to the classified section of most newspapers. Driven mad by the 24-hour coverage, the public would scream, “Enough!!!, you win, give him the gold watch, nominate him for 08’, send his whole family for therapy in the Caribbean, whatever, please!”. “Give us Jeopardy, or give us death!” Ultimately, the outcome would have less impact than it did 200 years ago. If the street gangsters are the only ones dueling today, does that say anything about the top of the heap politicians 200 years ago. Many of those politicians saw their dueling as a noteworthy part of their resume for public office. Are the partisan politicians today so very different from their forebearers? While the street duelists are now spraying shots from moving cars, politicians have devolved further. Challenging someone to stand 40-feet away so gun shots can be fired at each other may be loony. Causing someones’ life to be threatened because their husband is not towing the party line and therefore needs to be silenced, is the work of snipers without barriers. Valerie Plame could have been a fatality of that “duel.” Her husband and countless others in government have likely been fatalities of management by fear. In Maine 1838, The Argus headline read “Murder Most Foul.” The article pointed out that the fatal duel was based on a policy “that those who can’t be intimidated must be silenced.” It noted that the National Government needed to protect its northern members of Congress in the discharge of their duties. Northerners were not the only ones to cry foul. Opinion was split sharply along party lines. Even former President Andrew Jackson, spoke out to his successor President Martin Van Buren. He said he could not easily write on the murderous death of “poor Cilley” and that the murdered blood of Cilley stained the walls of Congress. He described Cilley as having been sacrificed. Democrats were quick to put forth the theory of conspiracy by their opponents to rid themselves of a rising, resourceful and intelligent opponent. Cilley himself is said to have believed that the circumstances were not based on wounded honor at all, but at the very least were calculated to disgrace him into making “humiliating concessions.” “It is an attempt to browbeat us, and because they think that I am from the East (New England) I will tamely submit.” Cilley thought he was refusing to bow to attempts by the media to control what an elected official did while carrying out his duties. He was aware of the reasoning and the players behind the pretext to the challenge. He believed Webb and others thought that because he was from New England, where dueling was frowned upon, he would back down. Cilley knew of the “shadowy pretext”, Hawthorne wrote of in his famous biographical sketch of his college friend. In it Hawthorne said, party politics “overstepped the imaginary distinction which ... separates manslaughter from murder”. The contemporary vote for term limits has not had the desired effect voters hoped for. Owners of politicians will never accept campaign finance reform. The partisanship in Congress is as bad as ever and seems headed for worse. Maybe those politicians so close to the days of the founding fathers had it right. If dueling were legal only for politicians, they could prove they are honorable without just making someone else look worse or kissing babies. The publicity would be free. The public, conditioned by reality TV, would likely get interested in politics again. Statistically, no matter which side won, the term limit would be up for a sub optimal politician.
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