Another couple of random book reviews from my own blog.
Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic by Joanne Freeman shows how the political leaders of the Revolutionary generation worried about reputation and honor to the point the Klingons look laid back by comparison. One way to prove you had honor? Dueling.
Freeman captures well the complexities of national government in an era when politics and electioneering were considered shameful, even by people who engaged in them, and when calling someone a liar (also âscoundrelâ or even âpuppyâ) was grounds for a duel. Indeed, being insulted and failing to issue a challenge was a mark of shame. Not that you had to fight but you had to show you were willing to defend your reputation with your life, or to stand behind the accusations you’d hurled. Alexander Hamilton was involved in several duels before his fatal showdown with Aaron Burr but the two parties’ seconds negotiated a nonviolent resolution to all of them .
Freeman also discusses the methods of political attack including newspaper articles, letters, gossip and the duel itself, and how they affected the men posing for public acclaim (like a lot of historians, Freeman sees Adams as someone too impetuous to get the pose right). Freeman argues the era’s concern for reputation and honor explains seemingly illogical acts such as Hamilton refusing to shoot. A fascinating book.
Several years ago, I discussed my dissatisfaction with honor as a concept â not that being honorable is bad, but that honor is too 
wrapped up with pride and reputation to be of value. Reading AMERICAN HONOR: The Creation of the Nationâs Ideals During the Revolutionary Era by Craig Bruce Smith makes me appreciate there are more ways to interpret âhonorâ than I conceived at the time.
Smith looks at how America in the colonial and revolutionary era debated the nature of honor. Did it come from titles and pedigree, as it did in Europe? Wealth and outward display of status? Was virtuous or ethical conduct part of being honorable or were they separate things? There was also a sense of the American colonies having a collective honor, something under attack by the British crownâs increasingly high-handed rule; in that light, even women and free African-Americans could earn honor by working for the cause of independence.
This belief in gaining honor by serving the nation didnât erase the idea of personal honor and the two often conflicted, particularly in the military where rank and pay were both seen as a measure of your honor. Benedict Arnoldâs betrayal, for instance, was fueled in part by the belief he hadnât received the honor and status he deserved. After the revolution, with no similar cause to fight in,the next generation became increasingly touchy about personal honor, which morphed into something closer to what my old post complained about. Specialized but worth reading.
One of the key points Dr. Freeman makes is that dueling was all about class and status. A person of a lower station could not challenge a higher-class person to a duel; accepting such a challenge would lower the higher-ranked person to the level of the challenger. The proper response would be to simply horsewhip the impertinent social-climber and leave it at that. A lower-class person’s options would be to “broadside” the opponent by printing and hanging posters revealing the person’s dishonorable behavior for public scrutiny, or to submit the accusations to a local newspaper, assuming it wasn’t owned by the opponent. AFFAIRS OF HONOR is all about the intricacies of etiquette, what simply is and is not done, and along with that, the role that women, as the primary arbiters and keepers of etiquette, played in shaping public policy; women quietly carried a lot of influence in Colonial America, primarily by never mentioning what they were doing.
One of the reasons Hamilton was involved in about a dozen duels is that every one of them validated how much his station had improved since arriving in the Colonies as an “orphan-bastard-immigrant-son-of-a-whore-and-a-Scotsman,” as the musical puts it.
Fun fact: Way back around 1982, I worked with Joanne, excuse me, Dr. Freeman, at a local newspaper when I was a paste-up artist and she was the office assistant, front desk person, and student at the local university. I will admit that I made a relentless pest of myself trying and failing to get her to go out with me. I apologized for my obnoxious behavior some years later, and she graciously accepted my apology.
Small world.
And yes you’re right about the classist aspect â something that also happens in many fictional works where the bad guy has the prole protagonist beaten or whipped as beneath his notice.
A book I read about life on the Mississippi in the 1800s points out that nonviolent solutions became less popular the further south and toward the frontier you went â Southerners were much more likely to demand a duel even if an apology was offered.