theories are different, yet they have similarities, and together they shed light
on the nature of the German duel.
Dueling was brought to the United States by European army officers,
French, German, and English, during the American Revolution. Funda-
mental to the formal duel, an aristocratic practice, is the principle that du-
els are fought by gentlemen to preserve their honor. Dueling thus became
established only in those regions of the United States that had established
aristocracies that did not subscribe to pacifist values, namely the lowland
South, from Virginia through the low country of South Carolina to New
Orleans. Two theories have been offered to explain the duel in America.
The first asserts that the rise and fall of dueling went hand in hand with the
rise and fall of the southern slave-owning aristocracy. As Jack K. Williams
puts it, “The formal duel fitted easily and well into this concept of aristoc-
racy. The duel, as a means of settling disputes, could be restricted to use by
the upper class. Dueling would demonstrate uncompromising courage, sta-
bility, calmness under stress” (1980, 74). Lee Kennett and James LaVeme
Anderson, on the other hand, point out, “Its most dedicated practitioners
were army and navy officers, by profession followers of a quasi-chivalrous
code, and southerners, who embraced it most enthusiastically and clung to
it longest. Like most European institutions, dueling suffered something of
a sea change in its transfer to the New World. In the Old World it had been
a badge of gentility; in America it became an affirmation of manhood....
Dueling was a manifestation of a developing society and so it was natural
that men resorted to it rather than the legal means of securing a redress of
grievance” (1975, 141, 144).
Yet the duel occurred primarily in areas where there were courts.
“The duel traveled with low-country Southerners into the hill country and
beyond, but frontiersmen and mountain people were disinclined to accept
the trappings of written codes of procedure for their personal affrays!”
(Williams 1980, 7). Several reasons seem quite apparent. The people of
Appalachia were not aristocrats, many could barely read or write, and
feuding as a means of maintaining family honor was well established. As
argued above, if a duel occurs in an area where feuding is an accepted prac-
tice, the resulting injuries and possible deaths will start a feud; dueling can
enter a region only if the cultural practices do not include feuding. Thus
feuding and dueling do not occur in the same regions.
American dueling, unlike its European counterpart in the nineteenth
century, was deadly. In Europe the goal of the duelist was to achieve honor
by showing courage in the face of death. Winning by wounding or killing
the opponent was unnecessary. On the other hand, many American duelists
tried to kill their opponents. This difference was noted by Alexis de Toc-
queville in 1831 in his Democracy in America:“In Europe, one hardly ever106 Dueling