A Somewhat Comprehensive History of U.S. Senators Who Have Died in Duels | Hacker News Reader

A Somewhat Comprehensive History of U.S. Senators Who Have Died in Duels

defector.com

73 pointssamclemens59 comments

Its not the US but the date of the last well known duel always blows my mind (from Wikipedia):

21 April 1967: The last official duel in the history of France happened between Gaston Defferre and René Ribière, both delegates at the French National Assembly. During an argument in the assembly room, Defferre said to Ribière "shut up, idiot" ("taisez-vous, abruti"). Defferre won the duel after four minutes of sword fighting, wounding his opponent twice.

Footage of it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e68nuAcSuWQ

> Le premier sang venait d'être versé. M. Ribière, pourtant, exigeait de reprendre le combat ; non pas à mort, car il pensait se marier le lendemain même, et risquer sa vie pour une insulte lancée au cours d'un débat politique n'est guère de notre temps.

Translating approximately to:

> The first blood had just been drawn. Mr Ribière, nevertheless, demanded the duel be resumed ; not to death, for he expected to get married just the day after, and risking one's life for an abuse thrown during a political debate is hardly fashionable.

Hey, I did duels when I was a student:

https://youtu.be/lUh5exBJXBU?t=187

Yes, this is still tradition among some German students. My 30y old brother has several scars („Schmiss“) from it.

I wonder if any graduate of a German university has ever run afoul of the various American state laws requiring candidates for public office to swear that they have never fought a duel.

I never heard of such laws in the US.

By definition, this is not considered a "duel", hence I think you could claim in good faith "no".

Wiki: Modern academic fencing, the Mensur, is neither a duel nor a sport. It is a traditional way of training and educating character and personality; thus, in a mensur bout, there is neither winner nor loser.

Note that, according to a YouTube comment translation of the footage linked by another comment here, the duel was agreed upon from the start to be limited to first blood, not death. So arguably not a true duel in the normal sense of the word. Still interesting though.

Does "The Haynes manual of duelling" really say they have to be to the death? You mean all those duels where nobody died were not "real" duels?

No surviving Code Duello that I'm aware of (there are several, though the authenticity of most of them is disputed) says that duels have to be to the death.

There is a French one [0] which says that in a duel with swords, the seconds decide among themselves whether the duel will be to first blood or to the death, and do not inform the principals of their decision.

[0]https://www.geriwalton.com/french-dueling-codes-for-swords-p...

Thanks. In common usage of the term, duels don't have to be to the death, but they have to be with deadly weapons. Otherwise every disagreement settled by a boxing match or fencing match is duel. It's of course true that there is a continuum on how deadly a weapon can be, which depends on usage and has no sharp cutoff, but if the chance of death has been carefully eliminated, then the reader should be alerted to the fact that this does not really live up to the traditional understanding of a duel.

Duels have to be with deadly weapons. (See the dictionary.) If you are purposely using them in a manner that cannot result in death, they aren't deadly, so it's not a duel. Otherwise every boxing or fencing match would be a duel.

That is different than using deadly weapons but where one party is incapacitated or surrenders before they are killed. The realistic threat of death is still present.

The whole point of the top-level comment was that it seems shocking that dueling was still happening mid-20th century, so it is useful to point out that this was not the normal definition of dueling.

> For the vast majority of human history, people lived relatively short lives, with United States life expectancy first exceeding 40 years old in the 1850s. That figure didn’t reach 50 until the 1900s, and these days it’s a little under 80.

This is a misunderstanding of life expectancy that I see very often in articles. The major contributor for low life expectancy was infant mortality, which due to the life expectancy being an average reduced the life expectancy by a lot. This doesn't mean however that people who lived past childhood were fated to die on average at 40 years old. And so while the risk of death during childhood was high, and risk of death for women during childbirth was high this doesn't necessarily mean that the survivors who reached adulthood had short lives.

It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine and often happens whenever a single number is used to describe something that's complex.

I think this would be mostly solved by reporting the life expectancy at some other age than birth - e.g. the life expectancy at 20, thereby cutting out the effects of child mortality - or reporting the median age of death.

There is a site just across the SF border, in Daly City, over by Lake Merced (which is in SF) where there are markers for the Broderick-Terry duel[1]. The site is unremarkable, but nice and quiet[2].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broderick%E2%80%93Terry_duel

[2]https://www.google.com/maps/place/Broderick-Terry+Duel+Site/...

That's neat. I would love to return to duels for Congress. Just look at this gerontocracy:

Among congressmen 80 and over, 9 are Democrats and 2 are Republicans

Among congressmen 70 and over, 57 are Democrats and 19 are Republicans

Among senators 80 and over, 2 are Democrats and 3 are Republicans

Among senators 70 and over, 18 are Democrats and 7 are Republicans

Among senators 60 and over, 34 are Democrats and 28 are Republicans

If McConnell and Schumer hate either other that much, they should have PPV duel with the proceeds to going some charity.

If that's too grisly for folks maybe allow mutual combat. Remember when Biden told that voter to if he wanted to step outside and settle it?

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/10/you-wanna-go-ou...

Hell yeah I would've loved that.

At those ages, they might run out of ammo before either of them hit the other.

Step outside and settle it is one thing. But we don't duel anymore because it is honestly pretty messed up. There's a whole lot of perverse incentives that come to mind, and the institution created a whole host of social problems.

Imagine you're drinking beer with a buddy and someone you don't like comes up, and you say "yeah that guy is a total chode." He gets wind of it, is aghast and offended, and publicly challenges you to a competition where you try to shoot each other to death. You say no, and you're now a dishonorable coward and are never getting the company of a lady again, or any position of respect or business from many of your peers. You have to say yes, and kill someone or die or get grisly wounded for life.

People romanticize it, but I wouldn't want to live in a society where I have to kill people or die over petty squabbles.

> People romanticize it

You're clearly talking to different people than I am.

I agree it’s not the way to settle scores in today’s society (though it’s still this way in ganglands, be they mafia or LA gangs).

That said, it wasn’t an everyday thing, and given the dire consequences it wasn’t something done lightly out of the blue yonder. People knew not to offend or risk the possibility. And for the most part this was ritual for the upper classes and not for the village boors or even commoners.

> People romanticize it, but I wouldn't want to live in a society where I have to kill people or die over petty squabbles.

In a lot of inner city American neighborhoods today people do live like this. And it’s pretty horrid for the kids growing up in it.

> Step outside and settle it is one thing.

What one thing, hateful toxic masculinity and bullying from a white male in a position of power and privilege?

You're saying that like it is not also "honestly pretty messed up".

I only remember once being challenged to a fight outside. I didn't find it difficult to turn down. Biden surely shouldn't have used a threat of violence, but, especially in context, I doubt the recipient took the threat literally. The OP's point is that it's a difference in kind, not of degree.

For the record, toxic masculinity is bad, and a power differential makes it worse. Toxic masculinity coming from Kamala would have been just as bad. It's the power, regardless of source, that makes the toxicity more destructive.

(A friend and I had a code word for if either of us thought we had gotten into a bad situation. She had been flirting with a really drunk guy in a bar, not really interested, just liked the attention. The guy started following her around the bar. I wasn't sure if she was playing hard to get, until she got into a corner and started shouting our code word, which just confused the guy. I put my hand on the guy's shoulder and suggested he give her some room, at which point he suggested he and I take a step outside. A simple "nah, I think I'm fine" was sufficient to avoid a fight, but didn't really calm him down. The only time I used our code word was when we were vacationing in a developing country, had both gotten drunk, and some people we met invited us to a restaurant for some sober-up food. The restaurant didn't have a restroom, and one of the guys clearly took me a long twisting way to a restroom and promised to wait for me outside. 30 seconds later, my guide was nowhere to be found. I ran back, the short way, to the restaurant to find my guide and the others pressuring my friend to do some shots. I told her our code word and we left some money on the table for a couple shots and walked as fast as we could back to the main tourist strip.)

Oh come off it. Is this how you approach discussion with everyone in your life? Talk about toxic.

I'd engage but you've crammed every red flag codeword you could into your statement that tells me there will be nothing interesting coming out of it at all.

I might be missing something, but it seems to me like the easier thing to do in a culture where you might have to back insults up with violence is to... not insult people. I mean, I agree that dueling is not something that we'd want politicians to do, generally, but one of the intended effects of it is to reduce just that sort of casual disrespect that harms group unity (and yes, I'm aware that "group unity" among a ruling class is a dangerous thing to the proletariat - see, for example, insider trading laws not applying to them). If you have a problem with someone, you keep it to yourself or deal with the matter privately between the two of you. To publicly insult someone meant something far more serious when there was a social expectation to put your life on the line for the insult.

Again, not a fan of dueling, just steelmanning it. Giving more power (in terms of freedom to express oneself in a political context) to the more martial members of the ruling class would likely be a very dangerous thing, but I just wanted to point out that that specific example is something that dueling is meant to eliminate. Certain societies enforce politeness (with big, big air quotes over "enforce" for some) with social opprobrium and centuries of precedent. Others enforce it with threat of force (as others have pointed out, honor/warrior cultures tend to default to this). Having it not be enforced at all is interesting, and I wonder if over time rifts between factions will only deepen due to mutual disrespect. I wonder what effects that will have on public trust in the institution (already not at great levels, I'm aware).

> To publicly insult someone meant something far more serious when there was a social expectation to put your life on the line for the insult.

The only thing changed in most of the world today, IMHO, is that you are shot in the back instead of being shot in the face.

> the easier thing to do in a culture where you might have to back insults up with violence is to... not insult people.

Isn't that basically saying that libel laws should be enforced by the death penalty?

If I say my local chiropractor knowingly promotes bogus treatments - should my life be in danger?

I ran the same analysis a while back and was really surprised how short team blue’s bench is compared to team red.

The one constant in life:

Though frequently illegal, duels often avoided prosecution, possibly because the participants tended to hold positions of power, such as United States senator.

And don't forget, you pay the doctor in advance, treat him with civility, and have him turn around so he can have deniability.

Very apt username (at least the first part)!

I occasionally think about this 1990 “Got Milk” ad directed by Michael Bay and note that the identity of Alexander Hamilton’s duel partner (saying nothing of his own identity as the ten dollar founding father without a father) is no longer esoteric knowledge, but a well known fact in popular culture: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSsswr6z9Y

My favorite pop culture reference to it is Lazy Sunday: https://youtu.be/sRhTeaa_B98?t=97

It’s hard to get a definitive answer, but as a matter of law there are several states with legal “mutual combat”. One would imagine most of these cases happen on the other end of the SES scale.

https://www.quora.com/Where-is-mutual-combat-legal-and-what-...

That was not the only reason. The other reason was that duel was socially required in some situations. If you refused, you was really looked down at and would became sort of outcast. Everyone of relevant cast understood that.

Also, they did not ended up with death all that often. There was whole process how to got there, negotiate compromise via seconds and often participants were not so eager to kill each other. The big point is to show willingness to be shoot at or something of that sort.

C-span had pretty good lecture about duels in south.

James Shield, the only person to have been a US Senator for 3 different states, challenged Abraham Lincoln to a duel after Lincoln published a scathing article about him in a local newspaper. Lincoln accepted, but before they fought they made up and became friends.

The 1906/8 Olympic games included two-person pistol dueling. The French were favored and won both years.

My immediate reaction was "how?". (I presumed the organizers would not have accepted an arrangement where they expected to award silver and bronze posthumously.) Apparently they used wax bullets. Fascinating and hilarious.

In 1906 it was just firing duelling pistols at dummies, which... c'mon, that's just target shooting with a twist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_dueling

I bet this piece of trivia is something competitive paintballers like to wax over after a match: “Someday Olympic non-lethal gun combat will be restored by the IOC…”

See also, a recent political duel: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/last-sword-duel-1967/

The prospect of fencing with actually sharp swords using a French grip, with that apparent level of inflexibility... on grass... is making me really anxious.

I’m sure you would gain a lot of satisfaction from it.

Now you understand why the lunge was considered daring, or even irresponsible, depending on the school.

The blurb that comes with this photo doesn't make it obvious who is who, so I did a little more digging.

Defferre was a member of the French Section of the Workers' International at the time (and later became a member of the socialist party in 1969) and is the Mayor of Marseille, Ribière (the one with the darker hair in the photos) is the Socialist Party Candidate for president.

Absolutely fascinating.

I don’t have a death wish or anything but death by duel has got to be one of the coolest ways to go.

Galois is the most legendary to go this way IMO

Way too young

I feel so bad for him. He clearly had so many better things to do than die for the “honor” of a woman he wasn’t even sleeping with but somehow ended up in that situation.

19th century simping

Not as cool as winning and then one day becoming President of the United States though.

The firearms available when duelling was a thing were not very accurate.

Assuming the 20 paces thing at say two feet to a pace => 80 feet range. Your target is moving, it's early in the morning and you are still dealing with a killer hangover or still pissed - that's why you are in this stupid duel.

To maximise your chances you turn side on, to minimise your profile and support your aim. You might consider crouching but that was probably bad form. You might consider using your other hand to steady your aim but that was probably bad form and crucially makes you a bigger target because you will be forced to stand square on.

I can't be bothered to look up what gravity will do to the trajectory of a ball from a flintlock and the like but I suspect the muzzle velocity wasn't too impressive and 80' or 25m is far enough to make the ball drop a bit vertically.

If you get hit, it will almost certainly be in the lower abdomen or leg. A soldier would know to aim a bit higher to try and get a upper torso hit. Your chest is a bigger target than anything else on you thanks to your lungs.

So a ball of very hot lead and other metals about 3/4" (?) across enters your side at about stomach level or at lower intestine level. The trauma is probably not enough to kill you outright. Modern firearms can often kill you with shock waves running up blood vessels to the heart and other organs. This thing hurts rather a lot and causes a lot of bleeding. You are being poisoned by the metals. Antibiotics have not been invented. Blood/fluid loss, shock, infection. Take your pick. I'm sure a doctor could get really creative here.

The general idea of a duel was to involve a lot of danger but honour could still be satisfied if everyone missed. Shooting someone at that range is very hard. It obviously happened but probably not as often as we modern lot think.

If you do get hit, you will probably die in quite a nasty, painful extended way.

I'm not a doctor nor a weapons expert and have some limited knowledge of all that stuff, some of my analysis might be complete bollocks! However, hopefully I've persuaded you that being shot by an old pistol is not a nice way to go. Probably not preferable to swords either. Sword duels (foils/epees etc) used to generally run to first blood, so provided you managed to stop the other bloke from sticking your eye and one of you got some blood out of somewhere not too critical with a slash or poke then all good.

Obviously, we can all imagine how a sword duel might end quite unpleasantly as well but remember that duels were about satisfying your honour and not actually killing your opponent. Killing them seems to have been considered an unfortunate side effect and not the actual goal.

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot whatever the nasty side effects of having your stomach or bowels leaking into the rest of you is called - that's a good possibility if you get hit.

Also, you are standing side on with your arm up so your lungs are a major likely target. A hit in the lung is a really nasty thing but I think will kill you quicker than most of the other traumas. It will obviously involve broken ribs but I'd like to know whether a flintlock of the time would be capable of penetrating a over coat plus clothes and ribs.

That is a key question I think. If clothes plus ribs etc is normally capable of routinely avoiding a shot being lethal at 80' (God willing etc) then we can be a bit more sure about how duels worked. Did gents suddenly remember to wear their whale bone corset to look their best (and add a bit more armour)? Did they fill their pockets with Bibles? If your coat has generous breast and waist pockets then leather bound books with many 100 thin pages will add a lot of armour to you when you stand side on.

Sadly, if your oppo gets a headshot in then you are fucked, regardless and that will probably be quick unless you are really unlucky.

Check out the dueling scene in the Kubrick film Barry Lyndon. I think it might deromanticize it for you.

Dueling seems like an absolutely crazy way to resolve a dispute. Until you get involved in civil litigation...

While I do think dueling primitive and would not suggest it seriously, I can't help but feel a sense of unknown nostalgia for the reverence given to mutual respect.

The risk of having to face death when you insulted another man is the polar opposite of the online world.

That is one of the most obtrusive ‘subscribe now’ boxes I’ve seen for a while.

Dueling should be legal.

mandatory*. Particularly for US Senators.

Sen. Rand Paul's neighbor beat the piss out of him, but it wasn't a proper duel with appropriate weapons.

In practice it was an excuse for serial killers to get away with murder. Many dueling deaths were from people who would insult people, get into duels and kill folks for fun.

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