Abraham Lincoln – Duel

Touche’

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

In life you encounter countless thoughts and feelings. Sometimes they are the sweet smelling flowers and other times they are the annoying fly that you just try to swat away. Often, when we get those feelings hurt, we go for the jugular. When we do this we often regret it later.

He might have been one of the most athletic of the presidents and this would surprise most people. He might have been the first “professional” wrestler to become president, if you consider wrestling for bets professional. But if you were to line up all the presidents in a row and you had to pick them one by one for a pickup game of football, I seriously doubt he would be one of the top choices.

What really might surprise you about him, though, is that he was once challenged to a dual and he accepted that challenge. He was never a fan of Andrew Jackson’s banking ideas and this, in part, lead to the conflict. Andrew Jackson thought a one source national bank, which was the current method of banking at the time, was a bad idea. Our challenger liked his state’s banking system and the national system just the way it was. His state’s Auditor wanted to dismantle the state’s banking system.

My father is one known to be a constant tease. In most cases that is fun to be around. Once when I was young, though, that wasn’t the case. I was not in a very good mood that day and my Dad decided to tease me about something. It wasn’t the right day to do it and I went for one of those hurtful rebuttals. No, I didn’t say he was dressed weird or he talked funny. I went for the comment that I wouldn’t completely understand until I was some 20 or 30 years older. And it was probably because of that moment I received the curse myself.

You think our country had issues with the Constitution when we started or slavery as she was going through her youth, that was nothing compared to this. Even today, people are hard core on many issues, but if you mess with their money then there is a very serious problem. That money issue was exactly why this was such an explosive issue. When you decide to change your banking system it causes a lot of little side issues. Back then, if something as big as the US government were to pull out all its money from your bank, your certificates (or money) in those banks were worthless. There was no FDIC insurance on your money back then. So no matter how rich you were, your wealth was gone.

When his state’s Auditor moved the state’s money to a different bank that rendered the old state bank notes worthless. James Shield was the state’s Auditor’s name. Shield would not accept the old notes to pay state taxes. The state’s economy came to a virtual halt. Our challenger took his fight to Shield to the press, namely the Sangamo Journal.

Hidden inside the pages of the Bible are countless little stories. Some leave you scratching your head and asking questions. One of those stories is about Elisha and it is really only covered in three verses (2 Kings 2:22-24). Elisha is one of those big time Biblical prophets. He followed his mentor, Elijah (I know, I get those two mixed all the time, too). Elisha was walking down the street one day when this large group of kids started taunting him. “Hey baldy! Hey baldy!” they shouted. Elisha cursed them. But here’s the weird part: two bears came out and mauled all the kids to death. Talk about saying the wrong thing.

Our challenger took a different method at approaching Shield and his antics. He wrote under the name “Rebecca,” whose character was a “rough, uneducated, but shrewd countrywoman*.” To make matters worse, he got his wife and her friend, Julia Jayne involved. They helped to sharpen his comments with even more bite.

Hotheaded, humorless, and easily excitable, James Shield found out who was behind these famous “Lost Township” letters. Our challenger, in order to protect the two ladies, took all the blame for the “letters.” Shield demanded a retraction, which our challenger refused. Shield then challenged him to a duel. As the one being challenged, our champion had the right to choose the weapons. What weapon did he choose? He chose the broadsword. This was a weapon that was familiar to him from his Black Hawk War days.

Like I said, our challenger probably wouldn’t have been your top choice for a pickup game of football, but if the game happened to be basketball, I’m sure he would have been a real high pick. You see, he had real long arms and this gave him a real advantage with the choice of a sword.

When my Dad upset me, thinking was not my strong point. I returned the volley by saying, “At least I don’t have a bald spot on the back of my head.” My Dad got up from his chair and went into the bathroom. He came back out and said, “You could have gone the rest of your life without telling me that.” Boy, did I feel bad.

One problem quickly arose between Shield and our challenger: dueling was illegal in their state. So they crossed the state line into Missouri. Just as they were about to start, someone stepped in and offered a solution, which they both accepted. Shield would withdraw his insulting note for a duel and our challenger would affirm Shield was a gentleman and say the whole thing was “solely for political effect.”

Our challenger learned a valuable lesson from this encounter. He learned that words, once spoken, could not be taken back and he would never again lash out at other’s character with his sense of humor. He regulated that character humor only to himself. Yes, the tall, long armed, 16th President, Abraham Lincoln learned the hard way to use his humor in more effective ways.