1804 â A duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton leaves Hamilton dead. Since New Jersey did not have a law against dueling at the time, Burr and Hamilton, both New Yorkers, crossed the Hudson to Weehawken, New Jersey. New York had banned the practice earlier, partly due to Hamiltonâs own campaign efforts after his son was killed in a duel. Dueling was outlawed in the North much earlier than it was in the South. The state of Massachusetts declared it âdetestable and infamous.â Duelists in that state could be punished even if they both survived the duel. A typical penalty would be to stand an hour with a rope around their neck at the gallows and then to spend a year in prison. Transgressors might also receive lashes from a whip. For duelists who died, there was still a civic penalty to be paid. The loser was buried without a coffin near the spot of the duel with a stake driven through his body. The winner could be prosecuted for murder, executed, and buried in the same manner. Even the mere threat of a duel had serious consequences: In 1818, George Norton challenged someone to a duel in New York for insulting his honor and was sentenced to a month in prison for his dare. In the South, dueling was much more popular and accepted, especially among upper-class society. The practice was so common that legislators were asked to take an oath to declare that they had never been in a duel. Even after dueling became illegal, the law was rarely enforced. The Burr-Hamilton duel was not the last high-profile case. In 1809, future senator Henry Clay and Humphrey Marshall were arguing over legislation in Kentuckyâs state house when Clay called Marshall a demagogue and Marshall responded by calling Clay a liar. Their subsequent duel was fought with pistols at a length of ten paces. Luckily for both, neither was a good shot (nor were the weapons particularly accurate), and they both recovered from their injuries.
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