The History of Dueling and State Constitutions 

Name a famous American duel. Okay, now name a second.

While Alexander Hamilton’s deadly duel may be America’s most famous, ritualized dueling went far beyond him. It was once widespread and lasted into the Civil War era, particularly in the South. It was so pervasive that several states passed constitutional amendments to ban the practice — and even those amendments were largely unsuccessful in stopping duels for years after their passage.

Still, state constitutional provisions banning dueling, which typically prohibited transgressors from holding public office, provide insight into the political landscape of early America and the culture of honor surrounding the practice itself.

The medieval duel was a way for noblemen and knights to defend their honor and social status, and that way of settling scores crossed the Atlantic with the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. On June 18, 1621 — seven months after their arrival in Plymouth and for reasons unknown — two indentured servants named Edward Doty and Edward Leister engaged in a duel that left them both wounded. It marked the introduction of the duel in this new society.

But it wasn’t until the 1760s that dueling really began gaining popularity in the United States. One possible explanation is that purpose-built dueling pistols weren’t widely available until this decade, historian Kevin Sweeney told State Court Report in an interview. It’s also possible “that contact with British and French officers during the American Revolution revitalized a tradition that had gone dormant in America, where aristocracy and a professional military did not exist,” historian Clayton Cramer writes in Concealed Weapons Law of the Early Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence, and Moral Reform.

A man’s reputation was integral to his social standing in early American society, and dueling was a way for him to defend and bolster his name in the public sphere. “Honor was the core of a man’s identity,” explains historian Joanne Freeman in Affairs of Honor. “It did not exist unless bestowed by others.”

If a man’s honor was ever challenged, he had to defend himself. But not in court — that was a sign of weakness, writes Temple University law professor Harwell Wells: “For a man to turn to the system to repair his honor, perhaps by filing a libel or slander suit, was akin to a man admitting that he was unable to protect himself.” 

Honor was particularly important when it came to politics. Without defined political parties, public perception of a candidate’s character and values determined his success. Due to the “gentlemanly standards of behavior” inherent to the ritual of dueling, participating in this practice helped to establish and maintain such a reputation. If a man refused a duel, he was telling the public that he “valued his own skin more than the principles he professed, and was not worthy of political or personal loyalty,” asserts Wells. Dueling, therefore, “was primarily an occupation of gentlemen with political ambitions,” Cramer explains.

Dueling was more widely practiced in the South, where a man’s honorability determined his social standing. “The concept of honor has little resonance for modern Americans, but to antebellum Southerners it was a central feature of their civilization,” writes Wells. In fact, when large numbers of Southerners moved to California, at least in part for the gold rush, they brought this ritual with them and made it a spectacle and a source of entertainment, Wells claims.

As dueling spread, lawmakers sought to rein it in. Newspaper editors and ministers voiced the staunchest opposition to dueling. Religious leaders opposed dueling because when men dueled, they took on an authority that did not belong to them: The ability to determine who lives and who dies. “Only God and duly constituted governments had the right to regulate and determine the legitimate uses of violence,” explains historian William Cossen. Newspaper editors, on the other hand, disliked duels at least in part because they often found themselves on the receiving ends of challenges, historian Jack K. Williams notes in his book Dueling in the Old South: Vignettes of Social History. Editors and ministers had platforms to spread their anti-dueling messages: “In many towns, sermons, editorials, and speeches were forerunners to the formation of antiduelling societies,” Williams continues.

As this anti-dueling movement gained momentum, groups devoted to ending the custom were established all around the country. New York’s anti-dueling society, for example, was established as early as 1809. Members pledged to not participate in any duels, and if a duel was challenged in their community the organizations tried to intervene and prevent a deadly altercation. The violent practice began to fall out of favor in the North around 1810, according to Wells. 

Not so in the South. Though anti-dueling societies popped up around the region in the early-1800s — those in Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia were established around 1826 — they did not deter those intent on continuing the practice. Instead, many Southern states attempted to curtail the prominence of dueling through constitutional amendments. Why use constitutions rather than ordinary criminal statutes? During Kentucky’s 1849 constitutional convention, as described by the historian Cramer, delegate Elijah Nuttall argued that statutes requiring anti-dueling oaths were not effective because the legislature simply passed bills allowing duelers to hold office even if the oaths were broken. But such a bill could not trump a constitutional provision.

Many Kentucky legislators opposed an anti-dueling amendment, worried that men would resort to less organized, more violent methods of solving disputes if they could not duel. Instead of an anti-dueling oath, delegate William Preston advocated for a law against concealed weapons because “some twelve or fourteen [of my companions] have perished in violent affrays in the streets, and I have never known one who fell in fair and honorable duel.” In the end, however, the anti-dueling amendment gained enough support to be added to the Kentucky Constitution of 1850.

Convincing Southerners to abide by anti-dueling laws, however, was another story. States such as Tennessee and North Carolina had anti-dueling laws since 1802, but the provisions “were not rigidly executed,” writes historian Jack Williams in his book Dueling in the Old South: Vignettes of Social History. Moreover, says Williams, because the duel was “a mechanism for the protection of the nineteenth-century Southern man’s most prized possession” — his honor — it would take more than legal prohibition to convince many to abandon the practice.

After the Civil War, however, dueling virtually ceased. Scholars disagree about exactly why. Wells argues the Civil War made killing less “romantic.” To many, armed violence had a new connotation. Professor Steven Calabresi and Sarah E. Agudo argue that the rejection of dueling between 1855 and 1868 aligned with other campaigns for increased morality in American society, including movements against vices such as lotteries and alcohol.

Regardless of the reason for its demise, by 1868, 80 percent of Southern state constitutions included anti-dueling provisions. The constitutions of many states, including Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia, still contain provisions barring the practice.

Though a relic of early American culture, anti-dueling provisions highlight the power of state constitutions to institute protections and address localized problems without having to wait for federal action. 

Sasha Jones is a student at Yale University and a former Brennan Center intern.

Suggested Citation: Sasha Jones, The History of Dueling and State Constitutions, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Apr. 8, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/history-dueling-and-state-constitutions-0