1 allude to the murders that are committed in duels, and which have greatly, and increasingly, defiled our land. It has been said, and with too much reason, that our laws are sanguinary. They doubtless are so in many instances ; but on the subject of duelling, whether from the laws themselves, or from the in- fluence of those who administer them, or from the connivance of those who are sworn to give a verdict according to them, they are criminally lax: and on this account, as well as for the cruelties of the slave- trade, God has a controversy with us. I know that political expediency is urged in support of both these evils: but what have we to do with expediency in express opposition to the commands of God ? Let me recall to your minds that declaration of God already cited, that " blood defileth the land, and that the blood that is shed therein cannot be cleansed but by the blood of him that shed it:" and let me turn your attention to another passage, which I would to God that every senator might hear, yea that it might reach the ears of majesty itself, forasmuch as it would reflect no inconsiderable light on the circumstances in which we are involved: you will find it written in
2 Kings xxiv. 2 — 4. " The Lord sent against him (the king of Judah) bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Amnion, and sent them against Judah to destroy it ... . Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did; and also for the innocent blood that he shed, (for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood,) which the Lord would not pardon." The Jews probably ascribed the invasion of their country to the cupidity or anger of the Babylonish monarch : and we also
itself may in some cases contribute to the evil which it is intended to repress; to repress I say, rather than to punish; for, if public report may be credited, the penalty recently adjudged was expressly said to be, not a punishment inflicted on the offender, but a compensation to the injured party. In this view the crime is never punished as a crime, when no less a punishment than death was by God's law to be awarded to it.