Today, when a banker takes your house away, you have only two choices …
1) leave the premises
2) take your banker to court and lose your house anyway
A century and a decade ago, in the Deep South, you had three choices …
1) leave the premises
2) take your banker to court and lose your house anyway
3) pinch your banker’s nose and have a 50/50 chance of keeping your house
Pinching someone’s nose was an egregious insult and a challenge to a duel.
If your banker lost, you kept your house, according to the Southern Rules of Honor.
The Rules of Honor were concretized by John Lyde Wilson (1784-1849), the 49th governor of South Carolina, in his 1838 book …
The Code of Honor: Or, the Rules for the Government of Principals and Seconds in Dueling
THOUSANDS of men died in the South protecting their “honor” (usually their creditworthiness).
Robert Eric Wright (Hamilton Unbound: Finance and the Creation of the American Republic, 2002) wrote …
“Historians have identified a number of interesting cultural causes of duels and dueling. There appears, however, to also have been a very important financial cause for that seemingly irrational institution. Commercialized areas that lacked adequate access to modern credit intermediation facilities, like the plantation regions of the antebellum South, relied on dueling as a signal of character and hence creditworthiness. Lenders would call in their loans to planters thought to have low characters. Due to the illiquid nature of planter assets, such calls would render most planters insolvent. To stave off the calls, men had to reassert their creditworthiness. They did so by undergoing a baptism under fire. In short, men dueled in order to counter accusations that could have led to damaging liability runs.”
.
.
'Dueling For Dollars' have 7 comments
January 16, 2015 @ 1:59 pm atomb
Check out our Sun Sync Nutrition Website (including a Color Recycling app, Solar Time calculator, holistic bibliography, blog, FAQs, etc.) at …
http://www.sunsyncnutrition.com
My e-books (including Placebo Power, Dead Dentists Don’t Lie, Butterflies Need No Taxidermist, etc.) are available at …
http://www.solarman111.com
Reflexology charts, blogs, photos, FAQs, Yes No Maybe book (paperback), Solar Timing Recipe Book (36-page PDF) by Vibrant Gal, etc., are available at …
http://www.solartiming.com
January 16, 2015 @ 2:00 pm atomb
Charles Oscar Paulin (Dueling in the Old Navy, 1909) wrote …
“In 1802, 1820, 1824, and 1843 attempts were made in Congress to prevent dueling in the navy. In 1806 a law was passed prohibiting dueling in the army, but it was frequently violated by the officers of that service. After Congress had several times refused to stop dueling in the District of Columbia, it finally, in 1839, moved to action by the death of Congressman Jonathan Cilley in a duel with Congressman William J. Graves, forbade the giving or the accepting of a challenge in the district. Not until July 17, 1862, was dueling in the navy a violation of law. The act for the better government of the navy passed on that date made the sending or accepting of a challenge, or the acting of a second, punishable by such penalty as a court-martial might adjudge.”
January 16, 2015 @ 2:01 pm atomb
William Faux (Faux’s Memorable Days in America, November 27, 1818-July 21, 1820, 1823) wrote …
“Commodore Stephen Decatur fell this day in a duel, having killed five men in the same way himself. He swore shamefully at the doctors while dying, because they could not extract the fatal ball from his bowels.”
January 20, 2015 @ 3:42 pm John
Hi Atom,
what color is best for a price of an item, red or green ?
January 21, 2015 @ 11:28 am atomb
It depends on the product. :)
January 22, 2015 @ 4:04 am John
the product is a health detox program for a week
January 25, 2015 @ 11:18 pm atomb
Generally …
Red for an audience interested in elimination.
Green for an audience interested in purification.