THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
minds with regard to such things, were not altogether personal ones. The taunt that Northern men were cowards and would not fight, was constantly in the mouths of numberless Southerners. They no doubt believed it to be true, and that belief was a matter of great public importance. It exercised a powerful, and perhaps even a decisive influence on the Southern people. It made them expect that whatever the South might demand, if the demand was only made with a sufficient degree of imperious bluster, the North would, after some wriggling, finally submit to it for fear of an armed conflict. It is indeed a serious historical question whether, if that Southern notion of an absolute lack of fighting spirit in the North had not existed, the South would ever have ventured upon the risk of actual secession and the consequent Civil War. If, at the time in question, every Northern man challenged to a fight by a Southerner had excused himself on the ground of conscientious scruples, would not the cry have arisen in each instance: “You see, you can insult them, and kick and cuff them, and pull their noses, but they will not fight! There is no fight in the whole lot of them.” And so the belief that the South might do anything ever so offensive with assured impunity would have been confirmed and grown constantly more absolute. It may, therefore, with a high degree of plausibility, he argued that, under circumstances so peculiar the question whether a challenge should be accepted or declined was not a merely personal one, but one of public interest, and whether a man ever so strongly opposed to the duel on principle was not then justified temporarily in sacrificing his principle for the public benefit. There certainly were a great many persons who under ordinary conditions of life would have spurned the idea of countenancing a duel, but who, at that time, instinctively clapped their hands when a public man “showed fight” in repelling the Southern
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