Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/783



• CENSURE OF SECONDS. 771

honorable men if only his friends had taken the kindest and best course for their principal.

" But unfortunately, opposite counsels on all sides prevailed. Both principals seemed to have been surrounded by a set of bloody-minded hotspurs, who were disposed to urge on the meeting to a fatal issue rather than allow on either side the minutest waiving of punctilio. Though Terry's original speech was given doubtless with no thought of provoking Broderick to a duel, and Broderick's rejoinder was made in hot blood at the instant of receiving a strong provocation, neither was allowed to state the truth, to brins; about a reconciliation, but were hurried to the field, with deadly weapons in their hands, to shed blood without justification or reasonable cause. We hold that the seconds of these duellists are strongly to blame. They should have prevented a meeting on such trifling grounds. Failing to do so, they must be considered as accessories before the fact to a cruel homicide, and the law should vigorously be enforced by the proper authorities to bring them to justice.


 * But we go further than this, and maintain that the seconds are the true instigators and promoters of all duels. The principals in their hands are men of wax, and can be moulded as they will. If people of good standing in society will refuse to throw the mantle of their position over the angry, deadly passions of would-be duellists, the practice itself of duelling would soon expire. The seconds think that, without any bodily danger to themselves, they have the reflected honor of their principal's bravery and contempt of death; then let them also have their reflected punishment. Let that be made as exemplary as the punishment of the surviving principal and we may soon hear less of duelling. The seconds or friends of Mr Broderick were Joseph McKibbin, ex-member of congress, and David D. Colton, ex-sherifl* of Siskiyou county. Those of Judge Terry were Thomas Hayes, ex-county clerk of San Francisco, and Calhoun