sinner is only answerable to God, or his vicegerent, and he is in a particular manner appointed to expiate it by suffering punishment, and repenting, and asking pardon, and judging and condemning himself, doing acts of justice and charity in opposition and contradiction to that evil action. But because in the case of stealing there is an injury done to our neighbor, and the evil still remains after the action is past, therefore for this we are accountable to our neighbor, and we are to take the evil off from him which we brought upon him, or else he is an injured person, a sufferer all the while: and that any man should be the worse for me, and my direct act, and by my intention, is against the rule of equity, of justice, and of charity; I do not that to others which I would have done to myself, for I grow richer upon the ruins of his fortune. Upon this ground it is a determined rule in divinity, our sin can never be pardon. ed till we have restored what we unjustly took, or wrongfully detained. Restored it (I mean) actually, or in purpose and desire, which we must really perform when we can. And this doc trine, besides its evident and apparent reasonableness, is derived from the express words of Scripture, reckoning restitution to be a part of repentance, necessary in order to the remission of our sins. [If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, &c. he shall surely live, he shall not die,*] The practice of this part of justice is to be directed by the following rules, which shall appear in our next number. (To be continued.) * Ezek. xxxiii, 15. "Compassion may fall on the wrong object, and yet be justi. fied and applauded. One living in affluence becomes bankrupt; his sudden fall strikes the imagination, pity is felt, and generous exertions are made on his behalf: if artful and fraudulent, he fore. saw, and availed himself of this irregular compassion; he stretched his credit, bought and built, and lived luxuriously, that his fall might strike the more. There is indeed a call for compassion; but upon whom? doubtless upon the trader and artificer whose economy he has deranged, upon the servant who entrusted him with wages in an evil hour, upon the widow whom he has caused to weep over destitute children, and to curse him in the bitterness of her soul." MISCELLANY. [The following information and anecdote, communicated to us for publication by an obliging Correspondent, will, we doubt not, be highly gratifying to our readers, and we ardently wish it may inspire them with a determination, to go and do likewise. EDITORS.] ANTI-DUELLING ASSOCIATION. New-York, 8th Aug. 1809. AGREEABLY to public notice, a large number of respectable citizens met at the North Dutch Church, this day, to receive the report of a committee appointed at a former meeting, relative to the adoption of measures for the suppression of duelling. Hon. JOHN BROOME, Esq. in the Chair. Col. LEBBEUS LOOмIs, Secretary. The following plan was reported by the committee, and unanimously adopted, viz. "We, whose names are hereunto subscribed, viewing with alarm the increase of duelling; desirous of opposing to its further prevalence the strongest lawful resistance; and persuaded that a proper use of the Right of Suffrage, will have a powerful effect in discountenancing and banishing it; do hereby unite ourselves in an Association, to be called the ANTI-DUELLING ASSOCIATION OF NEW-YORK. And do, by our signatures hereunto annexed, solemnly pledge ourselves to each other, not to vote at any election for any man, whom, from current fame, or our own private conviction, we shall believe to have sent, accepted, or carried a challenge to fight a Duel, or acted as a Second or Surgeon therein, after the date here. of. VOL. II. New Series. of this meeting to be published. By order of the meeting, JOHN BROOME, Chairman, THE FOLLOWING IS THE ADDRESS. TO THE ELECTORS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. A number of your fellow citizens solicit your attention to a subject of great and common interest. They address you not as adherents to any political or ecclesiastical party; as men who abhor that atheism which rejects the authority and government of God-as citizens who feel the importance of making the law respected; who know that the impunity of crime tends to destroy both public order and private happiness, with all the security of property, liberty, and life. As friends, brothers, fathers of families, to whom the social charities are sacred; and who can never hold cheap the blood of such as are united to them in the tenderest ties of amity, of nature, and of love. They call upon you to consider and resist the prevalence of a crime which strikes at you in all these relations; which has hitherto eluded but too successfully, the several efforts to suppress it; and which, emboldened by past impunity, threatens to leave nothing safe of all that is venerable in human life; the crime of duelling. They need not prove the ab. surdity and atrocity of a practice which cannot reckon among its advocates a single wise or good man, few, even of the aban. doned, venture to apologise for it upon any other principle than this, that "it is a means, howev er bad, which the state of society renders necessary for the protection of person and character; and that if one should not resent an insult by calling out its author, or should decline a challenge, he would become an object of universal contempt, liable to the meanest affronts, and incapable of retaining his place among men of dignity and spirit. Briefly, that public opinion, which regu lates private honor, is in favor of duelling, and compels one to sacrifice his reason, his conscience, and his wishes, to the respectability of his social standing." Thus the duellist, assuming it as a fact, that he is to be rewarded with the approbation of the community, flies to his weapons of death; sates his revenge with blood; and produces PUBLIC OPINION as the warrant for his murders. On the MORALITY of this doc. trine it would be superfluous to comment. There can be but one judgment pronounced upon it by all who recognize the distinction between right and wrong, as originating in a higher source than human custom. But if the allegation of fact is correct; if the duellist has rightly estimated the public opinion; if it is true that the American people look with satisfaction upon deeds which fill every virtuous breast with horror and dismay, then is our condition dreadful indeed. We cannot submit to such a libel upon the understanding and morals of this nation. Public opinion is merely the collective opinion of individuals. To be known, it must be expressed. And when, where, how has it been expressed in FAVOR OF DUEL LING? Let the man be produced The laws of the land are decisive. They speak death to the man who kills another in a duel. They speak degradation and infamy to every one who, in any manner, assists in a duel. But the laws are merciful. They will not allow of any avoidable risk of punishing the innocent. And the guilty, availing himself of their precaution, and of the facility of escape created by dif ferent jurisdictions, eludes their blow, and in the very act of shrinking from this expression of the public will, pleads PUBLIC OPINION in his own vindication! The private circle is decisive. Go through the state from house to house; number the patrons of duelling; and when you have found them one in a thousand of our independent electors, begin to speak of their opinion. Shall we, then, hear that our opinions collectively are in diametrical contradiction to your opinions separately? And that the public applauds a practice which every one who contributes to make up that public, a handful of the desperate excepted, pronounces to be senseless and wicked? Yet strong as the facts are; full, peremptory, solemn, and habitual as are the expressions of public opinion against duelling, without one sol. itary expression in its favor, this baneful practice, the offspring of barbarous manners and bloody passions, is still fathered upon PUBLIC OPINION? And what is deeply alarming, gains rapidly upon our citizens; gains, in opposition to all the expostulations of reason, and all the sanctions of religion; in opposition to the rebuke of the law; to the testimony of the wise and good; to the protestations of common humanity; to the tears of the widow, and the sorrow of the orphan. Are we fathers? Are we broth. ers? Are we citizens? Are we men? And shall we permit a crime, the reproach of our land, and the scourge of our peace, to stalk openly and impudently through our streets? Are we to tremble every hour of our lives, lest a brother or a son, on whom rest our fairest hopes, cross our threshold in the morning, to be brought back at noon, a victim to that Moloch-modern honor? And, as the sword passes through our souls, to be told, that wein. vited its point, and bribed the assassin, by our own complacency to his character ? But what shall be done? Reason has spoken, and she is disre. garded. Religion has spoken and she is mocked. The laws have spoken, and they are defied. Humanity has spoken, and she is insulted. This is unhappily true. One measure, however still remains. A measure, simple, dignified, and probably more effectual than any which has been tried hitherto. It is in the elective franchise. The freemen of this state have only to refuse their countenance and their VOTE at the elections to every man who shall hereafter be engaged either as principal or accessory to any duel, or in any attempt to promote one. As the utmost art is used by of. fenders in this way to frustrate the law by rendering the requisite proof impossible, nothing more is necessary to cut them off from the benefit of their ill-gotten impunity, than to make current report, or one's private persuasion, by what means soever obtained, the ground of withholding one's vote. That the influence of such a determination, if generally adopted and acted upon, would be very great, cannot admit of a doubt. The only plausible objections are the two following: 1. That a judgment founded upon presumptive proof, such as common rumor, or an article in the public prints, might condemn an innocent man: and 2. That the measure recommended may interfere with the freedom of elections. Upon the first objection it is sufficient to remark, that should the case even occur, that a candidate for office should fail in his election from an unjust suspicion of his having been concerned in a duel, it would still be much better that an individual should be kept out of an office to which he has no right but the people's gift, than that an atrocious crime should go longer without caution. The injury, if any, would flow not from the vote, but from the suspicion which existed prior to it, and therefore could be no way occasioned by it, But such a case is so extreme. ly improbable as not to be of any weight in the contemplation of a grand social reform. Among all those to whom a general and permanent suspicion has attached on this subject, it would be difficult if not impossible to point out an instance of mistake. And should a mistake happen hereaf. ter, the person accused, know. ing that the charge, if believed, is to shut him out from the people's honors, will not be slow in repelling it, and rescuing his char. acter from unmerited odium. With regard to the second ob jection--Instead of the interfering with the rightof election, the expe dient proposed is founded upon the broadest and freest exercise of that right. It is the prerogative of every elector to give or to deny his vote to any candidate for any reason which to himself is satisfactory ; or for no other reason than his own choice. He enjoys a control over his own vote which no man nor body of men may question. And as he may give or refuse it to whomsoever he pleases at the time of election, so he is at per. fect liberty to declare, before. hand, what causes shall govern him in its application. While the measure proposed does in no manner invade the freedom of election, it is recommended by the most forcible mo. tives of public utility and virtue. The class of avowed duellists is too small councils or offices of the state by to impoverish the their absence. Nothing will be lost by leaving them out. The intended remedy against their inroads upon society, ad dresses itself to the very princitheir practice-a sense of honor, ple on which they profess to build Close up the avenues to public |