> Didn’t Chernow say that at the time that Hamilton and Burr dueled, that dueling wasn’t really a thing anyone did?
It was declining in the North (where it occurred), not so much in the South and elsewhere. The last notable political duel in the United States might be the Broderick-Terry duel in San Francisco in 1859.
I suppose it was probably on its way out, but nb. that Hamilton's son had died in a duel only 3 years before.
Andrew Jackson fought in at least two, killing a man in 1806, and was later president.
Apparently, Mark Twain only narrowly escaped dueling with a rival newspaper editor (!) in 1864.
Given the accounts of folks taking bullets to the torso and surviving, it's hard to avoid concluding that dueling perhaps only continued because of the relative inefficacy (lower energy & accuracy) of firearms of the era. Jackson took a bullet to the CHEST and survived, as noted.
It was declining in the North (where it occurred), not so much in the South and elsewhere. The last notable political duel in the United States might be the Broderick-Terry duel in San Francisco in 1859.