The future chief justice of independent Texas’ supreme court demanded satisfaction in an Aug. 28, 1832 letter to the editor of his hometown newspaper. Dueling was a rite of passage for male South Carolinians, and at age 28 John Hemphill qualified as a late bloomer.
His quarrel with the local newspaperman grew out of the violent debate over “nullification,” the eyeball to-eyeball confrontation betwe…
