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HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
Another affair which bore important results without ending in a tragedy, occurred during the session of the Constitutional Convention in 1847. The parties to it were O. C. Pratt and Thompson. Campbell - both Delegates from Jo Daviess County, and both Democrats. Some sparring between them over the question of suffrage for naturalized foreigners resulted in an invitation from Pratt to Campbell to meet him at the Planters' House in St. Louis, with an intimation that this was for the purpose of arranging the preliminaries of a duel. Both parties were on hand before the appointed time, but their arrest by the St. Louis authorities and putting them under heavy bonds to keep the peace, gave them, an excuse for returning to their convention duties without coming to actual hostilities-if they had such intention. This was promptly followed by the adoption in Convention of the provision of the Constitution of 1848, disqualifying any person engaged in a dueling affair, either as principal or second, from holding any office of honor or profit in the State.
The last and principal affair of this kind of historic significance, in which a citizen of Illinois was engaged, though not on Illinois soil, was that in which Congressman "William H. Bissell, afterwards Governor of Illinois, and Jefferson Davis were concerned in February, 1850. During the debate on the "Compromise Measures" of that year, Congressman Seddon of Virginia went out of his way to indulge in implied reflections upon the courage of Northern soldiers as displayed on the battle-field of Buena Vista, and to claim for the Mississippi regiment commanded by Davis the credit of saving the day. Replying to these claims Colonel Bissell took occasion to correct the Virginia Congressman's statements, and especially to vindicate the good name of the Illinois and Kentucky troops. In doing so he declared that, at the critical moment alluded to by Seddon, when the Indiana regiment gave way, Davis's regiment was not within a mile and a half of the scene of action. This was construed by Davis as a reflection upon his troops, and led to a challenge which was promptly accepted by Bissell, who named the soldier's weapon (the common army musket), loaded with ball and buckshot, with forty paces as the distance, with liberty to advance up to ten-otherwise leaving the preliminaries to be
