In early America, calling someone a liar wasn’t a childish insult but a direct challenge to one’s honor, an appropriate response to which varied by region. Where dueling was common — as in Wilson’s home state of South Carolina — so were insults.

Here’s how an 1882 New York Times article described the thinking of the time as it related to a Mr. John Goode, who had called a certain Mr. Bailey a liar.

Writing that “Nothing but blood can wipe out this insult,” the author noted that although the laws of chivalry were supposed to be dominant, “language used in attacking individuals is much more gross and insulting than in regions where the duel is not invoked as the final arbiter betwixt the man who has been insulted and the defamer.

“In the North, we are supposed to be a lily-livered and pusillanimous race. Yet we very much question if any legislator or public man would dare to denounce another as ‘a liar.’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/15/AR2009091502979.html?wpisrc=newsletter