I was listening to a history podcast talking about Andrew Jackson's life, and they said that the reason he got into so many duels was due to the fact that he was in a relationship with a woman, Rachel Donelson, who had tried to divorce her former husband, Lewis Robards, but later found out that the divorce wasn't valid, so lots of people at the time called Rachel a whore for being with Andrew Jackson while still (legally) married, and Andrew Jackson would then duel those people.
The podcasters joked that this was like targeting the symptoms of a disease rather than the root cause, and that Andrew Jackson clearly should have directly challenged Lewis Robards to a duel rather than all of the people reacting to Rachel's continued legal marriage to him. Although it was said partially in jest, I still feel like they made a really good point. Why didn't Andrew Jackson just duel Lewis Robards directly?
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!