by Elizabeth Blackwell

“ But in the defence of their children the mothers of the race must be heard; their right to act in such a cause is indisputable, and when women call on men to support them in this sacred duty of motherhood—the guardianship of the young—men will rally to their aid, and no power of ancient or modern evil custom can withstand their united energy.
The great and urgent need of our civilization is the united action of men and women in the mighty contest with social evil which is now beginning. The conflict will be tremendous; but this age is full of promise. ”

“ Law is made for the protection of human beings in right-doing, not for the protection of the vicious in wrong-doing. The argument that a fornicator must be protected in his evil-doing against a young girl who offers to lead him astray, is the most cowardly instance of moral obliquity that can well be brought forward.
There are, alas! too many adult women ready to supply the demands of vice, making broad and easy the road for the unmanly fornicator. ”

“ The efficient protection of minors from the corrupting influence of vicious adults by just and severe law, and the energetic execution of such law, will destroy the chief root of licentiousness. It will prove the true radical method which law should adopt for checking disorder and disease. It is on this central ground that the great fight between, virtue and vice must be fought out. All the forces of evil will rise in opposition to such protection, knowing well that the corruption of youth is the stronghold of vice. ”

“ Our youth, until the age of eighteen, most imperatively require the guardianship and help of law and custom. It is the most cruel injury that we can do to childhood and youth to allow the vicious adult to trade upon impulsive inexperience; or to suffer corrupt age to plead that ignorant youth tempted it to evil. The physiological plea, urged in opposition to the protection of the young girl, is false, for the physical woman is a moral child, in the great mass of minor girls. ”

“ Such persons require no exceptional protection from the law. But our children we are bound to protect. Christian society is imperatively called on to demand that the young shall be guarded by law—the more defenceless the more carefully guarded—until age and experience give them the power of distinguishing between good and evil.
The future education of the young into respect for their own human bodies, and into mutual reverence, can only be effectually accomplished when the vicious adult is prevented by heavy punishment from corrupting minors—boys equally with girls. ”

“ Free, enlightened, representative municipalities furnish the elements out of which a future wise State must be built up. The future action of the municipalities, therefore, will decide whether the Government of England shall grow into representation of a strong, free, and virtuous nation, or sink into a corrupt, centralized, military despotism. ”

“ From the age of sixteen to eighteen, thoughtless ignorance, or the blind impulse of physical sex, are generally stronger than the intellectual and moral faculties. Youth at that age are quite unable to weigh or comprehend the very grave and powerful reasons which make early debauchery so destructive to a nation. At that age they have not acquired habits of sexual self-control, unless they have been surrounded early by exceptionally wise human influences. ”

“ Every child in our midst will be to us a source of danger and disgrace if abandoned to evil, or a bulwark of safety and honor if rightly educated and protected as a wise government should protect the children upon whom its future welfare depends. ”

“ Never before in the world's history have women of trained intelligence, large experience, and religious faith, broken through the bonds of hypocrisy, and, in united and increasing numbers, recognized the possibility, and maintained the necessity, of the great permanent law of national progress, viz., the equal purity of men and women. ”

“ In the municipal vote women possess an aid whose power they have not yet realized. It is a power which, if organized into a moral municipal league, would prove more permanently efficient than even the Parliamentary franchise, for the election of councilmen is the first link in the great chain of free government. ”

“ Every municipal election is determined by party spirit, and candidates are recommended because they are Conservatives or Liberals—not because they are fitted by character and intelligence to govern a town righteously. ”

“ It is only the modern decline of Christian civilization which violates this dictum of Common Law. According to French and other Continental Common Law, no minor boy or girl, up to the age of twenty-one, can legally consent to his or her own corruption—i.e., the adult who debauches is held responsible, is subject to punishment, and can not plead the consent of the minor as a fact in justification. ”

“ The obligation of a nation to protect inexperienced youth, necessarily ignorant of the far-reaching effects of individual action, has been widely recognized in past ages by the Common Law of all civilized countries. ”

“ It can not fail to be of service to us here in America, thus carefully to consider the progress of thought and experience in the older world. The same questions that have become of such vital importance in Europe are of equal import with us.
Here, also, it is becoming evident that the "Let alone system" in regard to social evil can not continue. ”

“ This moral incapacity, to judge of the results of their own actions in relation to sexual intercourse, is not only true of ignorant little girls of thirteen and fourteen, who sell themselves for the offer of a few shillings or a pretty dress, but such moral incapacity belongs to all youth. ”

“ A great work is before our Anglo-Saxon race, which leads the van of human progress. The immediate practical step to be taken is organization.
It must always be remembered that the law which introduces a new code of morality into England—teaching women that disease, not vice, is a crime—was made by a Liberal Government ”

“ In 1875, a bill was introduced into Parliament to secure legal protection to girls up to the age of fourteen. This bill was cut down in Committee to the age of thirteen, and thus mutilated, was accepted by Parliament. It will be observed that a law which protects up to the age of thirteen, only guards children of twelve years of age. Children thirteen years old are therefore capable of giving legal consent to corruption. ”

“ They have the power of rallying to the aid of those noble men who have vainly sought to stem the flood of political passion and prejudice, and there are signs that the opportunity will not be lost. Englishwomen as well as Englishmen are beginning to demand that at the municipal elections the first qualification required from candidates shall be intelligent morality, not political partisanship ”

“ The animated debate in the House of Commons on the 20th of April, leading to the adoption, by an overwhelming majority, of a resolution clearly recognized as the first step toward the abolition of the Regulation Acts, is thought by many to plainly foreshadow their future fate ”

“ Secondly.—In examining the scanty record of the private Committees in which these bills were mutilated, it is seen that two arguments were used for lowering the age of protection. Let women and men weigh these arguments. The first argument put forth, is the fear that fraudulent representation might trouble men. That is, that if a vicious man commits fornication with a young girl, she may be, or may pretend to be, under the legal age of fourteen and so try to extort hush money from him. ”

“ Co-operation, in its widest sense, includes the Land Question, and is the true form of practical Christianity. ↑ False physiology which strives to throw the blame of vice upon the Creator, lies at the root of every evil system. ”

“ Consequently, the earlier the physical possibility of becoming a parent in the boy or girl, the more carefully law and education should protect this important parental function from early abuse and ruinous exercise. ”