In the morning paper I have once more come across that phrase which—considering its awful meaning—I think is the blackest one that exists in any languageⒺexplanatory note. It always [begin page 49] unseats my self-possession. I wish to utter my feeling about it, and my contempt for the law-makers that invented it, and for the law it stands for. I will imagine a dialogue—a conversation between the President of the United States and an Ignorant Citizen who is seeking light:Ⓐtextual note

President of the United States. You have desired to consult me upon a matter which you conceive to be of national importance. Be seated. Proceed.

Ignorant Citizen. It is indeed a matter which deeply concerns the nation, your Excellency,Ⓐtextual note and this emboldens me to lay it beforeⒶtextual note the head of the people, the source of justice and power, the protector of the weak. I am ignorant, I find myself perplexed, I stand in need of guidance. In this, my situation and the nation’s is the same. I will state my case. In the family of a neighbor of mine there is a lad of sixteen for whom I have a warm affection, and he has the like feeling for me. I have long desired to kill him, and—

Pr. What!

I.C. I have long desired to kill him, but—

Pr. Man, you are not in your right mind!

I.C. Bear with me, your Excellency; hear me patiently, and you will presently cease to doubt my sanity. I can convince you of this without difficulty, sir, if you will but listen to what I have to tell, and give it a kindly and unprejudiced hearing.

Pr. It is so strange, so amazing, that—very well, go on, it promises to be interesting, at any rate.

I.C. Thank you sir. Like some other men, I am so constituted, by nature, that the desire to do murder is in certain circumstances a passion with me, and is not resistible whenⒶtextual note I can do it with safety to myself. As I have already said, sir, I have long desired to kill this boy. For many months he was unwilling. And so—

Pr. Unwilling? Do you mean to say that you asked him to let you take his life?

I.C. I used importunities and persuasions to that end, and bought things for him such as boys like, and took him to shows and picnics and such things, but often when he might have consented, his mother’s tears and agonies and supplications turned the scale in her favor and he refused. She is a widow, and he is her only child, and she has often begged me on her knees to be merciful and spare him, and not break her heart. It is the way with mothers, it is natural, and I do not find fault, but they make it difficult. However, sir, to be brief, I at last got his consent, and all was well, and I was happy: I only needed to wait a little while, until he should be sixteen.

Pr. It is a noble forbearance, indeed! Why should you wait?

I.C. Ah, your Excellency isⒶtextual note aware that if I should kill him before he reached the age of consent it would put me in danger, for the law could punish me for it, since his consent to be murdered, if granted before the age of sixteenⒺexplanatory note would not be valid and therefore would not sufficiently protect me. But I am in great trouble, great perplexity; for now that he is sixteen and willing, I am told by a lawyer that there is no such thing as an “age [begin page 50] of consent” where murder is concerned. Surely he must be in error, your Excellency, it cannot be that he is right, it is incredible, it is impossible. You must know, better than he, you are the embodiment of the nation’s law and the nation’s justice, and I beg you to clear away the doubt and tell me he is in the wrong.

Pr. This is an amazing business! It is inconceivable that a sane person can calmly entertain so atrocious an idea as thatⒶtextual note in a Christian land, a civilized land, an enlightened land, aⒶtextual note citizen could give awayⒶtextual note his life to a murderer at any age between cradle and grave and the murderer go unhanged because of that consent! An “age of consent” for murder? Cannot you see that the idea is preposterous? YouⒶtextual note were going to convince me that you are in your right mind; you have convinced me that you are insane.

I.C. But I have not finished, your Excellency. What I have been telling you is fancy, imagination, fable; I will now tell you a thing which is true. Suppose I should kill, after calculated deliberation,Ⓐtextual note a lad of seventeen, either with his consent or without it—what would happen? I should be hanged for it, and all would say I got my just deserts. The lad’s family would be steeped in grief—but only in grief—there would be no disgrace. Time would heal their sorrow. But put the lad out of your mind, sir,Ⓐtextual note and take the case of a girl—an innocent and trusting child of sixteen, the joy of her family and their idol. Beguiled by the devilish arts of a coward and a villain she consentsⒶtextual note and is seduced. She is deserted, she is disgraced, she is forsaken by her friends, she is pointed at, scorned, despised, gossiped about, her life is ruined, and this ruin falls also upon her unoffending family; they are disgraced, and the disgrace is permanent; their hearts are broken, existence is a misery and will so continue through all the heavy years until the refuge of the grave is reached. That poor girl has been murdered! Murdered—Ⓐtextual note once Ⓐtextual note? She has been murdered a million times! And her mother, her father, her brothers and sisters—they also have suffered a thousand deaths. And because that ignorant child of sixteen consented to these innumerable murders—including the destruction of unoffending people over whose lives she could have no sort of authority—that master-idiot the law, holdsⒶtextual note the assassin guiltless and sets him free! Indeed it is not I that am insane, your Excellency, it is the legislature; it is the law-makersⒶtextual note who visit with death the light offence ofⒶtextual note a sole murder, and infamouslyⒶtextual note place the fate of an inexperienced girl and of her family in her irresponsible hands to do as she pleases with; to turn that fate into a very hell, if she shall so choose, while the real criminal, a bowelless scoundrel, is turned loose unpunished to carry desolation and living death to other hearthstones. It is my hope sir, that the ass who invented the “age of consent”—any age of consent between cradle and grave—is with his progenitors in hell, and that the legislatures that are keeping the resulting law in force will follow him soon. WomenⒶtextual note are denied the suffrage, your Excellency. If they had it, how long do you think this most infamous of all laws would continue to defile the statute books?