
Examining some old papers, the other day, I found an extract from an argument of the
late Hon. A. D. Smith, a Judge of the Sup.
Ct. of Wisconsin, delivered by him when practising before that Court about twenty years ago, in a case of alleged rape,
followed by conception; maintaining that the fact of conception was conclusive
evidence of consent on the part of the prosecutrix. This argument was quite famous in
Wisconsin at the time, and the extract may possibly interest you. Here it is:
"Conception, may it please Your Honors, is no reluctant throe of nature. Its
production costs no pang, save when pleasure, from excess, is turning to pain; but
it follows an embrace in which the heart, the lip, the entire humanity must
participate; an embrace in which the mental, moral, & physical powers and
susceptibilities are wrought to such an intensity of orgasm, mutual &
reciprocal, that Nature crowns her beatitude with the production & endowment
of a new identity. And wisely has she ordained that every faculty of mind or body
which might thwart or counteract her purpose, should for the moment be wrapt in a
bewilderment of bliss."
This is, in its way, I think a very fine thing; and the intimate friends of the author more than suspect that he had been there and knew.
Truly Yours Matt H. Carpenter