Crime and Punishment in America Primary Sources | Comstock Law

Excerpt from the Comstock Law

Reprinted from The Statutes at Large and Proclamations of the United States of America from March 1871 to March 1873, Vol. XVII. Edited by George P. Sanger

Published in 1873

Sexual morality has long played an important role in U.S. criminal justice history even as many other Western countries have decreased emphasis on these kinds of moral offenses. Sexual crimes are those activities that the local community finds offensive. During the late 1870s a national campaign was mounted to legislate public morality. As new advances in birth control were made through the nineteenth century, interest steadily grew. By the 1870s a wide variety of birth control methods were readily available in pharmacies throughout the nation.