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STUDIES IN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Exploring
Children’s
Suffrage
Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on
Ageless Voting
Edited by
John Wall
Studies in Childhood and Youth
Series Editors
Afua Twum-Danso Imoh
University of Bristol
Bristol, UK
Nigel Patrick Thomas

University of Central Lancashire
Preston, UK
Spyros Spyrou
European University Cyprus
Nicosia, Cyprus
Anandini Dar
School of Education Studies
Ambedkar University Delhi
New Delhi, India
This well-established series embraces global and multi-disciplinary schol-
arship on childhood and youth as social, historical, cultural and material
phenomena. With the rapid expansion of childhood and youth studies in
recent decades, the series encourages diverse and emerging theoretical and
methodological approaches. We welcome proposals which explore the
diversities and complexities of children’s and young people’s lives and
which address gaps in the current literature relating to childhoods and
youth in space, place and time. We are particularly keen to encourage writ-
ing that advances theory or that engages with contemporary global chal-
lenges. Studies in Childhood and Youth will be of interest to students and
scholars in a range of areas, including Childhood Studies, Youth Studies,
Sociology, Anthropology, Geography, Politics, Psychology, Education,
Health, Social Work and Social Policy.
John Wall
Editor
Exploring Children’s
Suffrage
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ageless Voting
Editor
John Wall
Childism Institute
Department of Philosophy and Religion
Rutgers University Camden
Camden, NJ, USA
ISSN 2731-6467 ISSN 2731-6475 (electronic)

Studies in Childhood and Youth
ISBN 978-3-031-14540-7 ISBN 978-3-031-14541-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14541-4
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Chapter The reform that never happened: a history of children’s suffrage restrictions is
licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Contents
1 Introduction:
Children’s Suffrage Studies 1
John Wall
The Intellectual Context 5
The Conversation Today 10
The Present Volume 15
References 18
Part I Theoretical Frameworks 25
2 Silence
Is Poison: Explaining and Curing Adult “Apathy” 27
Michael S. Cummings
The Germ 29
Metastasis 32
The Cure 36
Conclusion 44
References 45
3 How
Low Can You Go? The Capacity to Vote Among
Young Citizens 47
Nick Munn
Introduction 47
Step 1: Lowering the Voting Age 48
Austria 49
v
vi Contents
Why Not Abandon Age Limits? 50

The Question of Incapacity 52
The Question of Capacity 54
Abandoning the Voting Age 57
The Benefits of Universal Enfranchisement 59
Conclusion 61
References 63
4 The
Case for Children’s Voting 67
John Wall
Learning from History 68
Deconstructing Voting Competence 73
Reconstructing Democratic Societies 78
Reimagining Democratic Theory 82
Conclusion 85
References 86
Part II Historical Contexts 89
5 The
Enfranchisement of Women Versus the
Enfranchisement of Children 91
David Runciman
Introduction 91
They Are Not Competent 93
They Don’t Want It 97
They Don’t Need It 101
They Are Better Off Without It 104
Conclusion 108
References 108
6 De-Colonizing
Children’s Suffrage: Engagements with
Dr B R Ambedkar’s Ideas on Democracy111
Anandini Dar
Brief Sketch About Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar 113
What Is a Democracy? 115
Who Is a Minority? Who Should be Allowed to Vote? 118
Applying Ambedkar’s Ideas to Children 123
Conclusion 127
References 128
Contents vii
7 The
Reform that Never Happened: A History of
Children’s Suffrage Restrictions131
Bengt Sandin and Jonathan Josefsson
Introduction 131
Background 133
Historicising Suffrage Reforms 134
Political Barriers: Actors and Issues in the Centre and on the
Periphery 143
Concluding Discussion 147
References 149
Part III Practical Considerations 153
8 Generational Economics155
Luigi Campiglio and Lorenza Alexandra Lorenzetti
Politics and Social Choice Without Children 156
Children and Generationality 157
Positive Freedom and Low Fertility 161
Children’s Poverty 165
Investing in Children: Mill’s Dilemma 169
The Rosmini-Vote Solution: Children’s Proxy-Vote 170
What Italians Think About the Political Representation of
Children and the Proxy-Vote 172
Conclusion 174
References 174
9 Legality
of Age Restrictions on Voting: A Canadian
Perspective177
Cheryl Milne
History of the Franchise in Canada 179
Voting Rights Litigation 180
Impact of International Law and Experience 186
Competent and Informed Voters 189
Children’s Activism 190
Conclusion 191
References 192
viii Contents
10 A
View from Paediatric Medicine: Competence, Best
Interests, and Operational Pragmatism197
Neena Modi
Introduction 197
Societal Change 198
Insights from Paediatric Medicine 203
Operationalising a Child Vote 208
Conclusions 211
References 212
Index215
Notes on Contributors
Luigi Campiglio is Professor of Economic Policy at the Catholic

University of the Sacred Heart, Italy. He was Director of the Economic
Policy Institute and Deputy Pro-Rector, as well being a visiting scholar at
Stanford University and the University of Cambridge. His research activi-
ties concern theoretical and applied topics in economics, including the
distribution of income, the welfare state, family economics, uncertainty in
economic decisions, and the relationship between the economy and the
political system. He publishes widely in academic journals and public mag-
azines and is the author of Prima le donne e i bambini, Il costo del vivere,
Mercato, prezzi e politica economica, and Tredici idee per ragionare di
economia.
Michael S. Cummings is founding Chair and Professor Emeritus of
Political Science at the University of Colorado Denver, United States. He
publishes on communal and utopian studies, American political thought
and practice, and youth politics. He is the author of Children’s Voices in
Politics, American Political Thought (three editions), Beyond Political
Correctness, and The Transformation of U.S. Unions. He is a long-time
activist in electoral politics and progressive causes, especially the rights of
children and people with disabilities.
Anandini Dar is Assistant Professor in the School of Education Studies,
and Deputy Dean of the International Affairs Division, at Dr.
B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi, India. She is co-founder of the Critical
Childhoods and Youth Studies Collective (CCYSC) and runs an
EU-ICSSR-funded project on “Displacement, Placemaking and Wellbeing
ix
x Notes on Contributors
in the City.” Her research is in childhood studies, youth geographies,

migration and diasporas, feminist pedagogy, and ethnographic research
methods for young subjects. Her articles include “Teen Lives in India,”
“Political Geographies of Youth,” “Performative Politics: South Asian
Children’s Identities and Political Agency,” and “Children’s Political
Representation: The Right to Make a Difference.”
Jonathan Josefsson is Associate Professor in the Department of Thematic
Studies, Unit of Child Studies, at Linköping University, Sweden. His
research interests concern primarily child and youth studies, migration,
politics, and political philosophy. He is the co-editor of The Politics of
Children’s Rights and Representation and the author of numerous articles
including “Political Strategies of Self-Representation: The Case of Young
Afghan Migrants in Sweden,” “Empowered Inclusion: Theorizing Global
Justice for Children and Youth,” “Age as Yardstick for Political
Citizenship,” and “‘We Beg You, Let Them Stay’: Rights Claims of
Asylum-Seeking Children as a Socio-Political Practice.”
Lorenza Alexandra Lorenzetti is Research Fellow in Economics at the
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Italy. Her scholarship focuses on
economic policy analysis, behavioural development economics, environ-
mental economics, and developing countries. Her articles include “Why
do Populists Neglect Climate Change: A Behavioural Approach,” “Cotton
Sector Liberalization in Sub-Saharan Africa,” and “Slow Fertility Transition
in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Cheryl Milne is a lawyer and Director of the David Asper Centre for
Constitutional Rights, at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto,
Canada. She has been Chair of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of
Children and the legal clinic Justice for Children and Youth and the Child
and Youth Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association. She was a legal
advocate for children with Justice for Children and Youth. She is counsel
on a claim by thirteen youth to eliminate the age requirement for voting
in the Canada Elections Act.
Neena Modi is Professor of Neonatal Medicine, and head of the multi-
disciplinary Neonatal Medicine Research Group, at Imperial College
London, and Consultant in Neonatal Medicine at Chelsea and Westminster
NHS Foundation Trust, United Kingdom. She is a fellow and member of
Council of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the current president of the
British Medical Association, and past president of the UK Medical
Notes on Contributors xi
Women’s Federation and the UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child

Health. She is the author of numerous publications in neonatal medicine
and policy, including “Votes for a Better Future,” “A Radical Proposal: To
Promote Children’s Wellbeing Give Them the Vote.”
Nick Munn is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Waikato,
New Zealand. His research focuses on ethics and political philosophy, par-
ticularly on the challenges of virtual technology and the status of margin-
alized groups like the young, persons with disabilities, and criminals in
democratic societies. He is the author of numerous articles in these areas,
including “The Trap of Incrementalism in Recognising Children’s Right
to Vote,” “The Moral Requirement for Digital Connectivity,” “Capacity
Testing the Youth: A Proposal for Broader Enfranchisement,” and
“Against the Political Exclusion of the Incapable.”
David Runciman is Professor of Politics and former Head of Department
in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University
of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He is a fellow of the British Academy, a
fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and hosted the podcast “Talking
Politics” from 2016 to 2022. His research interests are in twentieth-cen-
tury political thought, particularly ideas of democracy and crisis, and the
role of technology in contemporary politics. He is the author of How
Democracy Ends, Confronting Leviathan, The Confidence Trap, Politics:
Ideas in Profile, The Politics of Good Intentions, Where Power Stops, and
Pluralism and the Personality of the State.
Bengt Sandin is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Thematic
Studies, Unit of Child Studies, at Linköping University, Sweden. He was
one of the founders of the Unit of Child Studies, an interdisciplinary
research centre with the first doctoral programme of its kind in the world.
His scholarship focuses on the history of children and youth. His publica-
tions include studies of early modern education and state formation, child
labour, street children, educational media politics, history of child psychia-
try, dyslexia diagnoses, welfare politics and child rights, welfare politics
and restorative justice, and suffrage and age barriers. Recent publications
include Schooling and State Formation in Early Modern Sweden.
John Wall is Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Childhood Studies at
Rutgers University Camden, United States. He is Director of the Childism
Institute and co-founder of the Children’s Voting Colloquium. His
research lies at the intersection of political theory, post-structuralism, and
xii Notes on Contributors
children’s rights. He is the author of Give Children the Vote, Children’s

Rights: Today’s Global Challenge, Ethics in Light of Childhood, and Moral
Creativity, and he is the co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Theories
in Childhood Studies, Children and Armed Conflict, Marriage, Health,
and the Professions, and Paul Ricoeur and Contemporary Moral Thought.
He is an advisor on several international research projects and scholarly
journals.
List of Figures
Fig. 8.1 Society reproduction: generations and income 160

Fig. 8.2 Change in newborns according to labor market slack (authors’
calculations based on the Eurostat database of the European
Commission, 2021) 163
Fig. 10.1 Boy with a Spinning Top; 1735 Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin,
The Louvre, Paris 199
Fig. 10.2 The Violet Vendor; 1885 Fernand Pelez, Musée des Beaux
Arts, Paris 199
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Children’s Suffrage Studies
John Wall
Children under 18 make up a third of the world’s population. There are

as many people under 18 on the planet as there are either women or men.
This means that children, so defined, have significant stakes in democratic
life. They are just as impacted by democratic policies and laws as anyone
else, often more so. They rely on healthy democratic systems to support
their well-being, educations, families, economic security, health, and
futures. In addition, young people actively contribute to democracies by
protesting, organizing, assisting election campaigns, being consulted on
policies, and pressuring representatives. In many countries, children
engage in formal democratic procedures such as youth councils, child and
youth parliaments, political organizations, and consulting with children’s
commissioners, special ombudspersons, and government agencies.
While children have always played active roles in democratic life, these
roles have become especially visible in recent years. Malala Yousafzai began
blogging and protesting at age 10 about the growing exclusion of girls
from education in Pakistan, eventually becoming the youngest ever Nobel
Peace Prize winner for her work at age 17. Teenagers David Hogg, X
J. Wall (*)
Childism Institute, Department of Philosophy and Religion,
Rutgers University Camden, Camden, NJ, USA
e-mail: johnwall@camden.rutgers.edu
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
J. Wall (ed.), Exploring Children’s Suffrage, Studies in Childhood
and Youth, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14541-4_1
2 J. WALL
González, and their classmates, after a mass shooting at their high school
in Parkland, Florida, led the most effective gun control movement in the
United States in many years. Greta Thunberg at age 15 created the largest
and most powerful global campaign in history to fight the climate emer-
gency, teaming up with other climate activists like Xiuhtezcatl Martinez
who had been protesting on the issue since as young as 6. Bolivian child
laborers and union organizers successfully pressured their national govern-
ment to lower the legal working age to 10. Young people around the
world have organized and marched in Black Lives Matter protests. Child
parliaments in India and at least 20 other countries have effectively mobi-
lized children as young as 5 to change policies around education funding,
street sanitation, environmental degradation, discrimination, and
much else.
Despite these evident capacities for democratic engagement, however,
and despite the impact of democratic decisions in every area of their lives,
children are almost universally denied the right to vote. There are, it is true,
now 19 countries with national voting ages of 16 (and many more regions
and cities). Most countries, however, set the voting age at 18, some even
higher at 20 or 21. The international consensus is that democracies can
legitimately establish bars to voting rights at an established age of majority.
The only other broadly accepted exclusion from the franchise is non-citizen-
ship. It largely goes without question in international discourse and aca-
demic scholarship that “universal” suffrage means “adult” suffrage. This
assumption is for the most part simply taken for granted. Suffrage is for
those who happen to have existed on the planet for at least 18 years.
Exploring Children’s Suffrage puts this widespread assumption into
question. It does so by developing a critical and interdisciplinary scholarly
discussion around the meaning and possibilities for children’s rights to
vote. To this end, the authors bring their diverse expertise to four central
questions running throughout the volume: What intellectual, historical,
and other assumptions underlie the exclusion of children from the fran-
chise? Is children’s suffrage compatible with democratic ideals? What
effects would children’s suffrage likely have on children, adults, societies,
and democracies? And what might children’s voting rights look like in
practice? These and other questions open up an intellectual space to think
carefully and multidimensionally about children’s suffrage beyond the
usual historical and scholarly norms.
Let me be clear: The discussion in this book is about voting rights for
all children, starting at birth. There is already a significant literature on
1 INTRODUCTION: CHILDREN’S SUFFRAGE STUDIES 3
lowering voting ages to 16. The present volume is instead about what it
might mean to eliminate voting ages altogether. It puts into question the
very notion of using age as a barrier. The debate about lowering voting
ages by two or so years often revolves around how much older youth are
similar in their democratic capacities to adults. But in this book, we exam-
ine the more difficult and radical question of what it means to rethink
voting rights beyond the normative model of adulthood. This exploration
requires a different and more profound critique of democratic life. It puts
into question the very notion of the adult as the proper marker of enfran-
chisement. A similarly profound rethinking took place when voting rights
were extended to other groups like the poor, minorities, and women. The
question then was not whether such groups are sufficiently like wealthy
white men. The question, rather, was whether democratic norms them-
selves needed to be rethought. In this book too, the authors ask, not
whether children are like adults or not, but whether children can be
included as children in the democratic franchise.
The following chapters do not presume that suffrage is the only demo-
cratic value. Suffrage is merely one democratic right among others.
Children are already exercising many democratic rights that are often
more powerful and effective: rights to organize, protest, speak freely, use
mass media, access information, campaign for change, lobby representa-
tives, and much else. Teenage climate activists like Thunberg have exer-
cised a stronger influence in global politics than most adults and politicians
could dream of. What is more, voting rights vary widely in their actual
usefulness. Only 6.4 percent of the world’s population is currently esti-
mated by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index (2021) to
live in a “full democracy” with free and fair elections and responsive gov-
ernance. A further 39.3 percent live in a “flawed democracy” that contains
systemic democratic deficiencies, and 17.2 percent in a “hybrid regime”
that is partly authoritarian. Voting in the vast majority of the world’s
democracies has little real influence in otherwise flawed and corrupt politi-
cal systems.
Nevertheless, it is also the case that the right to vote is central to demo-
cratic life, indeed arguably the most fundamental democratic right. This is
why non-wealthy men, minorities, and women over history have fought
and sometimes died to gain it. However effectual or not it may be, and
however much it is actually used, few who have the right to vote would
voluntarily give it up. At the very least, possessing the right to vote invests
the holder with democratic dignity. It names you as a full rather than
4 J. WALL
second-class citizen. And it puts pressure on those in power to take your

group’s interests into greater consideration than they are otherwise likely
to do. It is at the least rather disingenuous for adults to claim that children
do not need suffrage because it means little anyway.
This book brings together authors who have been writing on the topic
of children’s suffrage for some time. All are prominent researchers in their
respective fields. They are international experts in childhood studies, polit-
ical science, philosophy, history, economics, medicine, and law. The aim is
to bring these so far fairly isolated explorations together into a broad and
rich conversation that can establish the foundations for a new scholarly
field of children’s suffrage studies. Such a field would explore children’s
rights to vote as a critical academic subject. Like, for example, critical race
studies or queer studies, it would unite disparate disciplines around a com-
mon set of concerns. And it would embrace both interdisciplinarity and
intersectionality. It would seek to engage not only scholars’ own fields of
study but also new fields that can shed different kinds of light on the issues
at hand.
The present volume also grows out of a series of discussions among its
authors, other scholars, and child and adult children’s voting activists at
the Children’s Voting Colloquium. This online organization, co-founded
in 2020 by myself and children’s suffrage activist Robin Chen, is a global
community of around a hundred researchers and activists. It meets online
monthly to share ideas, hear from experts, and support initiatives. It has
worked with numerous organizations advocating for children’s suffrage
such as Amnesty International UK, Children’s Voice Association (Finland),
the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) (US), KRÄTZÄ
(Germany), Neighborhood Children’s Parliaments (India), YouthLaw
Aotearoa (New Zealand), the National Large Families Association (Italy),
and Freechild Institute (US). And it has maintained a lively and ever-
growing discussion of the question of children’s enfranchisement through
its website (https://www.childrenvoting.org), blog posts, media, and
listserv.
What these discussions make clear is that there is growing interest in the
question of children’s suffrage from many directions in many parts of the
world. But equally clear is the fact that such explorations are taking place
largely in isolation—isolation from one another and isolation from research
and social communities. It is eye-opening to hear new arguments about,
for example, children’s voting as a potential factor in longer-term eco-
nomic policymaking. And it is inspiring to learn, for example, how
child-led groups like KRÄTZÄ in Germany fought numerous campaigns

for children’s suffrage in the 1990s through the courts and local legisla-
tures. But these developments are taking place often separately. The issue
time and again makes little headway because it is confronted with pro-
found historical assumptions and fears that block critical reflection. A
more complex discussion demands wider intellectual and cultural change
as well as more careful and integrated scrutiny. The conversation needs to
be broadened and deepened.
The purpose of the present volume, then, is to explore children’s suf-
frage in critical and interdisciplinary depth as a meaningful possibility for
democratic societies. The chapters take up diverse aspects of the issue and
come to different and sometimes competing conclusions. But in each case,
the attempt is made to shed as much scholarly light as possible on chil-
dren’s age in relation to the franchise. In this regard, the volume parallels
early debates that took place within the past two centuries about enfran-
chising the poor, minorities, women, and younger adults. As then, the
issues arise from movements on the ground but also engage philosophical,
legal, economic, and other kinds of analysis. As often then also, democra-
cies today are in significant peril, facing fundamental threats from authori-
tarianism, corruption, and neoliberalism. Rethinking the franchise in light
of another marginalized group might once again help to save democracy
from itself.
The Intellectual Context

It is safe to say that children’s suffrage is almost never contemplated in
mainstream political, philosophical, legal, historical, sociological, or any
other type of scholarship. It is largely neglected even in the interdisciplin-
ary field of childhood studies, despite that field’s dedication to under-
standing children’s agency and power. Nevertheless, since the 1970s there
have been increasing attempts to explore the issue from various disciplin-
ary perspectives. These attempts cannot be said to constitute a broad con-
versation, taking place as they often do separately from one another. But
they do demonstrate a slowly rising interest in the question over the past
half century and a growing conviction in some quarters about the impor-
tance of the matter. In order to understand the discussions that take place
in this volume, it is helpful to have a sense of this prior intellectual context.
Critical scholarship on children’s voting can be traced to two influential
books published in the United States in 1974: Richard Farson’s Birthrights:
6 J. WALL
A Bill of Rights for Children and John Holt’s Escape from Childhood: The
Needs and Rights of Children. Both Farson, a psychologist, and Holt, an
educator, devote a chapter in their respective books to arguing on behalf
of suffrage for all children. For both, the right to vote is a matter of chil-
dren’s dignity. Farson focuses on children’s right to “liberation” from an
oppressive politics that systematically ignores their concerns: “Because
they are unable to vote, children do not have significant representation in
government processes. They are almost totally ignored by elected repre-
sentatives” (1974, 177). Holt describes children’s suffrage in a similar
manner as a matter of justice: “To be in any way subject to the laws of a
society without having any right or way to say what those should be is the
most serious injustice. It invites misrule, corruption, and tyranny”
(1974, 99). Also in 1974, the US legal scholar Patricia Wald makes a brief
reference to lowering voting ages to 12 or 13, since “many adolescents are
astonishingly well-versed in politics” (22). All these arguments equate
children’s suffrage to larger civil and political liberation movements taking
place in the US at the time and insist that children have a right to be
treated with equal justice.
Little further discussion of the question is found until two publications
in 1986. One, by the British journalism scholar Bob Franklin, draws on
Farson and Holt but is primarily concerned to explain in detail why it is
unjust to exclude children from rights to vote on grounds of their sup-
posed incompetence. “The presence or absence of rationality does not
justify the exclusion of children from political rights but the exclusion, if
anyone, of the irrational” (1986, 34). It is demonstrably untrue, Franklin
claims, that adults vote competently and children would not. “It is adults
who have chosen to pollute their environment with industrial, chemical
and nuclear waste, fought wars, built concentration camps, segregated
people because of the colour of their skin. … Since we do not believe that
adults should be denied rights because they make mistakes, it both incon-
sistent and unjust to argue for the exclusion of children on this ground”
(33). In the same year, the demographer Paul Demeny makes his famous
argument for extra “proxy” votes on behalf of children by their parents.
Now sometimes referred to as “Demeny” voting, the idea here is that,
given children’s large demographic stake in political decisions, each child
deserves a proxy vote via their parents so that their interests are equally
influential over representatives (1986).
In the 1990s, the discussion of children’s suffrage starts to diversify
into new fields of political science, economics, and law, as well as to peek
through into public discourse. The US political scientist Paul Peterson

makes the claim, for example, that children’s voting is the best way to
address their rising rates of poverty, by forcing governments to think with
longer term economic horizons (1992). The Italian economist Luigi
Campiglio, also an author in the present volume, argues that “the lack of
political representation of the young distorts resource allocation to their
disadvantage in addition to being, of course, contrary to the very nature
of democracy” (1997, 207; see also Campiglio, 2005, 2009). Somewhat
similarly, the Belgian political economist Philippe van Parijs contrasts chil-
dren’s political power with that of the elderly to show that children would
end up significantly better off economically with a proxy vote used by their
parents (1999, 309). Other economists have pursued this line of thinking
more recently as well (Vaithianathan et al., 2013; Kamijo et al., 2019).
The 1990s also sees the issue taken up in detail in the field of law. The
Australian legal expert Robert Ludbrook develops an extensive consider-
ation of diverse arguments against children’s suffrage and concludes that
all children deserve their own direct voting rights: “Young people have
different life experiences and a different perspective than adults. If our
political leadership and our political and social policies are to truly reflect
the views of all sections of our community, young people should have the
opportunity to be part of that process” (1995, 27). The US legal scholar
Jane Rutherford suggests along somewhat different lines that children are
significantly harmed because of their lack of democratic representation,
and so should be provided “proxy votes” by their parents “permitting
them to be proportionally represented in the political discourse” (1998,
1525). Likewise US legal expert Robert Bennett claims that “extra votes
for parents on account of their children could help put American democ-
racy into a semblance of liberal order” (1999–2000, 30).
It is also in the 1990s that children themselves, as well as the occasional
adult, first start agitating publicly for all children’s rights to vote. In 1991,
the US 16-year-old Vita Wallace publishes an article in the widely read
magazine The Nation arguing that it is “discriminatory” and hence
“unconstitutional” to ban children from voting, and that “children of all
ages must be given the same power to elect their representatives that
adults have, or they will continue to be unfairly treated” (439). In
Germany, the child-led activist organization KinderRÄchTsZÄnker
(KRÄTZÄ) sues for children’s rights to vote in 1995–96 and 1998 in the
courts, insisting that, “We demand our right to vote because we think that
everyone has a right to take part in decisions. Everyone concerned by
8 J. WALL
decisions must have the chance to influence them. People under 18 years
still lack this opportunity” (1997). Also in Germany, a group called
Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations (2022) is founded in
1997 by young people in part to fight for “rights to vote from birth,” a
mission it continues to this day. A Brown University organization called
the Association for Children’s Suffrage is formed in 2007 to “generate
momentum for children’s suffrage” (1997). Adult activists also begin to
write on the subject, though on the whole more conservatively. Stein
Ringen, a UK professor of sociology and social policy, for example, writes
in an op-ed in the New York Times that, to combat child poverty, “mothers
should have two votes, their own and one for their children” (1996).
The conversation broadens somewhat in the 2000s, both in the acad-
emy and beyond. The most notable change is that much of the debate
over children’s suffrage moves into the field political philosophy.
Arguments against are made in detail, for example, by the German politi-
cal theorist Karl Hinrichs, who claims that children’s voting is neither ben-
eficial nor demanded by equal justice, children’s interests being better
served by finding ways to “strengthen future-regarding policies” (2002,
53–54). Matthew Clayton argues that children under 18 should not have
a right to vote because “democracies require voters who understand the
political system and the pertinent social and economic issues that are the
subject of political deliberation” (2006, 193). David Archard suggests
that “we do not know what a child would choose if possessed of adult
rational powers of choice because what makes a child a child is just her lack
of such powers (her ignorance, inconstant wants, inconsistent beliefs and
limited powers of ratiocination)” (2003, 53). And Philip Cowley and
David Denver oppose any lowering of the voting age because even adoles-
cents “have little experience of life beyond family and school, and no
memory of governments or public affairs going back further than two or
three years at most” (2004, 61).
However, other political philosophers argue in contrast that most
children are in fact rational enough to vote and that ageless democracy
would help to realize children’s rights to political equality. The Swedish
political philosopher Stefan Olsson claims, for instance, that contrary to
Enlightenment ideas of democracy, children’s voting would add knowl-
edge and constitute “a way to guarantee that the people who really are
deciding on the laws, the elected officials, do not forget to consider all
interests equally” (2008, 74). Canadian political scientist Steven Lecce
suggests that children’s full inclusion in voting would actually improve
their political competence, as it would “encourage children to take a

more active interest in the values, processes and results of political deci-
sion-making” (2009, 137). The German philosopher Benjamin
Kiesewetter—previously a co-founder at age 13 of KRÄTZÄ—argues
that “the right to vote is grounded in a fundamental claim of human
beings to equal participation and, therefore, can be denied only for
severe and cogent reasons,” reasons that do not hold up to close analysis
(2009, 252). And German educator Mike Weimann writes a short book
titled Suffrage for Children—A Polemic, in which he argues that “chil-
dren should have the right to vote … [because] those who have the right
to vote have a say in the politicians and the parties that govern the coun-
try” (2002 [my translation], 5).
Also noteworthy at this time is a significantly wider visibility of the
issue in the public arena. For example, the Freechild Project (later the
Freechild Institute) is founded in 2001 to advance children’s social and
political rights including voting (Fletcher, 2004). The 21-year-old presi-
dent of the US group NYRA, Alex Koroknay-Palicz, argues that “to turn
back [the present] attack on youth rights, young people under 18 are
now demanding a voice and a vote” (2003). The international children’s
rights organization Plan International sets as one campaign “target” chil-
dren’s “right to vote for national political offices” (Conrad, 2009, 72). In
addition, the German Parliament’s cross-party Children’s Commission
twice developed widely discussed proposals, in 2003 and 2008, to grant
infants from birth proxy votes by parents to be handed to their children
whenever parents see fit (de Quetteville, 2008). This proposal was ulti-
mately rejected on the constitutional grounds that a proxy vote could not
be personal, secret, and free (Wall, 2021, 31). A report by the think tank
Demos proposes similarly that UK parents should have proxy votes for
children up to the age of 14 when children should then exercise their vote
themselves (Thomas & Hocking, 2003; Thomas, 2003; BBC 2003a, b).
And other proposals for combined proxy votes and lowered voting ages
are made by the Council of Europe (Schmitter & Trechsel, 2004), US
medical researchers (Pantell & Shannon, 2009), and a French demogra-
pher (Barrusse, 2001).
The discussion up until recently has grown, then, from one involving
occasional academic incursions to one that includes a broad range of
scholarship and diverse political actions. The scholarship expands into
wider questions of philosophy, politics, law, and economics. And public
activism spreads in several countries and into a range of legislative, judicial,
10 J. WALL
and organizational projects. For the most part, however, apart from a
widespread knowledge of the founding texts from Farson and Holt, these
efforts still remain largely isolated and occasional and cannot be said to
constitute a broadly shared discussion.
The Conversation Today

The past decade has seen the conversation on children’s suffrage grow at
a faster rate. My own understanding of the literature yields two main con-
clusions. First, the preponderance of scholarship on the issue—though far
from all of it—is now found in the fields of political philosophy and law.
Other disciplines like economics, history, sociology, and childhood studies
are also making contributions, though not as many. And second, public
discourse on the question has grown significantly. Arguments for all chil-
dren’s rights to vote are now made with a somewhat surprising frequency
in newspapers, magazines, white papers, Ted Talks, and blogs. And numer-
ous organizations worldwide have either taken up the cause of universal
children’s suffrage or been created specifically to advance it. None of this
is to say that children’s voting has entered the scholarly or media main-
stream. Far from it. But the issue has lately gained quite a bit more trac-
tion and in a more integrated fashion.
In political philosophy, a field I take here to include both philosophy
and political science, children’s suffrage is now discussed in relation to two
main issues: competence and consequences. On the question of compe-
tence, Claudio López-Guerra argues, for example, that the “franchise
capacity” is held by most children (as well as adults who are mentally
impaired, felons, and resident non-citizens) on the grounds that it
depends, not on some abstract autonomous competence for reason, but
rather on “the ability to experience the benefits of enfranchisement and
the harms of disenfranchisement” (2014, 6; see also 2012). Nicholas
Munn, an author in this volume, claims that excluding children for inca-
pacity is unjust because “the accepted standard for capacity for political
participation is minimal, and many of those excluded in virtue of their age
could in fact satisfy the standard if they were subject to the same restric-
tions as adults” (2018, 613–614; see also 2012). And Eric Wiland sug-
gests that, on competency grounds, “any citizen who does show up at the
polls attempting to vote should have the right to do so, or at least to try
to do so, even if they are old, physically disabled, easily confused, do not
speak English very well, cannot pass a literacy test—or, if they are young”
(2018, 223). These and other contributions deconstruct widely accepted

views about voting capacities and show that the real abilities needed to
vote are not properly associated with adulthood.
Competence issues have also been examined in terms of political jus-
tice. Joanne Lau claims, for example, that to be consistent about capacity
grounds, “we ought either to disenfranchise the elderly, if we do not
enfranchise children, or enfranchise children of an age group that has the
same proportion of capacity as the elderly” (2012, 873). Jörg Tremmel
and James Wilhelm argue that “[i]t has been demonstrated with reference
to the history of ideas that the current exclusion of young people and
children from the franchise is a last, anachronistic bastion of epistocratic
thought which contradicts democratic principles” (2015, 144). Philip
Cook shows why voting competence is too difficult to define to legiti-
mately exclude children (2013). And Lachlan Umbers suggests, among
other things, that “if relational equality requires equal opportunities for
political influence, and children have claims to be treated as social equals,
it is hard to escape the conclusion that children have claims to enfranchise-
ment” (2018, 17). The presumption of children’s voting incompetence,
absence stronger justification, is democratically unjust.
On the question of consequences, political philosophers have explored
what might be the benefits and harms of children’s suffrage for children
themselves, adults, societies, and democracies. Some argue that children’s
suffrage would “adultify” children’s childhoods (Silbaugh, 2020), under-
mine the responsibilities of parents and teachers (Guggenheim, 2005), or
inflict uninformed ideas on societies (Scarre, 1980). Michael Cummings,
however, another author in this volume, argues in his recent book,
Children’s Voices in Politics, that not only do democracies need voting by
children, but “the civic disengagement and loss of social capital plaguing
democracies today is rooted in the systemic silencing of people’s political
voice during their early years” (2020, 288). Democracies slide into dis-
function and authoritarianism because they teach their citizens in their
formative years that their voices do not count. From a different angle,
Maura Priest uses the political liberalism of John Rawls to suggest that
children’s voting would advance children’s rights more broadly, since vot-
ing “is a basic condition of the fundamental rights of persons who all have
an equal say in shaping the laws by which they are governed” (2016, 231).
And Jakob Hinze shows that “ageless democracy” would overcome cur-
rent epistemic biases in democracies and thereby “promote intergenera-
tional justice” (2020, 173).
12 J. WALL
My own work, combining political philosophy with childhood studies,

pursues the idea that ageless voting would benefit not only children and
adults but also democratic societies. In Give Children the Vote: On
Democratizing Democracy (2021), I argue that not only are children gen-
erally competent to vote, but their enfranchisement would “make politi-
cians accountable to the real complexities of children’s lives” (139). This
genuinely universal accountability would in turn not only systematically
benefit children but also help adults, who would thereby “live under poli-
cies that are better informed by the realities and diversities of the children
with whom their lives are bound up,” and in addition would render demo-
cratic processes “more fully accountable to the people’s diversity of grass-
roots experiences” (167) (see also Wall 2012, 2014a, b, and Wall and Dar
2011). From what I call a childist point of view, analogous to other critical
perspectives like feminism and anti-racism, the question is not just whether
current democratic structures can be extended to children, but whether
children’s equal inclusion can inspire new democratic structures that are
better responsive to all.
In the field of law, questions are being raised about children’s rights to
freedom of expression and against political discrimination. Some focus on
specific national contexts. Samantha Godwin, for example, makes a case
for children’s voting in the US based on anti-discrimination law: “the basis
for children’s liberation exists within U.S. constitutional law, and is neces-
sitated by a rigorously consistent application of the established equal pro-
jection jurisprudence” (2011, 301). Legal scholars Robert Goodin and
Joanne Lau use the legal concept of “suretyship” in Australia to suggest
that “all the voters are ‘co-signatories’ with regard to electoral outcome,”
so that child voters would add to the pool of competencies and “actually
improve [a democracy’s] overall performance” (2011, 165). These argu-
ments about democratic discrimination are often taken up, as we see
shortly, by children’s voting activists.
Other legal scholars focus on international law, particularly Article 12
of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which ensures chil-
dren’s “right to express [their] views freely.” For example, Aoife Daly sup-
ports children’s enfranchisement by framing Article 12 as an issue of
discrimination, arguing that, at present, “we fail to permit children the
right to political influence, and we fail ourselves by imposing a lack of
diversity on the civil processes in which we engage” (2012, 290). Aoife
Nolan criticizes the CRC and its Committee on the Rights of the Child for
erasing the possibility of children’s suffrage by defining children’s freedom
of expression in entirely apolitical terms (2010, 138). And Katherine

Walton claims that CRC Article 12 “should be rethought to include the
right to vote … [as] an effective mechanism for improving children’s well-
being and the driving force in the realisation of all children’s rights”
(2018, 11). International law itself nowhere explicitly mentions children’s
right to vote. However, neither does it bar it and in some instances could
be said to require it. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR), Article 21.3, states, for example, that “the will of the people
shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed
in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal
suffrage.” And the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), Article 25, reads: “Every citizen shall have the right and the
opportunity … to vote and be elected at genuine periodic elections which
shall be by universal and equal suffrage.” Such statements imply, both
legally and logically, extending suffrage to children.
In the public sphere, recent years witnessed a quite significant uptick in
media and organizations speaking out on behalf of all children’s suffrage.
This uptick is related to an increasing visibility of campaigns for votes at
16; but, unlike such campaigns, it entertains the possibility of eliminating
voting ages altogether. Throughout the 2010s, numerous global and
national organizations start to take up the issue. The international NGO
Children’s Rights International Network (CRIN) publishes a report advo-
cating ageless voting (2010). The National Large Families Association, in
Italy, presents a bill to the national senate calling for a universal proxy vote
for all children (2014). We Want the Vote, a German group of children
and youth makes official complaints against children’s voting discrimina-
tion in 2015 to the Federal Constitutional Court and in 2018 to the UN
Commission on the Rights of the Child (2022). In Finland in 2016, a
group called Children’s Voice Association is founded with the specific mis-
sion that “all citizens should have voting rights independent of age”
(2016). And Amnesty International UK’s Children’s Human Rights
Network publishes “Votes for Children: The Case for Universal Suffrage”
that makes a detailed argument for all children’s suffrage (Walton, 2019).
It is also worth mentioning that in 2011 the Hungarian government pro-
poses, but does not pass, legislation to give mothers extra votes for their
children (Phillips, 2011).
This increasing involvement of activist organizations is accompanied by
increasing media interest. Among the more high-profile arguments for
eliminating all voting ages are op-eds by Jonathan Bernstein in the New
14 J. WALL
Republic (2011); Joshua Gans in Forbes (2012); the Deputy Prime Minister
of Canada, Chrystia Freeland, on behalf of Demeny voting in the New
York Times (2013); Matthew Yglesias in Vox.com (2015); Laurence Pevsner
in the Washington Post (2016); Ross Douthat on proxy voting in the New
York Times (2018); David Runciman, a contributor to this volume, in
Talking Points (2018); and a PBS Storyboard radio roundtable discussion
with children (2018). Neena Modi, another contributor to this volume
and at the time president of the UK’s Royal College of Paediatrics and
Child Health, publishes two prominent commentaries on universal proxy
suffrage as vital for lifelong child and adult health (2018, 2020). Miles
Corak, a Canadian economist, gives a Ted Talk laying out the case for age-
less suffrage (2013). And the proposal is made in many other media ven-
ues as well (Bayer, 2013; Fletcher, 2014; Wiland, 2015; Brando, 2019;
Hobson, 2019; MacKenzie, 2019; Peebles, 2019).
These developments lead up to what might be considered a banner year
of 2020. New organizations spring into being and public discussion
spreads quite widely. US activist Robin Chen, for example, creates a
Facebook group called Represent MA Children 2020, which a year later
becomes the non-profit organization Kids Can’t Vote, to integrate diverse
organizations and resources in a campaign to eliminate all voting ages in
the US state of Massachusetts (Chen, 2020, 2021). Chen also teams up
with me to found the already mentioned organization out of which this
volume grows, the Children’s Voting Colloquium, which launches its
website and holds its first meeting in July 2020. As its website states, “The
Children’s Voting Colloquium is a global collaboration of researchers,
activists, child-led and adult-led organizers, policy-makers, and others
dedicated to eliminating voting discrimination according to young peo-
ple’s age” (Children’s Voting Colloquium, 2020). For the first time, chil-
dren’s suffrage becomes the sole focus of a large network of diverse
academic and activist participants from every continent.
In the same year, the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) holds
a conference on “Age of Youth” in which youth and adults discuss ageless
voting rights as an urgent concern (2020). Amnesty International UK
holds a Children’s Rights Festival that includes a panel of youth on “Child
Voting Rights” (2020). A child directly asks the South African Parliament
(2020) for children’s rights to vote. A teacher Tom Hobson publishes an
argument for “giving children the right to vote” (2020). And the above
mentioned activist and philosopher Benjamin Kiesewetter proposes in an
interview “that people, regardless of their age, be allowed to vote as soon
as they register their interest with an appropriate authority” (2020, my

translation).
Since 2020, this conversation has continued to grow. The 10-year-old
Kid Governor of Oklahoma, Charlotte Anderson, for example, gives a
speech to the Edmond Democratic Women arguing that voting ages
should be eliminated (2021). Children hold an online debate in a French
magazine on “for or against the right to vote for children” (Anonymous,
2022). Adam Fletcher, founder of the Freechild Institute, publishes “My
Call to End the Voting Age” (2021). The New York Times features two
op-eds claiming the voting age should be zero (Holterman, 2021; Stone,
2021). The Guardian publishes a widely debated opinion piece by the
historian David Runciman proposing a voting age of six (2021). Runciman
and Wall (2021) conduct an extensive interview on children’s enfranchise-
ment on BBC Radio 4 (2021). In these and many other instances, the
notion of eliminating voting ages is broached across diverse locations
and media.
These indications show that the conversation over children’s suffrage is
now more complex and widespread than at any time in history. It involves
voices from multiple disciplinary perspectives as well as a rich array of
child- and adult-led organizations. It has infiltrated international policy
think tanks and major media channels. At the same time, such develop-
ments are still largely unknown in the wider academic and public spheres.
The children’s suffrage movement arguably stands in much the same place
as the women’s suffrage movement did a century and a half ago, that is, at
early stirrings such as the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention. There are many
open questions about what ageless suffrage might mean, whether it is jus-
tified, and how it might be realized. Children’s voting is still anathema to
most. Much work remains to be done for the possibility to be thoroughly
and critically explored. And yet it is now an issue with an internal momen-
tum that is unlikely to dissipate.
The Present Volume

This volume of essays develops upon the existing conversation by both
extending ongoing lines of thought and developing new ones. Its aim is to
demonstrate that children’s suffrage is a vital and important field of study-
inviting new questions across a range of disciplines. Each of the authors in
this volume takes for granted that children’s suffrage can be discussed as a
meaningful possibility. The usual reasons given against ageless voting are
16 J. WALL
taken seriously but also subjected to critical reflection. At the same time,
chapters approach the possibility of children’s enfranchisement from a
variety of disciplinary angles and come to a range of different conclusions.
The volume does not offer a single solution. Rather, it presents an in-
depth interdisciplinary exploration of the hard and complex issues that
children’s suffrage raises for scholars and societies.
The following chapters are divided into three parts. Part I, “Theoretical
Frameworks,” examines the underlying issues involved in the children’s
suffrage debate, exploring questions around competence, harms and ben-
efits, justice, and the nature of democracy. Part II, “Historical Contexts,”
unpacks diverse influences on children’s suffrage arising from the past,
such as other suffrage movements, de-colonizing processes, power dynam-
ics, and changing political realities. And Part III, “Practical Considerations,”
extends discussions of children’s enfranchisement into fields such as eco-
nomics, law, and medicine, exploring such questions as economic conse-
quences, legal challenges, consent, and implementation.
Part I, “Theoretical Frameworks,” begins with a chapter by the US
political scientist Michael Cummings, a renowned expert in American
political thought, utopian studies, and children’s politics. His chapter,
“Silence is Poison: Explaining and Curing Adult ‘Apathy’,” argues that
children’s equal suffrage is the necessary cure for contemporary democra-
cies’ toxic lack of engagement and rising authoritarianism, a systemic dis-
function built on citizens having been disenfranchised throughout the
most formative years of their lives. This is followed by a chapter by the
New Zealand political philosopher Nicholas Munn, a theorist of demo-
cratic marginalization among groups like the young, persons with disabili-
ties, and criminals. His chapter, “How Low Can You Go? The Capacity to
Vote Among Young Citizens,” unpacks exactly what constitutes the capac-
ity to vote and suggests that it is sufficiently broad that no harm is done by
opening suffrage to everyone regardless of age who wishes to participate
in it. The final chapter in this part is by the US political philosopher and
childhood studies scholar John Wall, a poststructuralist theorist of politics
and childhoods. He argues in “The Case for Children’s Voting” that uni-
versally ageless suffrage would create stronger democracies that are more
fully responsive to the people and hence better positioned to form just and
healthy societies.
Part II, “Historical Contexts,” starts with a chapter by the UK historian
David Runciman, a scholar of the modern practices and theories of democ-
racy and of generational and educational divides in contemporary politics.
His chapter, “The Enfranchisement of Women vs the Enfranchisement of

Children,” shows how women’s and children’s suffrage, while different in
many respects, raise similar questions of discrimination, paternalism, voice,
and democratic inclusion. The next chapter is by the Indian childhood
studies anthropologist and sociologist Anandini Dar, an expert on teen
lives in India and the Indian diaspora as well as childhoods in South Asia.
Her chapter, “De-Colonizing Children’s Suffrage: Engagements with Dr.
B R Ambedkar’s Ideas on Democracy,” argues that the Dalit activist and
political thinker Ambedkar offers resources from India’s history of demo-
cratic liberation for theorizing and de-colonizing children’s suffrage rights
today. Part II ends with a chapter by two Swedish childhood studies schol-
ars, the historian of childhood Bengt Sandin and the sociologist of chil-
dren, migration, and politics Jonathan Josefsson. Their chapter, “The
Reform that Never Happened: A History of Children’s Suffrage
Restrictions,” examines the reasons why voting ages were not reduced in
an otherwise progressive period in Sweden over the twentieth century
because of a combination of institutional, policy, and political barriers.
Part III, “Practical Considerations,” begins with a chapter by the Italian
economist Luigi Campiglio, an international expert in political economics,
and Lorenza Alexandra Lorenzetti, an Italian economic theorist. Their
chapter, “Generational Economics,” shows how an extra parent proxy
vote for every child would help governments and societies develop stron-
ger economic policies to combat poverty, support families, and promote
long-term instead of short-term economic prosperity. This is followed by
a chapter by the legal scholar and lawyer Cheryl Milne, an expert in
Canadian constitutional law and international children’s rights. Her chap-
ter, “Legality of Age Restrictions on Voting: A Canadian Perspective,”
examines efforts in her country to lower and eliminate voting ages and
explores what avenues might be used for navigating the complex legal
questions involved. The final chapter is by the UK scholar of neonatal
medicine Neena Modi, a leading researcher of child health and well-being.
Her chapter, “A View from Paediatric Medicine: Competence, Best
Interests, and Operational Pragmatism,” argues that just as pediatricians
have learned to progressively engage children in medical treatment, so also
could parents progressively involve children in exercising their own right
to vote.
Collectively, these chapters lay a foundation for an interdisciplinary
field of children’s suffrage studies. They prove that a productive and stim-
ulating conversation can be had among philosophers, political scientists,
18 J. WALL
childhood studies scholars, historians, sociologists, economists, legal

scholars, and medical researchers. And if among these fields, then also
more broadly among psychologists, neuroscientists, literature scholars,
critical race theorists, and many others. The more democratic the discus-
sion the better. What is more, the essays in this volume show that scholars
have much to contribute to, and to learn from, growing public activism.
Children’s suffrage studies is well positioned to engage with child and
adult organizers and policy makers, as well as to provide public debates
with theoretical, historical, economic, and other critical resources.
Few scholarly pursuits could be as rewarding and creative as helping to
reimagine democracy from the standpoint of children. It would be easy in
our time to take a cynical view of the entire democratic project. Perhaps it
is a European Enlightenment fabrication that is bound to run its course.
Perhaps it cannot withstand the forces of neoliberal capitalism, corrup-
tion, authoritarianism, and globalization besetting it in our time. Perhaps
its ineffectiveness has been unmasked by the existential threat of the cli-
mate emergency. However, as the issue of children’s suffrage shows,
democracies to date have far from lived up to their full potential. They
have never been more than adult-ocracies or partial adult autocracies. It is
at least worth exploring what genuinely universal suffrage could mean by
removing its last great barrier of age.
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rights-for-kids
PART I
Theoretical Frameworks
CHAPTER 2
Silence Is Poison:
Explaining and Curing Adult “Apathy”
Michael S. Cummings
In democratic politics, silence is not golden. It is toxic. When the law dis-
enfranchises us during our most impressionable 18 years of life, most of us
suffer a wound that festers, spreads, and deepens for the rest of our lives.
Parents and teachers may counter this official silencing—your voice may
be heard, but it doesn’t count—but for most of us the silencing is not
magically cured when we “come of age.” Rather, it typically metastasizes
and infects our adult political agency, contributing to the so-called politi-
cal apathy that is really disempowerment. As adults, most of us default to
crossing our fingers, holding our breath, or saying a prayer that they—the
5% who are officials, lobbyists, or activists—will do well by us. We have the
right to elect representatives and hold them accountable, but most of us
waive that right and effectively cede power to the few, devolving technical
democracy to practical oligarchy. Only half of potential adult voters
M. S. Cummings (*)
University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA
e-mail: Michael.Cummings@ucdenver.edu
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 27

Switzerland AG 2022
J. Wall (ed.), Exploring Children’s Suffrage, Studies in Childhood
and Youth, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14541-4_2
28 M. S. CUMMINGS
actually vote even in U.S. presidential elections, far fewer in midterm,

state, and local elections, the last often only 10%.1
The loud voices that dominate the media today are actually a small por-
tion of the electorate, but their influence on their parties intimidates can-
didates for office, especially U.S. Republicans, who fear being “primaried”
if they anger ex-president Donald Trump. However, the quiet majority
who sit back and wait are not “apathetic,” implying they don’t care. I have
met few if any adults who don’t care about the effects of public policy on
their lives: effects on their pocketbooks, health care, safety, freedoms,
equal treatment under the law, their children’s schools, their prospects for
employment, access to sound infrastructure, utilities, and transportation,
the overall viability of their communities and neighborhoods, and whether
their country is at war or peace. If they appear apathetic about these issues,
it’s not because they don’t care; it’s because deep down inside, they don’t
feel they can make a difference. Alleged apathy is actually a rationalization
for the status quo: If you don’t speak up and act up, you get the govern-
ment you deserve.
Elsewhere in this volume, strong arguments are made for children’s
right to a voice that counts. Wall (2021) summarizes many of these argu-
ments and adds some of his own. As I stress in Children’s Voices in Politics
(2020), I agree with these scholars, but my focus here is on the toxic con-
sequences of disenfranchising our youth—even the politically savviest of
them—while allowing the most politically clueless adults to vote. Adultist
discrimination is now especially ironic, as despite their disenfranchisement,
young people—children, tweens, teens, and young adults—are leading the
uphill battle against climate change, for sensible gun control, for Black
Lives Matter, for equal rights for LGBTQIA+ persons, and against dicta-
torship in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Russia, the U.S., and elsewhere.
Teen climate activist and Nobel nominee Greta Thunberg complains that
she shouldn’t have to miss school to save the planet but that she and her
millions of young supporters must do so because adult policy-makers keep
ignoring the scientists and shirking their responsibilities while disengaged
citizens fail to hold them accountable. If enfranchised, these youth might
not have to sacrifice so much of their private lives to public service.
Analysts of our weak democracies propose several causes of adult politi-
cal disengagement: for example, poverty, ignorance, ethnic divisions,
1
It is higher in most other democracies, but even there, most of the people leave politics
to the officials, lobbyists, and activists most of the time.
2 SILENCE IS POISON: EXPLAINING AND CURING ADULT “APATHY” 29
family responsibilities, the complexities of government, and personal prob-

lems. But few if any target adultist disenfranchisement as a key culprit.2
Many think that children would just vote the way their parents do anyway.
The best evidence shows that children are indeed influenced by their par-
ents’ political beliefs—an influence that doesn’t end when they become
adults—but that between a quarter and a third of them disagree with their
parents on at least some political issues (Kids Dinas, 2014; Ojeda & Hatemi,
2015; Patterson, 2014; Kids Voting USA, 2021). There is also evidence of
a reverse effect whereby children (a) change their parents’ political views,
especially on unconventional political initiatives the youth engage in, at first
disapproved of by their parents, and (b) by engaging in the national non-
profit Kids Voting USA, increase the likelihood that their parents will vote
(Elshtain, 1997, Thunberg, 2019). Children can make a difference without
having the vote, just as poor people, men of color, and women did before
being enfranchised. But that fact is no justification for their arbitrary, capri-
cious, unjust, and harmfully consequential disenfranchisement.
The Germ
Preventing our youngest citizens from voting is far from our only chronic
dismissal of their political minds and spirits. It is unfortunate that progres-
sive critics of “hate speech” seldom if ever include terms describing chil-
dren as “rug rats,” “curtain climbers,” “wet behind the ears,” “brats,”
“punks,” and other pejoratives. The idea that children should “zip their
lips” and obey authority is regarded by adults as promoting proper behav-
ior, but it actually promotes submissiveness and discourages children to
think for themselves, undermining their future as engaged citizens.
Scriptural advice that sparing the rod will spoil the child, used to justify
spanking, is contradicted by the scientific evidence and constitutes what
would be assault and battery if inflicted on an adult (Gershoff, 2002).
Societal approval of inflicting pain on youngsters teaches them to bow to
authority rather than to hold it democratically accountable. Teachers who
discourage students’ disagreeing with them demean them and ignore a
growing body of evidence that the most effective pedagogical techniques
engage teachers and students in a two-way, teaching-and-learning process
(Boyer, 1990; Center for Engaged Learning, 2022). Critical pedagogy as
2
“Adultism” implies a prejudicial marginalization of children by adults comparable to that
of women by men—sexism—and of nonwhites by whites—racism.
30 M. S. CUMMINGS
espoused by pioneers such as John Dewey, A.S. Neill, Ivan Illich, and
Paulo Freire engages students in critical and creative thinking, activism,
and rebellion but is still practiced by only a minority of educators.
By contrast, in 1989 the United Nations took a major, if incomplete,
step forward in developing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC), signed on to by all the functioning governments of the world,
making it history’s most widely approved global treaty.3 Its 40 substantive
articles require the governments of the world to protect children from
discrimination; to include in all public policies the best interests of the
child as a primary consideration; to foster children’s right to participate in
all decisions affecting them (from Article 12; see below); to respect chil-
dren’s freedom of thought, conscience, expression, and religion; to recog-
nize their freedom of association and assembly; to provide for their access
to diverse sources of information; to protect them from all forms of abuse
and neglect; to provide reasonable accommodations for children with dis-
abilities; to ensure every child’s enjoyment of the highest attainable stan-
dard of health; to recognize every child’s right to “a standard of living
adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social devel-
opment,” including provision of support programs in nutrition, clothing,
and housing; to provide all children with affordable education; and to
provide all children protection from economic and sexual exploitation.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that since ratification of the CRC in 1990, all of the
state signatories to it have fallen far short of its stipulations, although five-
year reviews of each state’s performance by the UN Committee on the
Rights of the Child have sparked improvements. Children’s groups are
now encouraged to submit their own report cards on the performance of
their governments. However, the participatory provisions of Article 12
stop short of guaranteeing children the right to vote the adult rascals out.
Furthermore, national governments may take exception to any of the arti-
cles, many have done so, and many of the articles themselves contain
restrictions based on the evolving capacities of the child, parental rights,
cultural traditions, and standing law. To secure ratification, the drafters
bowed to adultist sentiment, tradition, and pressure. Unanimity of
3
The United States helped develop the CRC and is a signatory to it, but the U.S. Senate
has yet to ratify it, because of various provisions that compromise parental and societal
authority, such as forbidding the death penalty for crimes committed as a child, a sentence
now forbidden by the U.S. Constitution.
2 SILENCE IS POISON: EXPLAINING AND CURING ADULT “APATHY” 31
approval is no substitute for the treaty’s compromises or the UN’s lack of

enforcement powers over the signatory states.
In short, the world’s governments continue in practice to deny children
many of the very rights they have legally committed themselves to ensur-
ing and enforcing. Children continue to starve to death while wealthy
adults gorge themselves to obesity. Children sicken and die for lack of
medical care because their parents can’t afford it. Children’s access to
diverse information relevant to their well-being is customarily denied them
for a variety of bogus reasons. Their right to a quality education is ignored
by many governments, most recently by the new Taliban regime in
Afghanistan. Even in the world’s richest country, the United States, poor
children’s schools are underfunded and suffer from low quality.
To sum up “the germ”: the disease of youth silencing and its undemo-
cratic effects are worsened by pervasive and illegal adultist malpractice in
self-proclaimed democracies. Let us be clear about what a robust democ-
racy requires: (1) as defining qualities (a) popular sovereignty, or rule of
all the people, and (b) political equality, meaning an equal voice for all the
people; and (2) as a practical test, the people’s effectively—not merely
theoretically—holding officials accountable for their actions. Countries’
pseudo-democratic status quo today falls far short of fulfilling these mini-
mal requirements for strong democracy.
Widespread global violation of political equality, notably the exclusion
of young people from official participation, greatly waters down the
requirement of popular sovereignty. Instead of rule by the people, we have
rule by the older people, brimming with unexamined prejudices toward
younger people. Those who will be affected the longest by public policy—
a third of the global citizenry—are denied the vote. Not democracy but an
adultist monopoly rules, and within the age monopoly an oligarchy of
mostly unaccountable wealthy white males prevails. In the “Metastasis”
section below, I explore the ways in which children’s political silencing not
only reduces citizens’ participation directly but also compromises democ-
racy indirectly by weakening children’s future political consciousness and
activism as adults. The disease of disempowerment “grows up,” spreads,
deepens, infects, and under current conditions threatens the very life of
the ailing democratic patient. True democracy remains a utopian vision,
and even today’s pale versions are under potentially fatal threats from pop-
ulist despotism.
32 M. S. CUMMINGS
Metastasis
When an infant cries out to be fed, warmed, or cuddled, it is expressing its
earliest “policy preferences.” Good parents respond to its cries. The voices
of our youngest citizens are evolutionarily hard-wired to secure the fulfill-
ment of their needs, and parents have accordingly evolved a responsive-
ness to their children’s cries. Psychiatrist Dr. Michael Commons and his
team of behavioral scientists at the Harvard Medical School have found
that ignoring infants’ cries permanently damages them physically, emo-
tionally, and psychologically (Narvaez, 2011; Natural Child Project,
2022). These youngsters become highly sensitized later in life to slights,
trauma, and injury. Despite parents’ instinctive response to their infants’
voices and needs, a cottage industry of “tough love” advice from child
“experts” has warned that responding to babies’ cries “spoils” them and
leaves them ill-prepared for coping with the competitive world of hard
knocks into which they were born. Along with the twentieth century’s
most popular doctor, the late Benjamin Spock, the scientific evidence says
otherwise, but for many pundits and parents, prejudice prevails. The
ignoring of children’s voices is deep-seated and widespread in the adult-
run world.
Training for Incompetence

Few lasting institutions are all good or all bad, including schools. If schools
were all bad, they wouldn’t have lasted long enough to do the harm they
have done, specifically the harm of metastasizing the germ of early disem-
powerment. On this score, students’ knowledge and friendships acquired
in schools are outweighed by their learning of submission, subjection to
rote memorization rather than practical skills and critical and creative
thinking, and socialization to the societal status quo.
The “three r’s” curriculum focused on reading, writing, and arithmetic
reflects these disincentives to active citizenship. Algebra, geometry, poli-
tics, philosophy, and psychology are important throughout our lives, but
we have traditionally held our children back from learning about them
until high school or later. Each of them involves discovering some intrigu-
ing unknown. While volunteering as a teacher’s aide in my wife Holly’s
K-1 class, I serendipitously discovered that young children can grasp the
basics of these disciplines. First-grader Trevor, a special-needs student
gifted in math, easily moved from addition and subtraction to
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semmerre nem bújhat el. Ez a kisérő pedig az időjárás, amely nem
tesz kivételt se királynőkkel, se koldusokkal. Mire a kettős-hegyen
épült Hainburg várost elérték volna: kapja magát a felhő és eltakarja
a hegytetőn büszkélkedő kastélyt, el a hegy oldalán futamodó
bástyatornyokkal cifrázott falat, de még a várkapu ásítását is
eltakarta a sötétség. A hegyeknek csupán árnyékuk látszott és a
Dunán elindult a szélvihar és az esős zivatar.
Jó volt ekkor a magyar király huszevezős naszádja, még ha
egyébként nem is volt olyan cifra, mint a császár gályája. Mária
behúzódott a szolgálóleányával a hajófaron lévő házikóba és azt
próbálgatta kisütni, hogy ez az erőszakos szélvihar vajjon nem
Magyarország felől fúj-e?
Sárkány Ambrus, a szalai főispán a viharban is a megszokott
bazsarózsás arccal álldogált a hajó orránál a vízmélységet mérő
hajós mellett. A férfiak hozzá vannak szokva különb viharokhoz.
– Most érünk a magyar határra! – kiáltotta be a főispán a királyné
házikójába, mire Mária a szakadó esőben kijött a háztető alól, mert
vérében volt, hogyan kell királynőnek viselkedni.
A magyar határon mintha kettős-fejü nagybástya zárta volna el a
Dunát, amelyet a folyónak meg kellett kerülni. Sasoknak és
határvédő vitézeknek volt teremtve ez a kettős sziklafal, amelynek
gránitköpenyege redőzve omlott a Dunába. Alant, a sziklalábnál
fellobogózott vártorony emelkedett, amelynek egyik ablakából fehér
füstpöffenet reppent ki piros lánggal megvilágitottan, majd hegyeket
rázkódtató durranás hallatszott.
Huszonnégy ágyúlövés hangzott el a váracsból, bizonyára
keményen megizzadtak a dévényi vár katonái, amig a hegyről ideáig
vontatták az ágyúkat.
És a zivatar függönyén át álomkép gyanánt vonult el a
hegytetőkre öreg fatörzs gyökér-karmaival kapaszkodó dévényi vár
is. A hegy kopasz, hogy ellenfél el ne rejtőzhessen erdőjében. A
bástya szilárd, mint a másvilág. A várkapitány pedig bizonyára ugy
unatkozik, mint azok a várkapitányok szoktak, akiknek nincsen
dolguk ellenséggel.
– Most már otthon vagyunk! – kiáltozott a hajó orráról a szalai
főispán és kitátotta a száját, hogy igyon a hazai esőből.
Ó, Magyarország, Szűz Mária országa! Szép voltál te minden
időkben azoknak a sziveknek, akik benned hittek. Akik mindig csak
azt mondták szemük végső lezárulásáig, hogy Magyarországon a
legjobb a viz, mert itt átváltozik még a felhő is, amely idegen tájakról
vándorol ide, itt megédesedik a forrás, a Duna, amely abból az
ősvilágból maradott itten, amikor a magyarok még Ázsiában voltak.
Ó, Magyarország, ahonnan a folyók nem szeretnek elmenni, (az egy,
hütelen Poprád kivételével) mert idegenben nem éreznék jól
magukat, – Tisza, Dráva, Száva, Hernád, Körös, Szamos, Zagyva,
Ipoly, Vág, Maros mind itt születik és itt is hal meg, mint jó
magyarokhoz illik… Ó, Magyarország, kinek könnyeitől még egy
Tisza folyót alkothatna a Teremtő: vajjon érezted-e szived
dobbanásában azt a sorsfordulatot, amely abban a percben történt
életedben, amikor Mária hajója a husz evezőssel átsiklott a magyar
határon?
Az eső muladozott, a felhő szakadozott, Sárkány Ambrus uram
megint csak bekopogtatott Mária házikójába.
– Mindjárt Presburchban leszünk. A magyarok ugyan
Pozsonynak mondják ezt a városukat, de a lakosság bizony csak
olyan sült német, mint Ausztriában.
A hegyek alatt valóban megmutatkozott egy soktornyu város.
Mária legelőször is a város tornyait számlálta meg. A számos
bástyatorony között három templomtorony mutatkozott, a hegyen
pedig erős vár, amely legszebb volt mindama várak között,
amelyeket Mária életében látott.
– Kié ez a vár? Kié? – kérdezte gyermekmódjára tapsolva
kezeivel.
– A magyar királyé, de benne Bornemissza uram a parancsnok, –
felelte a szalai főispán.
– Mért nem a király?
– Mert a királynak szebb vára van Budán.
– Én itt szeretnék lakni!
– Lesz még módjában, felség, – felelt a szalai főispán és bizony
nem gondolta ebben a percben, hogy milyen igazat mondott.
Mária alig várta, hogy a naszád kikössön, már indulni akart, hogy
a várost megnézze, amelyet nagyobbnak itélt Innsbrucknál és
Linznél.
De még valami ceremónián kellett átesni. A kikötőben hirnök
várta a hajót.
– Itt van Zápolya uram Trencsénből és hódolatát akarja
bemutatni a királynénak!
– Tyű, – kiáltott fel Sárkány Ambrus uram. – Ez már nagy dolog,
hogy a vicekirály beadja a derekát!
– Ki az a vicekirály? – fitymálódott Mária.
– Több vára van, mint a királynak.
– Jegyezze meg magának főispán uram, – szólott most Mária
olyan hangon, amilyent még nem hallottak tőle a magyarok – hogy
én Európa leggazdagabb családjából származom. Az én családomé
Alsó- és Felső-Ausztria, Stiria, Karintia, Görz, Krajna, Tirol, Trident
és Burgundia. Németalföld és Spanyolország gyarmataival, valamint
a Baleárok. Nápoly, Szicilia, Szardinia ugyancsak a miénk. Ez talán
együttvéve ér annyit, mint az erdélyi vajdaság.
– A Baleárok messzire vannak, de Zápolyának itt vannak a várai
a felső vidéken, egészen a lengyel határig. Hát csak legyünk vele
jóban.
A hajó kikötött és a parton leugrott lováról egy vitéz, aki ott
gyalogos katonái között várakozott. Szép szál ember volt, huszonöt-
harminc esztendő között. Sisakja alól kivillogott medve-tekintete,
kicsüngött bozontos, barna szakálla. Talpig páncélban volt, de nem
is aranyozott vagy ezüstözött páncélban, csak olyanban, amilyenben
akkoriban a magyar nemesek öltözködni szoktak.
Mária felé közeledve, kihuzta fejét a sisakból. Válligérő haj
övezte cigányosan barna arcát. Határozottan, szinte büvölettel
nézett a királynéra, mintha egyetlen tekintetével felejthetetlenné
akarná magát tenni. Valóban megjegyezni való külsejü férfiu volt, bár
semmi disz, pompa, feltünőség nem volt rajta, mintha csak a katonai
táborból jött volna.
– Magyarország leggazdagabb és legfösvényebb embere, még
magától is sajnálja a ruházkodást, – suttogta Sárkány Ambrus Mária
háta mögött.
Szapolyai uram (akit köznyelven Zápolyának hívtak, mintha ezzel
a tótosan hangzó névvel is éreztetni akarták volna vele, szláv
származását) Mária elé lépett és éppen csak annyira hajtotta meg a
fejét, amennyire egy fiatal férfi egy fiatal nőnek szokta. Miksa
császár unokája bosszusan az ajkába harapott. Ez volt az első
sérelem, amely Magyarországon érte. Dacos indulat ébredt fel
benne, hogy megbosszulja a tiszteletlenséget, amelyhez a
ceremóniás bécsi udvarban dehogy is volt hozzászokva.
Szapolyai latin nyelven üdvözölte a királynét:
– Kerestem magamnak az alkalmat, hogy legelsőnek
üdvözölhessem a magyarok jövendőbeli királynéját az ország
területén, miután tudomásom szerint az országtanács nem engedi
meg a királynak, hogy Budáról elmozduljon.
– Tudom, – felelt egykedvüséget szinlelve Mária. –
Nándorfejérvár bajban van, a királynak azon kell fáradoznia, hogy a
nevezetes végvárat, – Magyarország karját, megmentse Szulejman
Piri basa ostroma elől. Azt reméltem, hogy az erdélyi vajda, akinek
vitézségéről és hadai nagyszámáról már annyit hallottam nagyatyám
udvarában is: maga, az erdélyi vajda Nándorfejérvár védelmében
van.
Szapolyai sötét arca még sötétebb lett a királyné szavára, de
csakhamar enyhült ez a sötétség, hogy helyet adjon valamely enyhe,
udvarlásos, rebegő mosolynak, amellyel a férfiak azokat a nőket
szokták nézni, akik első szempillantásra megtetszenek nekik.
– Királyné, – szólt most enyelgő hangon az erdélyi vajda – ha
nem mondta volna meg senki, én most megmondom, hogy Tomori,
Nándorfejérvár védője olyan ember, hogy más vezért nem tür maga
mellett. Az erdélyi vajda pedig nem lehet közlegény Tomori mellett.
– Inkább essen el Nándorfejérvár?
– Inkább essen el Nándorfejérvár!
A tisztelkedés alatt Szapolyai egy percre sem kapcsolta ki
szemét Mária királyné szeméből. Ismerni akarta első látásra ezt a
hölgyet, mint akár valami lovat, ágyut, vagy hadnagyot. Mária
változatlan arccal türte alattvalójának fürkészését. Mozdulatlanság
ült arcára, mint egy innsbrucki apácához illik, nem árult el többé
semmi földi indulatot az első harag után.
Szapolyai uramat a hajóhidig Sárkány Ambrus kisérte el.
– Becses kis portéka. Nem érdemli meg az Árnyék-király, –
dörmögte a vajda.
– De a Festett-király még kevésbbé! – morgott vissza a szalai
főispán, mivel Szapolyait a háta mögött „Festett-királynak“ is
csúfolták.
A parton ujabb vendég jelentkezett, aki tisztelkedni akart, mielőtt
a királyné Magyarország földjére tenné a lábát.
Bornemissza János uram, a király egyik nevelője és a pozsonyi
vár kapitánya simogatta lobogó nagy, fehér szakállát a parton. Régi
királyi butor volt az öreg, már Mátyás király korában is ifju levente
volt a budai udvarnál, a Jagellók átvették őt együtt a palotával.
– Az erdélyi vajdát még csak respektáltam, – mondá az öreg
bosszankodva Sárkány Ambrusnak – mert nem akarok ujjat huzni
ezzel az emberrel, aki minden gyalázatosságra képes. De most már
valóban a királyné elé kell jutnom, mert én hozom a király üzenetét.
Sárkány főispán uram a fületövét vakargatta:
– Ebből baj lesz… A király megharagszik mindnyájunkra, ha
megtudja, hogy az ő követét, éppen az erdélyi vajda miatt
megváratták.
– Nem kell félni, – bizonykodott Bornemissza uram. – A királyt
ugy nevelték, hogy nem tud ártani egy légynek sem.
Mária nagy érdeklődéssel figyelte a hajóhidon közelgő, magyaros
diszruhába öltözött, kipödrött bajszu, kemény válltartásu és még
keményebb dereku öregembert. Valahogy ugy érezte, hogy ez a
bölcsen, nyugodalmasan közelgő férfiu az igazi, vérbeli képviselője
annak a nemzetnek, amelynek ezentul királynéja lesz. Ez a tempós,
akkurátos öreg ugy közelgett, mint valami ritka látomány, akit
álmában szokott látni az ember, akinek megjelenését ugy
magyarázzák az álomfejtők, hogy álombeli tanácsaikat meg kell
hallgatni és meg kell tartani, mert a jó sorsnak a választott emberei
ők… Akik mindig segedelmet hoznak magukkal.
A szalai főispán előrejött.
– Bornemisszát fogom bemutatni, akivel sok dolga lesz
felségednek, mert ő az első ember a budai várban. Még az időjárást
is ő szabja meg Budán, mint mondani szokták Magyarországon.
– No, majd a szemeközé nézünk az időcsinálónak, – gondolta
magában Mária. – Szivesen látom a várkapitány urat, bár nem
tudom még csak le sem ültetni ebben a házikóban.
– Ó, az öreg nem olyan ördögtől megszállott ember, mint az
erdélyi vajda, felséged előbbeni látogatója. Bornemissza János, bár
öregember, a világért sem ülne le királya vagy királynéja
jelenlétében, mert ő még Corvin Mátyás idejében tanulta az emberi
illedelmet.
Hát jött a hajóhidon a nagyszakállu öreg, mintha az
ötszázesztendős Magyarország közelegne vele hagyományaival és
legendáival, rátartiságával és sorstól szenvedett megaláztatásaival,
elszántságával és öreges aggodalmasságával: – egy sok mindent
látott öregember ballagott végig a hajóhidon, aki éppen ugy el van
készülve a jóra, mint a rosszra, nem igen csodálkozik már semmin
sem ebben az életben. De hiuság még volt benne, mint a legtöbb
öregemberben, mert a multidőt nagyobbra tartotta a jelenidőnél. Igy
tehát igen felderült az arca, amikor Mária női ösztönösségénél fogva
néhány lépéssel elébe ment a hajó szurkos deszkáin óvatosan
lépegető öregnek.
– Bornemissza bátyám, be örülök, hogy láthatom! – kiáltott fel a
jövendőbeli királyné, mintha egyetlen szavával végig az egész életre
megnyerni akarná magának a szívós öreget.
– Nem nagyon érdemlem meg én, felség, hogy valaki is örüljön
nekem, mert én már csak olyan vagyok, mint az őszi szél, amelynek
szárnyán a hópelyhek szoktak elindulni, – feleli nagycsendesen
Bornemissza.
– Én szeretem az őszt, mert a nagyapám nevelt fel.
– Minden tiszteletünk a leghatalmasabb Miksa császáré, de mi
régi magyarok azt szeretnénk, hogy felséged elfelejtené elmult
gyermekkorát, az idegen földön töltött éveket, minden
idegenszerüségeket és idegen emléket, amikor ennek a szegény
Magyarországnak a földjére teszi a lábát. A Jagellók immár jó
magyarok lettek. Azt reméljük a magyar nemzet nevében, hogy
felséged különb magyar asszony lesz minden magyar asszonynál, –
mondá az öregember olyan hangon, mintha a bibliából olvasna.
– Nem csalatkoznak bennem a magyarok, – válaszolta Mária.
(Honnan volt ebben a tizenhatesztendős leányban a
leleményesség, bátorság, önbizalom, amellyel mindenféle férfiuval a
maga nyelvén beszélni tudott? Talán éppen azért volt benne annyi
bátorság, mint más nőkben nem szokás, mert az innsbrucki
apácazárdában nem volt alkalma megismerkedni se a férfiak
erkölcseivel, se hibáival. Felelt szíve szerint, igazsága szerint, mint
az iskolai vizsgán adják meg a feleletet, anélkül, hogy annak
hatékonyságát előre kiszámítaná magában a növendék.)
– Most pedig átadva II. Lajos, Magyarország és Csehország
királyának legkegyelmesebb üzenetét felséged számára, – folytatta
az öregember, hirtelen kihuzva magát, mintha nyársat nyelt volna az
ünnepélyességtől. – Király Őfelsége tárt karokkal és áhitatos szívvel
várja felségedet Budán. Jött volna ő maga is a királyné elébe, de az
ország ügyei ugy alakultak, hogy a király őfelségének mulhatatlanul
Budán kellett tartózkodni.
– Tudom. Nándorfejérvár!
– Igen, Nándorfejérvárt meg kell menteni, evégből a király
reggeltől reggelig leveleket ír a külországokba. Követségeket
meneszt és követségeket fogad. Nehéz dolog most Magyarországon
királynak lenni.
– Majd én megkönnyitem a helyzetét, mellette leszek éjjel-
nappal, amint Budára értem.
– Ámde ez sem lehetséges, amig felségedet Székesfehérvárott
magyar királynénak meg nem koronázták vala, mert törvényeinket
áthágni még a királynénak sem lehet. Felséged a fejérvári
koronázásig nem a budai királyi palotában lakik, hanem Budán egy
másik házban, amelyet Lajos király már meg is vásárolt felséged
számára a Keresztelő Szent János-utcában! – szólott Bornemissza
olyan határozott hangon, mintha ettől a naptól kezdve nem csak II.
Lajos királynak, de Máriának is nevelőapja volna.
– Hm, – mormogta Mária elgondolkozva. – És ki tiltja meg
nekem, hogy a budai királyi palotában lakhassam?
– A magyar törvények. A magyar Rendek. Az országgyülés,
amelyet a nemesség bármikor összehivathat a Rákosmezejére. A
magyar országgyülés a legnagyobb hatalom a világon. Felette áll a
királynak.
Mária lesütötte a szemét, mert nem akarta, hogy feltámadó
érzelmeit valamiképpen észrevegye az öregember.
Bornemissza, miután befejezte hivatalos szavait, hirtelen
urambátyámos nyájaskodással folytatta:
– Most pedig van szerencsém meghívni felségedet arra az
ebédre, amelyet Fischer Mihály, a pozsonyi bíró rendez felséged
tiszteletére. Lesz tizenhárom font tehénhus, öt kappan, egy nyul, sok
alma, zsemlye és bor.
Mária megint lesütötte a szemét, mert nem akarta, hogy a
hajózás ideje alatt tartó éhezését Bornemissza észrevegye.
– A pozsonyi bírónak köszönjük a meghívást, valamikor tán meg
is szolgáljuk őkegyelmének a nyájasságát. Most még egy kérdést
akarok feltenni Bornemissza uram. Ér annyit a magyar forint, mint a
rajnai forint?
– Igen, – felelte a királyi követ. – A zsidóknak van a számításukra
nézve valamely külön táblázatuk. 2100 magyar forint, amelyet
felséged utazására költöttünk: 2625 rajnai forintot kaptunk Fuggertől.
Ezután már valóban nem volt egyéb teendője Máriának, hogy
elfogadja a pozsonyi bíró ebédjét, aki, ime, fontokban és számokban
közölte vele előre, hogy mit főzetett ebédre. Máriának kedvenc
eledele volt a tehénhus tormával.
*
A pozsonyi bíró ebédjén ott voltak mindazok, akik Máriát
Magyarországra kisérték: a három Brandenburgi, Logus Tamás és
más uraságok is, tehát a pedáns bíró által előre jegyzékbe foglalt
ételek és italok az utolsó cseppig elfogytak. Csodálkoztak is a
pozsonyi urak Mária étvágyán, – fontszámra fogyasztotta a
tehénhust.
– Még növőben van, azért van jóétvágya, – oldotta meg a kérdést
a bíró.
Az urak közül csak Sárkány Ambrus szalai főispán hiányzott, aki
előresietett nagyszarvasi kastélyába, ahol Mária az éjszakát volt
töltendő. Vacsoráról kellett gondoskodni.
A megállapodás az volt, hogy Mária lóháton utazik tovább, hogy
a Dunán kivül lásson egyebet is Magyarországból. A bőséges ebéd
után Mária nagyon örült, hogy nyeregbe ülhetett, mert a kolostorban
is mindig az elhizástól féltették, azért lovagoltatták elég sűrűn, ami
ugyan apácáknál nem szokásos. Lovaglásközben Mária módját
ejtette, hogy a humanista kerüljön melléje a maga szürkéjével.
– Beszéljen nekem valamit Logus mester ama Szapolyairól, aki
ma reggel a hajóra tolakodott.
– Nem igen kell annak tolakodni, mert mindenütt szivesen látják
őt ebben a koldus országban. A legnagyobb rabló, aki nem
válogatós a pénzszerzésben. Ott veszi el, ahol találja. Lopó, csaló,
hamispénzverő. De nagyon gazdag őkelme, tehát senki se mer vele
kikötni. Más országban régen kerékbetörték volna, – felelte
egykedvüen a humanista.
– A király, a primás?…
– A király gyermek, a primás haldoklik, felségednek kellene
rendet csinálni Szapolyaival is, ha érezne magában annyit erőt.
Különösen azóta lett nagy pártja Szapolyai uramnak a nemesség
között, amióta a lázadó pórokat karóba huzatta, Dózsa Györgyöt
tüzesvassal megkoronáztatta. Hitvány ember, király szeretne lenni,
pedig csak bocskorosnak született.
– Kemény katonának látszik…
– Az sokkal könnyebb dolog, mint a könyvekkel harcolni.
Magyarországon mindenki kemény katona, aki még nem merült el
teljesen a részegeskedésben, mint például nádorispán uram maga
is, aki reggeltől estig és estétől reggelig részeg. Sajnos, a
nemességnek nagy része követi nádorispán uram példáját, –
felségednek fogalma sem lehet arról, mekkora ivóedényekből
hajtogatják magukba a bort az emberek Magyarországon.
A három Brandenburgi, aki Mária mögött lovagolt: jól
megjegyezte magának a humanista szavait. Sohasem lehet tudni,
hogy mikor van szükség az ilyesmire.
De már ott is voltak a nagyszarvasi kastélynál, amely inkább
valamely megerősített várhoz hasonlított, a parasztok lázadása óta
ilyen volt minden urilak Magyarországon. Falak és tornyok és a
tornyokban idegennyelvü katonaság, amely nem értette az idevalósi
nyelvet.
– Halat főzettem vacsorára, – ujságolta Sárkány Ambrus uram –
mert a holnapi, pénteki napra való tekintetből bőségesen elláttak
hallal a halászaim. Szereti felséged a halat?
Mária kegyesen mosolygott a bazsarózsás arculatu uriemberre, a
kolostori életmód után valóban nagyszerüek voltak azok a változatos
ételek, amelyekkel Magyarországon traktálták. Jól esett ez a különös
vendégszeretet, amelyről addig fogalma sem lehetett…
Ó, Magyarország, amelyet valaha földi Kánaánnak mondanak:
számtalan hibádat, gyengeségedet, tévedésedet tudod felejteni
egyetlen mosolyoddal! Ó, Magyarország, mily drágalátos tudsz te
lenni, amikor nyájaskodva fogadod az idegent és néki házadat,
asztalodat, barátságodat felajánlod! Ó, Magyarország, van-e még
föld, ahol nagyobb szeretettel fogadnák a vendéget, mint a te
hajlékaidban, – van-e még ország, ahol szivesebben vennék elő
vendégük kedvéért az emberek mindazt, amit maguktól megvontak?
Ó, Magyarország, tudnak-e még másfelé is ugy lelkendezni,
rajongani, boldogoskodni, dédelgetni, simogatni ugy, mint benned,
mikor vendégszerető kedvedben vagy…
Mielőtt vacsorához ült volna a társaság, egy mezítlábas,
zarándokbotu és kardos szerzetes jelentkezett a várkastélyban.
Nyakig poros, bozontos volt, de a hangja harsogott:
– Én most Nándorfejérvár alá megyek. Felszólítok minden
magyart, hogy kövessen a veszélyben lévő Nándorfejérvár alá!
– Üsse kő Nándorfejérvárt, mikor olyan szépséges ifju királynéja
van a magyarnak, amilyen már régen nem volt, – felelt széles
jókedvében Sárkány uram. – Majd elvégzi ott nélkülünk is Tomori
uram. Ülj az asztal végére páter és vigyázz halaknak a szálkáira.
Hiába ellenkezett a szerzetes, Sárkány uram lenyomta őt az
asztalhoz.
Hát azt meg kell adni, hogy remek vacsora volt. A halászlét a
Duna különböző halaiból már akkor is kitünően tudták főzni
Magyarországon. A márnák, sügérek, pontyok, kecsegék jóformán
csak arra szolgáltak, hogy a lének ízt adjanak, mert az igazi
halpecsenye abból a vizából tellett ki, amely a Fekete-tengerből
tévedt fel Komáromig és itt a halászok kifogták őkelmét.
Mária el volt ragadtatva a feketetengeri vizától, ilyent még nem
evett életében.
Csak a pap nyugtalankodott ott az asztalvégen:
– Hát senki se jön velem Nándorba? – fakgatta a szomszédait.
A házigazda végül egy nagy kupa bort állított elébe, azzal a
kikötéssel, hogy addig ne merje kinyitni a száját, amíg egy csepp
van az edényben. Mária ekkor látta színről-színre azokat a
borosedényeket, amelyekből Magyarországon isznak. Meg kell adni,
a hirek nem tulozták az edények nagyságát.
Mária kissé elbágyadt a hatalmas vacsorától, az egésznapi
utazástól, mintegy ködfátyolon át látta, hogy a bortól felhevült urak a
szarvasaggancsos ebédlőből kivetik a Nándorfejérvárra toborzó
zarándokot.
– Már ejtőzni se lehet nyugodtan! – mondta egy bosszus hang.
… Mária elgondolkozva vonult lakosztályába, darabideig
nézegette a magas ablakából a messzi Dunában rengő csillagokat,
(mintha erre az éjszakára a földre szállott volna az égboltozat) aztán
hirtelen elszunnyadt a közeli csalitból hangzó fülemilekoncert mellett.
Álmában az anyját látta, ama Őrült Johannát, aki felemelt kézzel
tiltólag intett felé. Az álom kapujából akkor lépett vissza, amikor a
kastély eresze alatt ezernyi veréb megszólalt, mert bár kőfalakkal,
tornyokkal volt kerítve a kastély, tetőzete mégis csak nádból volt.
Kelet felé világosodott az ég és szél lengette meg a fák szoknyáit. A
messzi Dunáról hajótülök hangzott… Mária megrezzent erre a
tülökhangra, pedig még nem tudta, hogy ez a hajó az, amely éppen
érte jött.
De már délelőtt tisztelegtek az urak, amint mámorukból
kitisztulkodva, kipödörve, kimosakodva felvonultak Mária előtt.
– Felség, a király akarata értelmében a mai napon Komáromból
Esztergomba kell mennünk, ahol felséged özvegy Perényi Imréné
vendége leend. Dorottya nagyasszony már várja felségedet, –
mondá Sárkány uram és csak igen gyönge reggelivel, – amely tejből,
tojásból, vajból, mézből, friss gyümölcsből állott – merészelte
megkinálni Máriát, mert ebédre Dorottya asszonynál lesznek, ami
nem tréfa dolog. (Ettől az özvegyasszonytól mindenki félt az
országban.)
Máriának még csak ideje sem volt megnézni a cik-cak alakban
épült komáromi várat, amely a Dunára volt építve, amikor az
evezősök megint csak rákezdték a maguk monoton dalát és a
naszád repült Máriával és kiséretével.
*
Az özvegy nádorispánné, akit az egész országban csak Dorottya
néven emlegettek: hatalmas asszonyság volt. Típusa ama régi
magyar nagyasszonyoknak, akik akkoriban teremtek
Magyarországon, amikor a férfiaknak a török elleni hadakozások
miatt mind huzamosabb ideig távol kellett lenni otthonuktól, így tehát
az összes gondok az asszonyok nyakába szakadtak.
Dorottyának nagy háza volt Esztergomban, a Perényi-palota
messzi vidékről magábafogadta a nemes kisasszonyokat, akik itt a
nagyasszony felügyele alatt hasznos nevelésben részesültek.
Fonytak, varrtak, himeztek, járatosságra tettek szert minden
házimunkába. Olyik kisasszony, még ha nem tartozott is szorosan az
atyafisághoz, évekig volt a nagyasszony vendége és a Perényi-
házból ment férjhez, miután megvarrta a staffirungját. Boldog
lehetett az a magyar férfi, aki a Perényiné kisasszonyai közül
kaphatott feleséget.
Most is huszonnégy kisasszony volt a háznál a Thurzó-,
Batthiány-, Enyingi Török-, Pekri-, Gyulai-, vingárti Horváth-,
Nádasdy-, Erdődy-, Amadé-, Révai-, Istvánffi-családokból, akik
éppen egy oltárterítő himzésével voltak elfoglalva, amelyet az
esztergomi főesperességnek szántak. Mária már látott ilyesmit az
innsbrucki kolostorban, azért egyszerre otthon érezte magát a
Perényi-házban. A leányok hetenkint felváltva vezették a
nagyasszony konyháját, Dorottyának tehát az volt az első szava,
miután házában a királynét kétoldalt megcsókolta az arcán, hogy
ezen a héten kik a konyhai sorosok. Pekri Kata és Batthiány Julia
jelentkeztek.
– Nem bánom, – mondta a nagyasszony – de vigyázzatok a
csörgőfánkra, mert hátrakötöm a sarkatokat. Ne hozzatok szégyent
a fejemre.
A nagyasszony végigvezette Máriát a házában, megmutatta neki
a mindennap frissen felsurolt, kőporral fehérített szobákat, a
mindenféle nőiruhákkal telirakott vasalt szekrényeket, a komótok
fiókjainak tartalmát az asztalnemüekkel, sőt még az ágy alatt vonuló
fiókokat is kihuzogatta, hogy dicsekedjen az ágynemüjével.
– Egyszerüen élnek Prinijné házában, de van a vendégnek hová
lehajtani a fejét, van miben megtörölni a száját…
Ó, te régi boldog Magyarország, amikor a női ambiciók, álmok,
remények, boldogságok, mind megtalálták a helyüket a ház körül! Ki
láthatta már közülünk azokat a százesztendős ruhákat, amelyeket
kegyelettel őriztek a női szekrényekben és tartósságuknál fogva
bármikor ujat lehetett belőlük varrni? Ki láthatta, hogy milyenek
voltak a régi padlások, ahová még a kisértet sem merte betenni a
lábát az ottani nagy rend miatt? És a régi Magyarország dus
kamráiba ki nyithatott be közülünk, amely kamarák mindig ugy voltak
felszerelve, mintha inséges esztendők következnének? A
baromfiudvarok gazdagságáról, a veteményeskertek
terjedelmességéről és változatosságáról, (ahol tán még a
madárijesztőnek is jódolga volt) a pince bőségéről és a vermek
kincseiről ma már csak régi könyvekben olvashatunk. Ó,
Magyarország, ha lelked telve volt sebesülésekkel és sötét
árnyakkal is: testedet mindig tudtad táplálni, hogy legalább az éhség
ördöge kiméljen meg az ezernyi ördög közül.
Mária most látott tőről való nagyasszonyt először életében és
ezért nem győzött eleget csodálkozni Perényiné fáradhatatlanságán,
gondoskodásán, erélyességén, amint szakadatlanul tett-vett a
házában. Bocsánatot kért a felséges vendégtől, hogy darabidőre
ottfelejti őt a kisasszonyok között, de bizony utána kell nézni a
konyhának, mert hiszen a leányok nem tudhatnak még mindent a
konyha müvészetéből. Persze, nem csak a konyhát járta be
Perényiné, hanem az egész házat, amely egy órára se nélkülözhette
őt. Milyen üresség marad egy ilyen asszony után, ha egyszer az
Uristen elszólítani találja!
A kisasszonyok egynémelyike tudott latinul, mert nem volt ez
abban az időben olyan nagy ritkaság. Ezen a nyelven beszélt Mária:
– Irigylem tőletek a Dominátokat, bezzeg az innsbrucki
fejedelemasszonynak kisebb gondja is nagyobb volt annál, hogy
engem a háztartási dolgokban kioktasson. Mit fogok én csinálni
Budán, amikor majd nyakamba szakadnak a háztartás gondjai?
– Elmegyünk mi segíteni a magyar királynénak! – kiáltotta fel
Thurzó kisasszony és a többi előkelő hölgy is nyomban ajánlkozott,
hogy elmegy Budára segíteni Mária háztartásában.
– Csak egy baj van, hogy én nem vagyok olyan gazdag, mint a
nádorné, akinek bizonyosan sok jó magyar forintot tesz ki a
jövedelme. Az én évi jövedelmem, amelyet nekem apósom, Ulászló,
biztosított, nem tesz ki többet huszonötezer magyar forintnál. És ha
meg van még valahol az a kétszázezer forint, amelyet a nagyapám
adott jegyajándékul. Hát ebből én nem tarthatnék el ilyen háznépet.
Amint ez már fiatal leányoknál szokás, mert hiszen korban
valamennyien a tizenhatodik év körül mozogtak, lett erre nagy
fogadkozás, hogy nincs nekik semmi igényességük, megélnek ők
verébmorzsákon is, csak a királyné mellett maradhassanak.
Perényiné megérkezése vetett véget a jelenetnek.
– A király majd kijelöli a királyné udvarhölgyeit, mert ez az ő
dolga, ti pedig befejezitek az oltárterítőt, mert Oláh Miklós uram már
amugy is duzzog érte. Nem szeretek ujjathuzni a papokkal. A
királyné pedig nem panaszkodhatik az ő szegénységére, mert ugy
tudom, hogy már csak a kelengyéje is olyan, hogy azzal nem
vetekedhetik semmiféle magyar nőé. Brüsszeli csipke, brabanti
selyem, flandriai posztó… amilyent mi Magyarországon sohasem
látunk.
– A kelengyéshajóm elment előre Budára. Vajjon nem éri baj
utközben? – kérdezte Mária.
Perényiné önérzetesen felelt:
– Az ország ugyan nagyon szegény, de a királyné holmijára még
se váshatik senkinek a foga, ha csak annak a rabló Zápolyának
nem, aki előtt semmi sem szent.
Mária ezekből a szavakból megérthette, hogy ennél a háznál
Szapolyai uramat szidni szokás. Nem is hozakodott elő a pozsonyi
találkozással.
*
Megint csak másnap reggel volt indulóban a naszád, amely
Máriát most már végleg Budára viendi, Sárkány uram nem volt
barátja a gyors utazásnak. Meg aztán nem is igen lehet olyan
könnyen elmenni egy ilyen kedves magyar uriházból. Perényiné
örökös ellenség volna.
Csókakalapos, csuklyás, láthatatlan arculatu evezősök vitték
most a naszádot, szélgyorsasággal lefelé a Dunán, török hadifoglyok
voltak ezek, akikkel Tomori uram kedveskedett Máriának. A pilisi
hegyek árnyalakjai borongtak a folyam zöld tükörében, messzire
visszhangzott a víz felett járkáló szél a sűrű erdőségekben, egy
erdővágásnál Mária őzikéket látott átalfutamodni és a Dunának
olyan kanyarodása támadt a hegyek lábánál, mintha örökre
eltévesztette volna utját az ősfolyam. A parton vizivár emelkedett,
bástyáin görögdinnye-fejü vitézek nézegették naphosszat a Dunát.
Sárkány uram tréfálkozó kedvében volt:
– Ha a magyarok megharagusznak a királyukra: idecsukják.
Mária a fogát szívta:
– Remélhetőleg, ez nem fog velünk megtörténni.
Ezután nem is nézegette Mária többé a tájat, behuzódott a
hajóházikóba és mélyen elgondolkozott azokon a dolgokon, amelyek
vele az utóbbi napokban történtek.
Tizenhétéves volt, sok csodálkoznivalót látott még az életen.
MÁSODIK RÉSZ
Lajos
I.
Mátyás király tróntermében
– Felség, – jelentette alkonyodással Sárkány Ambrus – az

unalmas víziutazásnak vége felé járunk, felséged birtokához,
Óbudához közelgünk, kegyeskedjen megtekinteni a birtokát.
– Az apósom jóember volt! Bizonyára ő kisért volna el
utazásomban, ha életben volna, – felelt Mária, mire a pirosarcu
szalai főispán lekonyította a fejét, azt hitte magáról, hogy ő a legjobb
királyné kisérő.
Óbuda kerített város volt, bástyákkal, tornyokkal, kikötővel,
amelyben a királyi naszádok horgonyoztak. Elég gazdagnak látszott
a város, mert minden háznak volt tetője, alig jelentette egy-két
kormos kémény az itten szokásos tűzvészek emlékét.
– Na, végre látni fogom Lajost! – gondolta magában elmerengve
Mária, amint a naszád halkan közelgett a kikötő felé.
A parton valóban paripák és urak látszottak, akik a víz felé
siettek, amikor a naszádot megpillantották.
Sárkány uram a szeméhez emelte tenyerét:
– Ahá, itt vannak a király bizalmasai, Máté László, Batthyány
Ferenc, Rétházi Lukács.
– Hát a király? – kiáltotta szívdobogva Mária.
– Azt bizony nem látom semerre.
– Már megint nem jött értem, – csattant fel Mária.
– Türelem, felség, – esdekelt Sárkány uram. – Talán külföldi
követeket kell fogadni a palotában, vagy pedig uzsorásokkal kell
megbeszélni az ügyeket. Mit tudhassuk mi, hogy mennyi dolga van
egy királynak?
Takaros vitézek voltak a király követei, meglátszott rajtuk, hogy
mindig jótársaságban mozogtak, nem pedig a vad tábori életben.
Először Sárkány uram beszélt velük, amint a naszádról partra ugrott,
a hajósok pedig tolni kezdték a hidat, amelyen majd a királyné a
birtokára lép. A hidon Sárkány uram tért vissza:
– Ugy-e megmondtam, felség, hogy a királynak Fortunátus
Imrével van ügye? Az ezüstnemüeket ki kell váltani Bakócz Tamás
uramtól, – ha ugyan még életben van a primás.
– A kelengyéshajóm megérkezett-e? – kiáltott fel Mária, akinek
szívét egyszerre szörnyü aggodalom lepte meg a holmija miatt.
Hiszen, ha Budán az a divat, hogy az ezüstnemüeket zálogba teszik:
ugyanez megtörténhetik az ő kelengyéjével is.
Sárkány uram nem tudott felelni, de nem is volt már erre idő,
mert a várakozó magyar urak gyors léptekkel a hajóra siettek és
hódolatukat fejezték ki. Elragadtatásukon meglátszott, hogy
mindnyájan gyönyörünek látják Máriát.
A parton hintó állott, amelyen Mária helyet foglalt és lovagjaitól
kisérve elindult uj otthona, Buda felé. Hat tornyot olvasott meg a
városban, amelyeken kereszt is volt, a többi tornyokon nem volt
kereszt. Mutatkoztak emeletes házak, amelyek különböző
szeszélyek szerint hol hátat fordítottak egymásnak, hol meg
összeölelkeztek. Itt-ott bozontos fák voltak láthatók, amelyek néhol
ligetté sűrűsödtek. Az utcákon a rossz kövezet miatt nagyokat
ugrottak a hintó kerekei. Azonkivül meglehetős szemét is
mutatkozott az utcákon, amely itt-ott dombbá emelkedett, ahol a
házak sűrűbbek voltak. Mogorva katonák lökdösték be a kapukon a
lábujjhegyen ágaskodó, kaftános és szakállas zsidókat. A
polgároknak gömbölyü hasuk volt, ami nagyon meglepőnek látszott
ebben a szegényes városban.
Mindenfelé gyaluforgács csüngött le a házereszekről, mintha
mindenütt kocsma volna. Dülöngőzött egy-két részegember is, aki
azonban a lovagok láttára a falhoz lapult, csak mikor már jómesszire
vonult el a menet: kurjantott valamit a maga érthetetlen nyelvén.
De hát hol van a vár, vagy a ház, ahol Mária lakni fog, ahol végre
bezárhatja az ajtókat és élhet magának?
Egy hegynekmenő utcában, ahol valamivel tisztábbak voltak a
házak: nagy lökdösődés keletkezett az ácsorgó polgárok között,
integettek a kalapjaikkal, főleg egy kóbor kutyát akartak elriasztani,
amely rémülten futamodott az ut közepén. A patkócsattogás most
már nem csak a hintó mögött, de a hintó előtt is hallatszott.
Lovagcsapat közelgett. – A király! – kiáltotta egy méla hang a hintó
mögött. Mária azt hitte, hogy a szívverése is megáll, együtt a
kocsikerekekkel.
– Brandenburgi! – kiáltotta most egy csengő, de izgalomtól
némileg fátyolozott hang.
A hintó mögül előugrott az ötvenéves, megtermett, kemény férfi,
aki idáig szótlanul viselkedett a királyné kiséretében. Brandenburgi
György őrgróf volt, aki voltaképpen azért küldetett Innsbruckba, hogy
mindent lásson, amit Sárkány Ambrus uram se látna. Az őrgróf
egyetlen ugrással lepattant óriási lováról és a király elé lépett.
– Minden rendben van a királyné őfelsége körül? – kérdezte most
Lajos remegő hangon, mint aki nem merészel az eseményekkel
szemközt nézni.
– A királyné a hintóban ül, – felelt Brandenburgi György.

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Exploring Children's Suffrage:

Interdisciplinary and Global Perspectives on Intersex

The EMERGENCE OF BANGLADESH interdisciplinary

Ethical Discourse in Finance: Interdisciplinary and

Genes, brain, and emotions: interdisciplinary and

The Children on the Hill Jennifer Mcmahon

The Children on the Hill Jennifer Mcmahon

Children Thirteenth Edition. Edition John W. Santrock

Organization Theories in the Making : Exploring the

Nigel Patrick Thomas

ISSN 2731-6467 ISSN 2731-6475 (electronic)

Part I Theoretical Frameworks 25

Why Not Abandon Age Limits? 50

Part II Historical Contexts 89

Part III Practical Considerations 153

Luigi Campiglio is Professor of Economic Policy at the Catholic

in the City.” Her research is in childhood studies, youth geographies,

Women’s Federation and the UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child

children’s rights. He is the author of Give Children the Vote, Children’s

Fig. 8.1 Society reproduction: generations and income 160

Introduction: Children’s Suffrage Studies

Children under 18 make up a third of the world’s population. There are

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

second-class citizen. And it puts pressure on those in power to take your

child-led groups like KRÄTZÄ in Germany fought numerous campaigns

The Intellectual Context

through into public discourse. The US political scientist Paul Peterson

their political competence, as it would “encourage children to take a

The Conversation Today

(2018, 223). These and other contributions deconstruct widely accepted

My own work, combining political philosophy with childhood studies,

of expression in entirely apolitical terms (2010, 138). And Katherine

as they register their interest with an appropriate authority” (2020, my

The Present Volume

His chapter, “The Enfranchisement of Women vs the Enfranchisement of

childhood studies scholars, historians, sociologists, economists, legal

Cummings, M. (2020). Children’s voices in politics. Peter Lang AG.

Modi, N. (2020). Votes for a better future. Archives of Disease in Childhood,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 27

actually vote even in U.S. presidential elections, far fewer in midterm,

family responsibilities, the complexities of government, and personal prob-

approval is no substitute for the treaty’s compromises or the UN’s lack of

Training for Incompetence

Mátyás király tróntermében

– Felség, – jelentette alkonyodással Sárkány Ambrus – az

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Part I Theoretical Frameworks 25

Why Not Abandon Age Limits? 50

Part II Historical Contexts 89

Part III Practical Considerations 153

Fig. 8.1 Society reproduction: generations and income 160