EDITOR'S TABLE. 



701 



It was far otherwise in tins country. 

 Slavery created by law was unquestion- 

 ably recognized and protected by the 

 American Constitution. Yet there were 

 provisions in the instrument which, if 

 liberally and humanely interpreted, 

 would have destroyed it. The Consti- 

 tution, however, was construed liter- 

 ally, verbally, and technically, and no 

 question was permitted to be raised in 

 regard to the principles of justice which 

 should underlie all such charters, and 

 which were profusely declared in its 

 preamble to pervade the American 

 Constitution. The written Constitu- 

 tion thus, in fact, became the bulwark 

 of slavery, and was accordingly de- 

 nounced by the passionate reformers 

 as " a league with death and a cove- 

 nant with hell." To go behind the 

 literal constitutional provisions for the 

 protection of slavery was denounced as 

 virtual treason. The question of ab- 

 stract right and wrong was held to be 

 irrelevant and impertinent; the slave 

 system was legal, and therefore not 

 to be meddled with. Henry Clay laid 

 down the American formula upon the 

 subject in the Senate of the United 

 States in 1838, in the following words: 

 " What the law declares to be property 

 is property." This was the lawyer's 

 view, and it was also the people's view ; 

 and it was this triumph of law over 

 right that maintained slavery until, 

 American civilization proving unequal 

 to the contest, it was ended at last by 

 the barbarism of war. 



Equally marked has been the con- 

 trast of the English and American poli- 

 cies on the question of the rights of 

 authors to property in their works. 

 We have referred to this before, but 

 our people can not be reminded of it 

 too often. The question is one of no 

 little perplexity, but very easily be- 

 fogged, and it is well fitted to test 

 statesmanship and national character. 



It had been long felt in England 

 that arrangements upon the subject of 

 copyright, both national and interna- 



tional, were imperfect, and there was a 

 growing demand for their amendment. 

 The government understood its duty in 

 the matter, and a few years ago a parlia- 

 mentary commission was appointed to 

 sift the whole subject, to report upon 

 the deficiency of existing legislation, 

 and what practical measures of im- 

 provement are demanded. The com- 

 mission was ably constituted, and made 

 a deliberate and exhaustive investiga- 

 tion, summoning before it the weighti- 

 est men both at home and abroad, and 

 patiently taking their testimony, what- 

 ever its bearing or import. The report 

 recognized the question as one of na- 

 tional importance, and as involving 

 grave state obligations. There was no 

 quibbling or paltering about the rights 

 of authors. The sophistries of crotchety 

 witnesses were brushed aside, and it 

 was broadly affirmed as a matter of 

 radical justice that when a man pro- 

 duces a book by his labor he has a right 

 to property in it which the government 

 is imperatively bound to protect. The 

 subject, moreover, was lifted out of the 

 sordid sphere of mere political expe- 

 diency, which dominates so widely in 

 international intercourse. The temp- 

 tation was sore to reduce it to the 

 trading basis of reciprocity, but this 

 temptation was firmly resisted. It was 

 felt that, whether America will grant 

 copyright or not, the course of Eng- 

 land is clear. In the report made by 

 the commissioners in 1878, they say: 

 "It has been suggested to us that 

 this country would be justified in tak- 

 ing steps of a retaliatory character, 

 with a view of enforcing, incidentally, 

 that protection from the United States 

 which we accord to them. This might 

 be done by withdrawing from the 

 Americans the privilege of copyright 

 on first publication in this country. 

 We have, however, come to the con- 

 clusion that it is advisable that our law 

 should be based on correct principles, 

 irrespective of the opinions or policy 

 of other nations. We admit the pro- 



