Memoir of the Life of Eli Whitney. 247 



will despise it : the weak and visionary only will be decoyed by it, 

 and your patent office will be filled with rubbish. The number of 

 those who succeed in bringing into operation really useful and im- 

 portant improvements, always has been, and always must be, very 

 small. It is not probable that this number can ever be as great as 

 one in a hundred thousand. It is therefore impossible that they can 

 ever exert upon the community an undue influence. There is, on 

 the contrary, much probability and danger that their rights will be 

 trampled on by the many." 



Notwithstanding these cogent arguments, the application was re- 

 jected by Congress. Some liberal minded and enlightened men 

 from the cotton districts, favored the petition ; but a majority of the 

 members from that section of the Union, were warmly opposed to 

 granting it. 



In a correspondence with the late Mr. Robert Fulton, on the same 

 subject, Mr. Whitney observes as follows: — The difficulties with 

 which I have had to contend have originated, principally, in the want of 

 a disposition in mankind to do justice. My invention was new and 

 distinct from every other : it stood alone. It was not interwoven 

 with any thing before known ; and it can seldom happen that an in- 

 vention or improvement is so strongly marked, and can be so clearly 

 and specifically identified ; and I have always believed, that I should 

 have had no difficulty in causing my rights to be respected, if it had 

 been less valuable, and been used only by a small portion of the 

 community. But the use of this machine being immensely profitable 

 to almost every planter in the cotton districts, all were interested in 

 trespassing upon the patent right, and each kept the other in counte- 

 nance. Demagogues made themselves popular by misrepresentation, 

 and unfounded clamors, both against the right, and against the law 

 made for its protection. Hence there arose associations and combi- 

 nations to oppose both. At one time, but few men in Georgia dared 

 to come into court, and testify to the most simple facts within their 

 knowledge, relative to the use of the machine. In one instance, I 

 had great difficulty in proving that the machine had been used in 

 Georgia, although, at the same moment, there were three separate 

 setts of this machinery in motion, within fifty yards of the building 

 in which the court sat, and all so near that the rattling of the wheels 

 was distinctly heard on the steps of the court house."* 



* In one of his trials, Mr. Whitney adopted the following plan, in order to show 

 how nugatory were the methods of evasion practised by his adversaries. They 



