International Copyright Law, Part I [pp. 7-17]

International Copyright Law.
row the institutions of a country, the entire habits
andi objects of which are singularly adverse to the
leading ideas upon which our own government is
founded. We still, as a people, entertain most of
those feelings of implicit deference for the men
and measures of Great Britain,-her opinions and
some of her worst prejudices-which distinguished
our provincial dependency upon her; and so conscious is she of this fact, that, but recently, within
a few months, one of her leading reviews has had
the audacity to assert, that we cannot confer reputation at all; that domestic opinion, in the United
States, cannot, in Literary History, distinguish a
favorite son;-that the verdict of British authority is absolutely necessary before we can dare
take to our hearts, and acknowledge with pride,
the intellectual achievements of a native. Mr.
Alison, in his recent History of Europe,-a work
in which it is difficult to say whether the ignorance,
or the malignity of the author, in all that concerns
the United States, is greatest,-adds his testimony
to the same effect. He says, "Literature and
intellectual ability of the highest class meet with
little encouragement in America, the names of
Cooper, Channing and Washington Irving, indeed,
amply demonstrate that the American soil is not
wanting in genius of the most elevated and fascinating character, but their works are almost all
published in London-a decisive proof that European habits and ideas are necessary to their due
developmnent."* As if the same writersr and, a
thousand more, were not also published in America! But the assertion, and not its correctness~ is
what we have to deal with. That it is not wholly
correct, we know-that it is sufficiently so, however, to prove the servility of an influential class
among us, and to justify our co mpl aint, is, unhappily, beyond all question. Such a condition of
dependence must always prove a difficult, but not,
I trust, an impassable barrier to the moral progress of any nation which has not gone through an
infancy of its own. Its feelings, tone and character, however different may be its necessities, its
objects, its climate and condition, will still be impressed and determined, in the absence of an independent native Literature, by all the qualities which
marked it as a colony. The mere severance of
that public interest which bound it to the maternal
nation, by no means constitutes mental, or even
political independence; and the enfranchised people, may, in most respects, be as thoroughly, if not
as explicitly, the subject people still, as at that
humiliating period when their proudest distinction
was to prove their loyalty under stripes, and to add
the tribute of free gifts, to the unsparing exactions
of a power of which they felt little but the weight.
It was the policy of the AMother Country then, as
it is her hate now, which sought to keep down the
national intellect, to suppress thinking, to throw
every impediment in the way of knowledge, and
to perpetuate her tyranny over American industry,
by paralyzing, to the utmost extent of her power,
the original energies of American genius. The
declaration against printing presses and newspapers, so bluntly made b_one of the Colonial Governors-Berkeley, of VirgLini a the insidious,
if unavowed, principle of thd!wers which he
represented, in all that related to the concerns of
America. That the colonies should be officered
from abroad-that the provincial should neither
preside in the cabinet, nor command in the field,
was one of the admirable means by which she
contrived for so long a seasoni to maintain this
policy. It was this portion of her scheme, however, more than-any other-more than tea-acts or
stamp-acts, or butcher acts-that led to the final
throwing off of her authority. It was the native
mind of America beginning to assert its claims to
self-government-beginning then, to assert in politics that which the same native mind, within the
last twenty years, has, for the first time, begun
nobly to assert for itself in letters and the arts.
It is still the policy of Great Britain that we should
not succeed in this assertion-that we should still
be her subject province, in one respect, if'not in
all. Her thought, on this sub~ject, is very much
the offspring of her wish!
A native Literature is the means, and the only
mleans, of -our perfect independence. Of the importance of' this agent to a people, and to the Amlerican peo~ple in particular, it may be necessary that
we should fortify our own views, by reference to
those of a deservedly great authority. W e are the
more anxious to do this, as it appears to us that
our people have really but a very imperfect appreciation of the subject, and regard with a strange
*The ability to create, should be, we think, prima facie
evidence of an equal ability to judge of the thing'created.
The country which produces the genius cannot be incapable of determining his degree. One faculty seems inevitably to involve the other. The reflection of a single moment would stifle the absurdity w'hich denies it; and, if it
cannot silence the malignant sneer of our enemies, should
be sufficient to overcome the doubts and cavils of our friends.
Our own people, at least, may learn from the fact a satisfactory lesson of confidence in themselves, which should
tend very much to free them from the usurpations of foreign judgment. But the statement of Mr. Alison, quoted
above, goes one stride further in absurdity. That the writings of certain American authors are published in London,
"is a decisive proof that European habits and ideas are necessary to their due development." It is impossible to say
where that law of logic is to be found, which leads to any
such conclusion. As wyell may we say that, as the writings
of Walter Scott and Bulwer are published in New York,
it is "a decisive proof that American habits and ideas are necessary to their due development." The fact is, that this view
of the case presents an additional argument in its favor,
derived from the greater diffusion of their books among us
than is probably the case in England. The number of copies in an American edition of a successful novel writer
is very far greater usually than the English editions-a fact
arising not from any superior appreciation of the merits of the
author, but simply from the greater cheapness of the volumes.
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