from diversification of employments; from bringing consumers and producers
close together; and from thus stimulating the activity of the societary
circulation. Both decline as producers and consumers become more widely
separated and as the circulation becomes more languid, as is the case in
all the countries now subjected to the British free trade influence. Let
American authors then unite in asking of Congress the establishment of a
fixed and steady policy which shall have the effect of giving us that
industrial independence without which there can be neither political nor
literary independence. That once secured, they would thereafter find no
need for asking the establishment of a system of taxation which would
prove so burdensome to our people as, in the end, to be ruinous to
themselves.

H. C. C.

PHILADELPHIA,_
Dec_. 1867.

LETTERS

ON

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.

LETTER I.

Dear Sir:--You ask for information calculated to enable you to act
understandingly in reference to the international copyright treaty now
awaiting the action of the Senate. The subject is an important one, more
so, as I think, than is commonly supposed, and being very glad to see that
it is now occupying your attention, it will afford me much pleasure to
comply, as far as in my power, with your request.

Independently of the principle involved, it seems to me that the course
now proposed to be pursued is liable to very grave objection. It is an
attempt to substitute the action of the Executive for that of the
Legislature, and in a case in which the latter is fully competent to do
the work. For almost twenty years, Congress has been besieged with
applications on the subject, but without effect. Senate Committees have
reported in favor of the measure, but the lower House, composed of the
direct representatives of the people, has remained unmoved. In despair of
succeeding under any of the ordinary forms of proceeding, its friends have
invoked the legislation of the Executive power, and the result is seen in
the fact, that the Senate, as a branch of the Executive, is now called
upon to sanction a law, in the enactment of which the House of
Representatives could not be induced to unite. This may be, and doubtless
is, in accordance with the letter of the Constitution, but it is so
decidedly in opposition to its spirit that, even were there no other
objection, the treat