t the manuscript of
an author is an exclusive property? Do you not know that the comparison
you made of a manuscript with a bushel of corn, is the most absurd
comparison? You may buy as many bushels as you please of corn, and sow it
in your own ground, and every one who has land can do it: and after a year
of hard labor, nobody will grudge your profit. And in so doing, the
farmer, from whom you bought the corn, had done before you exactly the
same, and for which he should have no better preference than you. The
production of nature is a providence, and a blessing to us all: but, the
production of man, if not protected by law, it is a curse to man. The work
of a writer is a seed (since you call it a seed) entirely different from
all nature's seeds. And had that genius never written such a production,
the printer could never put his machine at work with which he should have
no other right but to receive a lawful reward for his labor, at the time
it should not be permitted him to pocket the writer's reward also. Because
in a few days he can overflow the whole country with as many copies as he
pleases of a writer's work, who spent ten years in writing it, shall we
permit the printer to do it with impunity? And because I have learned how
to take your money out of your pocket, and you cannot perceive when I do
it, will you permit me to steal your money? The corn comparison against
the International Copy-right, which I read in some newspapers, is a laming
comparison. We have all the same right on a seed of nature. A manuscript
is as good property to the writer, as an original machine to its inventor.
A book is a work of new ideas, originated from man's mind, and not a seed.
A poor writer (and men of genius are generally poor) would never attempt
to write, if the rich printer only, is there to receive the whole benefit
of his own invention. Corn is corn; and a manuscript is a manuscript. An
ignorant is but an ignorant; but, a sophist is an immoral man. That any
one differing from me is an ignorant, a sophist, or a more enlightened
individual than I; it is not for me to decide. My object, is to find out,
here, the truth of this important argument, and not to offend those who do
not, wish not, or cannot agree with me. Nothing, it seems to me, is more
preposterous, than that, which we have read by persons contrary to the
interest of american writers, though, I suppose, many of them may be
honest, with all their singular views on the