s written, and he should have equal right to leave to them
that mental product which constitutes the true money value of his labor.
It is unnecessary to say that the mental product is always as easy to be
identified as the physical product. Its identification is absolutely
certain to the intelligence of judges and juries. And it is apparent that
the interests of assignees, who are commonly publishers, are equal with
those of authors, in making absolute and perpetual this property in which
both are dealers.

Another consideration follows here. Why should the ownership of a bushel
of wheat, a piece of silk goods, a watch, or a handkerchief in the
possession of an American carried or sent to England, or brought thence
to this country, be absolute and unlimited, while the ownership of his
own products as an author or as a purchaser from an author is made
dependent on his nationality? Why should the property of the manufacturer
of cloths, carpets, satins, and any and every description of goods, be
able to send his products all over the world, subject only to the tariff
laws of the various countries, while the author (alone of all known
producers) is forbidden to do so? The existing law of our country says to
the foreign author, "You can have property in your book only if you
manufacture it into salable form in this country." What would be said of
the wisdom or wild folly of a law which sought to protect other American
industries by forbidding the importation of all foreign manufactures?

No question of tariff protection is here involved. What duty shall be
imposed upon foreign products or foreign manufactures is a question of
political economy. The wrong against which authors should protest is in
annexing to their terms of ownership of their property a protective
tariff revision. For, be it observed, this is a subject of abstract
justice, moral right, and it matters nothing whether the author be
American, English, German, French, Hindoo, or Chinese,--and it is very
certain that when America shall enact a simple, just, copyright law,
giving to every human being the same protection of law to his property in
his mental products as in the work of his hands, every civilized nation
on earth will follow the noble example.

As it now stands, authors who annually produce the raw material for
manufacturing purposes to an amount in value of millions, supporting vast
populations of people, authors whose mental produce rivals and exceed