shers.

In the fall of 1868 Mr. J. D. Baldwin, member of Congress from
Worcester, Mass., reported a bill that had been prepared with the
co-operation of the Executive Committee of the Copyright Association,
which provided, That a foreign work could secure a copyright in this
country provided it was wholly manufactured here and should be issued
for sale by a publisher who was an American citizen. The benefit of
the copyright was also limited to the author and his assigns.

The bill was recommitted to the Joint Committee on the Library, and no
action was taken upon it. The members of this Committee were Senators
E. D. Morgan, of New York, Howe, of Wisconsin, and Fessenden, of
Maine, who were opposed to the measure, and Representatives Baldwin,
of Massachusetts, Pruyn, of New York, and Spalding, of Ohio, who were
in favor of it. The bill was also to have been supported in the House
by Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana. Mr. Baldwin explains that an important
cause for the shelving of the measure without debate was the
impeachment of President Johnson, which was at that time absorbing the
attention of Congress and the country. No general expression of
opinion was therefore elicited upon the question from either Congress
or the people, and in fact the question has never reached such a stage
as to enable such an expression of public opinion to be arrived at.

It is my own belief that if the issue were fairly presented to them,
the American people could be trusted to decide it honestly and wisely.

The active members of the committee of the Copyright Association,
under whose general suggestions this bill of Mr. Baldwin's had been
framed, were Dr. S. Irenaeus Prime, George P. Putnam, and James Parton.
Dr. Prime published in _Putnam's Magazine_ in May, 1868, a paper on
the "Right of Copyright," which remains perhaps the most concise and
comprehensive statement of the principles governing the question, and
which sets forth very clearly the necessary connection between Carey's
denial of the right of property in books and Proudhon's claim that all
property is robbery. In 1871 Mr. Cox of New York introduced a bill
which was practically identical with Mr. Baldwin's measure, and which
was also recommitted to the Library Committee. In 1872 the new Library
Committee called upon the publishers and others interested to aid in
framing a bill.

A meeting of the publishers was called in New York, which was attended
by but one firm outside of N