arties are ruled by cabals. Thus
the greatest national measures, instead of originating with the
people, and taking shape in the hands of their servants, are begotten
in closets and conclaves, dictated to time-servers and adventurers,
and forced on the people, they cannot tell how--but in the name of
democracy and freedom. Yet, after all, public opinion is important,
because when even demagogues are inclined to do right, it is fatal to
their action if public opinion be wrong. For this reason, it may be
well for you to understand how far public opinion has advanced with
regard to our question. Its progress has been slow, but I believe
always in the right direction. Things promised well, when the Oregon
dispute became the occasion of an unnatural animosity against Great
Britain, and every measure which she was supposed to approve. In the
hurly-burly of wind and dust that was blown up under that passing
cloud, it is not to be wondered that Dickens and copyright were as
completely forgotten as orthography, etymology, syntax and prosody,
and whatever else goes to the art of using language correctly. A strip
of land that would not purchase the copyright of an almanac, became
the subject of the fiercest congressional interest; and the rights of
authors, and with them the noblest relations of the republic to the
other estates of the world, for the time were wholly lost sight of.
"Copyright" then passed into a watchword with some of those underlings
of literature, who thought to ride into favour as Cobden has been
carried into fortune, by taking the tide at its ebb and ("like little
wanton boys that swim on bladders") invoking the flood, as if their
yelping and outcries would bring the turn any sooner. A copyright club
was got up, it is said by a mere clique in this city, to which, from
the mere justice of its proposed ends, large numbers of respectable
men, throughout the country, gave in their nominal adhesion. I am not
aware that it has accomplished any other result than to favour some
ambitious young gentlemen in acquiring the autographs of eminent
persons abroad, with whom they opened an officious correspondence; for
it has been very generally voted a humbug, and has served to disgust
many with the very sound of "copyright," which has thus been degraded
into harmony with the scream of "Repeal" and "Free Trade." For awhile,
none joined the vociferation, according to my informant, but persons
whose stake in literary property w