d caused him to die loaded down with worries and debts, a broken-down
man, at the age of 60.[98] As for that pretentious body of gentry who
professed to spread enlightenment and who set themselves high and
solemnly on a pinnacle as dispensers of knowledge and molders of public
opinion--the book, periodical and newspaper publishers--their methods at
bottom were as fraudulent as any that Astor ever used. They mercilessly
robbed and knew it, while making the most hypocritical professions of
lofty motives. Buried deep in the dusty archives of the United States
Senate is a petition whereon appear the signatures of Moore, Carlyle,
the two Disraelis, Milman, Hallam, Southey, Thomas Campbell, Sir Charles
Lyell, Bulwer Lytton, Samuel Rogers, Maria Edgeworth, Harriet Martineau
and other British literary luminaries, great or small. In this petition
these authors, some of them representing the highest and finest in
literary, philosophical, historical, and scientific thought and
expression, implore Congress to afford them protection against the
indiscriminate theft of their works by American booksellers. Their
works, they set forth, are not only appropriated without their consent
but even contrary to their expressed desire. And there is no redress.
Their productions are mutilated and altered, yet their names are
retained. They instance the pathetic case of Sir Walter Scott. His works
have been published and sold from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, yet not a
cent has he received. "An equitable remuneration," they set forth,
"might have saved his life, and would, at least have relieved his
closing years from the burdens of debts and destructive toils."[99]

How fares this petition read in the United States Senate on February 2,
1837? The booksellers, magazine, periodical and newspaper publishers
have before succeeded in defeating one copyright bill. They now bestir
themselves again; the United States Senate consigns the petition to the
archives; and the piracy goes on as industriously as ever.

LEGALIZED PIRACY IN ALL BRANCHES OF TRADE.

What else could be expected from a Congress which represented the
commercial and landholding classes? No prodding was needed to cause it
to give the fullest protection to possessions in commerce, land and
negro slaves; these were concrete property. But thought was not
capitalized; it was not a manufactured product like iron or soap.
Nothing can express the pitying contempt or the lofty air of
patron