There is, lastly, that provision of the Constitution which gives Congress power to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing to authors and inventors, for a limited time, an exclusive right to their own writings and discoveries.  Congress has exercised this power, and made all the provisions which it deemed useful or necessary.  The States may, indeed, like munificent individuals, exercise their own bounty towards authors and inventors, at their own discretion.  But to confer reward by exclusive grants, even if it were but a part of the use of the writing or invention, is not supposed to be a power properly to be exercised by the States.  Much less can they, under the notion of conferring rewards in such cases, grant monopolies, the enjoyment of which is essentially incompatible with the exercise of rights possessed under the laws of the United States.  I shall insist, however, the less on these points, as they are open to counsel who will come after me on the same side, and as I have said so much upon what appears to me the more important and interesting part of the argument.

[Footnote 1:  1 Laws U.S., p. 28, Bioren and Duane’s ed.]

[Footnote 2:  1 Laws U.S., p. 50.]

[Footnote 3:  Chancellor Livingston.]

[Footnote 4:  1 Black.  Com. 273; 4 Black.  Com. 160.]

THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE BUNKER
HILL MONUMENT AT CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS, ON THE 17TH OF JUNE, 1825.

[As early as 1776, some steps were taken toward the commemoration of the battle of Bunker Hill and the fall of General Warren, who was buried upon the hill the day after the action.  The Massachusetts Lodge of Masons, over which he presided, applied to the provisional government of Massachusetts, for permission to take up his remains and to bury them with the usual solemnities.  The Council granted this request, on condition that it should be carried into effect in such a manner that the government of the Colony might have an opportunity to erect a monument to his memory.  A funeral procession was had, and a Eulogy on General Warren was delivered by Perez Morton, but no measures were taken toward building a monument.

A resolution was adopted by the Congress of the United States on the 8th of April, 1777, directing that monuments should be erected to the memory of General Warren, in Boston, and of General Mercer, at Fredericksburg; but this resolution has remained to the present time unexecuted.

On the 11th of November, 1794, a committee was appointed by King Solomon’s Lodge, at Charlestown,[1] to take measures for the erection of a monument to the memory of General Joseph Warren at the expense of the Lodge.  This resolution was promptly carried into effect.  The land for this purpose was presented to the Lodge by the Hon. James Russell, of Charlestown, and it was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies on the 2d of December, 1794.  It was a wooden pillar of the Tuscan order, eighteen feet in height, raised on a pedestal eight feet square, and of an elevation of ten feet from the ground.  The pillar was surmounted by a gilt urn.  An appropriate inscription was placed on the south side of the pedestal.