Assuredly not.  The bookseller, then?  Will he not use his power in reference to foreign books precisely as he does now in regard to domestic ones?  If he deems it now expedient to sell a 12mo volume for a dollar or a dollar and a quarter, is it probable that the ratification of this treaty will open his eyes to the fact that it would be better for him to sell Mr. Dickens’s works at fifty cents than at three dollars?  Scarcely so, as I think.  It is now about thirty years since the “Sketch Book” was printed, and the cheapest edition that has yet been published sells for one dollar and twenty-five cents.  “Jane Eyre” contains probably about the same quantity of matter, and sells for twenty-five cents.  Of the latter, about 80,000 have been printed, costing the consumers $20,000; but if they were to purchase the same quantity of the former, they would pay for them $100,000; difference, $80,000.  What, now, would become of this large sum?  But little of it would reach the author; not more, probably, than $10,000.  Of the remaining $70,000, some would go to printers, paper-makers, and bookbinders, and the balance would be distributed among the publisher, the trade-sale auctioneers, and the wholesale and retail dealers; the result being that the public would pay five dollars where the author received one, or perhaps the half of one.  We have here the real cause of difficulty.  The monopoly of copyright can be preserved only by connecting it with the monopoly of publication.  Were it possible to say that whoever chose to publish the “Sketch Book” might do so, on paying to its author “a few cents,” the difficulty of this double monopoly would be removed; but no author would consent to this, for he could have no certainty that his book might not be printed by unprincipled men, who would issue ten thousand while accounting to him for only a single thousand.  To enable him to collect his dues, he must have a monopoly of publication.

It may be said that if he appropriate to his use any of the common property of which books are made up, and so misuse his privilege as to impose upon his readers the payment of too heavy a tax, other persons may use the same facts and ideas, and enter into competition with him.  In no other case, however, than in those of the owners of patents and copyrights, where the public recognizes the existence of exclusive claim to any portion of the common property, does it permit the party to fix the price at which it may be sold.  The right of eminent domain is common property.  In virtue of it, the community takes possession of private property for public purposes, and frequently for the making of roads.  Not unfrequently it delegates to private companies this power, but it always fixes the rate of charge to be made to persons who use the road.  This is done even when general laws are passed authorizing all who please, on compliance with certain forms, to make roads to suit themselves.  In such cases, limitation would seem to be unnecessary,