But suppose that we continue to write (as we shall, depend on it), and that our impracticable Congress--from the difficulty of getting it to look at any question not bearing upon "Who is to be the next President?" or from the general apathy in regard to the injuries of authors, and want of perception as to the important interests of the heart--will not or does not pass an international copyright law, what sense or what honesty will there be in your strangling yourselves meanwhile by permitting Mr. Bohn his black-flag reprisals? Whom do you injure by this species of retaliation? First, and chiefly, your own authors and publishers, and your own literature (and, therefore, you must abandon such a policy sooner or later); and next, your friends on this side the water. For what does our government care if our native authors, even of the highest ability, earn less than common stevedores? Not a rush. Do the people enjoy our works with a less magnanimous gusto, because we have coined our brains and hearts in composing them for bread and patched elbows? Will they be less, in their own estimation, the greatest, the freest, the wisest, and the most enlightened nation upon earth? You retaliate, gentlemen, by injuring those whose sufferings (greater than yours) are already disregarded by the power you would influence; and if you ruined them, you would not ruffle one self-complacent feather of the American eagle. You but do what you can to depress and extinguish the only class of Americans who have a direct interest in getting you what you want, and who are already as eager to obtain it as men usually are to protect themselves from ruinous competition. I do not know what you expect from such a method, unless you think that our government, which has no pity on its native men of letters, will be touched by the distresses of yours.
Believe me, further, that it is the most unlikely way to succeed with the American people, to offer them an international copyright as a matter of bargain. They immediately suspect a design of obtaining an advantage for you, without any real equivalent to themselves. Show them, by granting a free and perfect copyright to all the world, on the same terms as your own subjects, that you regard such a course as the true policy of every state (which it is), and you will be much more likely to gain a hearing. I see nothing in this movement against foreigners getting a copyright, but selfishness overreaching itself.