The Arkansas banner., 1844-03-27
From De Southern Literary Messenger.
 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW.
feoNc1unrpD

Ii was natural enough that, in the newly horn passion for thorough independence,
 which distinguished the feelings of our peo- nle at the close of the war of 1Si2,--and
 ,vbcb led 10 the adoption of a government system for the protection of domestic manu- faeures.--the policy which this feeling de- clared. should also extend itself to other ob- ;eets than those which concerned the physi- cal being only. The policy which declared for making our own woollens, necessarily gave some thought 10 books. But no such protection was afforded by government to this branch of domestic industry. The no- ton seems to have been, if our bodies are free from foreign dominion. t matters little that our thoughts, our feelings, our souls, should still remain in bondage. The noble and emphatic sentiment, already quoted, of Dr. Channing,-'' H,e say, let others spin and weave for us, but let them not think for us ''-suggesting, as it does, the only great, true and patrotic principle, upon which the opinions of citizen should be moulded, i'll all that concerns such relation, would have shocked the genius of the spinning Jenny, and caused the throes of moral earthquake in every manufacturing mart from Passama- quoddv to Pittsburg. The slavish nature, however, which thus preferred the most or dnary interests of humanity, to those which are calculated to lift 1t into excellence, and ,o the rarer walks of achievement, was re- buked by the better genius of the nation : and, withoutany protection from government, without tax on any other branch of busi- ness, that of American Literature was begun. To the genius of Fennimore Cooper, we feel fl,o fire eff -4,f power, the first unfoldings oiea wing, which has since scared so famously, and which is destined to still higher flights, if not denied and delayed by untoward and unlrendly cir cumstance The first writings of this author appeared in 1Sl9 How closely upon the foot steps of war! How soon was the question of the British Reviewer-'swho reads an American book Unanswered by the writer, whose works, but few years after, were read in the language every nation in Christ endom! As if to illustrate the contest thro' which the nation had just gone, and to main tain the vigorous spirit which she had shown in dealing with an enemy equally insolent and powerful, the earliest work of his pen, which drew the eyes of the country upon him, was founded upon events in the great struggle, with the same enemy, in l776 !-- The publication of ssThe Spy,o which was the work in question, had an effect upon the American people, infinitely beyond any plea sure which they might have gathered from its perusal, as romance. ltwas contempo- raneons, in publication, with ssI'he Pirateo of Waiter Scotia work which did not give such ample development to the powers of its author, and thus afforded an additional tn dorF To ,cfi- tute comparisons between them, not unlavor- able to the native writer Even as success full imitation only of Sir Walter Scott, il was an event to rejoice youthful people, hither- to doubtful of their resources-aay, denying them-ashamcd, for the first time, of their own previous unperformance, and soleitious of fame in new departments ,-when they discovered, suddenly rising in their midst, a genius-untii then unknown-full of vigor, and marching, with admirable bearing, upon the very track hitherto trodden only by the 'sGreat Unknown!' The event opened the eyes of the nation, already anxious to give the lieto the scorniul reproach of incapacity, urged, not more by the British reviewer, than the European reader. Her eyes suddenly became unscaled, purged, like those of the eagle, whose mighty youth had been mewed up; and the universal feeling of her people might be compared, without extravagance of figure, to that of the explorer,--long des- bonding, wearied in his search and hopeless of success,-who, at the least expected moment, sees land !-sees the green slopes, the wild gorgeous shrubbery, and the huge mountains of the unknown empire, suddenly standing out upon his sight! The ssanch 10 son pit -<~f q, | ours. We, too, could have our possessions in the intellectual, as ill the natural world All was not a blank in taste and Literature Europe shall yet receive us, and we shall have our word in her high places of polite ness and refinement. The conviction, that we too might put i'll our claims to appear among those nations which had long before been endowed with the universal tongues of art and song, was one oi those convictions that never sleep until they have realized all the proofs which are necessary to the iul establishment and recognition of their pre- tensions.
 1t does not initiate against the claim here advanced for Mr. Cooper to show that the novels of Charles Broclden Brown-works Ell fiction of a rarely imaginative and highly original complexion-were published in America so far back as l798, 1901. We could show, with little difficulty, that there were other names of men of genius, at periods equally remote, by whom-the mere date of their publication being alone coasidered-the writings of Mir. Cooper were anticipated.- But, so far as their effect upon the public taste and spirit is concerned, they might as well have remained unpublished to this day
 Their works had no circulation, did not. in the least degree, affect the popular feeling, and prompted no farther search after a vein which was equally rich in quantity aud kind. It IS to their misfortune and to the reproach of the country that this was the case But the truth IS. the nation ayas not prepared 10 recognise is o,en gemus-had not then the courage to assert genius at all, without frs, securing tie British ;;:a.srimatnr Her train ing for this, from necessity, the hands of the