which said that neither Great Britain nor the United States should ever buy, annex, colonize, or acquire any portion of Central America. I said I would never consent to a treaty with any foreign power, pledging ourselves not to do in the future whatever interest or necessity might compel us to do. I was then told by veteran Senators, as my distinguished friend well knows, that Central America was so far off that we should never want it. I told them, 'Yes; a good way off-half way to California, and on the direct road to it.' I then said it was our right and duty to open all the highways between the Atlantic and the Gulf States and our possessions on the Pacific. I said I would enter ihto no treaty with Great Britain or any other government concerning the affairs of the American continent. And here, without a breach of confidence, I may be permitted to state a conversation which took place at that time between myself and the British Minister, Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, on that point. He took occasion to reason with me that my position with regard to the treaty was unjust and untenable; that the treaty was fair, because it was reciprocal; and it was reciprocal, because it pledged that neither Great Britain nor the United States would ever purchase, colonize, or acquire any territory in Central America. I told him it would be fair if they would add one word to the treaty-so that it should read, that neither Great Britain nor the United States should ever occupy or hold dominion over Central America or Asia. But he said: 'You have no interests in Asia.' 'No,' said I; 'and you have none in Central America.' 'But,' said he, 'you can never establish any rights in Asia.' 'No,' said I; 'and we don't mean that you shall ever establish any in America.' I told him it would be no more disrespectful for us to ask that pledge in reference to Asia, than for Great Britain to ask it from us in reference to Central America."

That this was the correct view of the policy involved in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 is to-day unquestioned and indisputable; and that every consideration of sound policy, of national security, and of American progress, demand its immediate abrogation, is equally well established. The

whole country calls for its repeal; but the diplomatists say

not now." They urge a little more time, and assign as a reason, that action may offend England. It is hoped they will be overwhelmed by the popular voice, and that the resolutions introduced into the Senate by Mr. Clingman, at the commencement of the present session of Congress, be adopted. The arguments employed in the Senate in support of his resolutions, looking to the abrogation of this treaty, are unanswerable and must prevail. All efforts, in any other direction, to establish our policy in relation to Central America, since the ratification of the treaty in question, have signally failed. Without disrespect to the memory of two justly distinguished American statesmen, we hold that Daniel Webster was not a diplomatist, and that Wm. L. Marcy was too dilatory and apprehensive; yet their failure to adjust this question is attributable, in a great degree, to the difficulties presented in the compromise of our Government by the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. We, however, very much regret Mr. Marcy's refusal, while Secretary of State, to accept the treaty concluded by Mr. Wheeler, which was one of the best ever offered by Nicaragua.

Whether attributable to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty or to some other cause, it is certain that neither of these great men accomplished anything advantageous to the United States in their action on Central American affairs during their respective terms at the head of the Cabinets of Presidents Fillmore and Pierce, although Mr. Webster made a vigorous effort to arrange the subject with Great Britain, imitating too nearly, however, the example of Secretary Clayton in his treatment of the same matter. Secretary Webster drafted a long and ambiguons schedule of conditions, which was assented to by England, but repudiated by the Central American authorities, who appeared better to comprehend their interest, and the interest of the United States, than did those who were entrusted with our national affairs; for, had the treaty here referred to -projected between Secretary Webster and Mr. Crampton, British Minister-been ratified by the Central American States, it would only have had the effect to still further com

plicate the question, and all similar efforts to treat with parties having no legitimate interest in the matter, will meet with the same termination, and prove alike nugatory and inconclusive.

President Buchanan and his distinguished Secretary, General Cass, have taken this matter of Central America, together with Mexico and Cuba, in hand with an earnestness which it is hoped will prove more successful than the efforts made by their predecessors.

It is proper here to remark the position of that great general and statesman, Senator Houston, of Texas; who, anti-. cipating the necessities of the case and the duty of the Administration, proposed at the last session of the United States Senate the plan of a general American Protectorate over Mexico.

The arguments upon which this proposition was then predicated, have been amply affirmed in the developments of the last twelve months, and are fully supported also in the testimony of Mr. Forsyth, American Minister in Mexico, whose policy is understood to be in conformity with that announced by General Houston, and who holds to the necessity of a universal Protectorate, as the only effective means of protecting the rights of American citizens in Mexico and on the frontier, and also of redeeming that unfortunate Republic from the perils of revolution and anarchy.

No time should be lost either by the Executive Governmen or by Congress in bringing these questions to a final conclusion. France, England, and Spain are combining to forestall our absolute national rights. Neither England nor France have the least color of title to jurisdiction or governmental control, in respect to the subjects in question, on this Continent. Spain alone has any interest, and with her we are prepared to treat. A bold attitude must be opened by our Government, and such a policy maintained as will meet the approbation and satisfy the demands of the American people.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT THE CLAIMS OF LITERATURE.

THE

THE recent Literary Congress of Brussels (having for its object the settlement of National and International Copyright, and the establishment of a fixed basis for the compensation of authors), has again drawn the attention of the public to a question which, though often discussed, has never been satisfactorily solved. When we consider the number of conflicting interests involved, and that those in whose name legislation is asked are not the only real parties interested, the maze of complication becomes still more intricate. Instead of one individual to arrest our sympathy and challenge our commiseration, we have four: all deserving, all complaining, all impossible to satisfy.

First comes the Foreign Author, foreign only because divided from us by the trackless ocean, but united to us by the ties of a common origin, a common language, and mutual literature. He points to the garbled edition of his works, which we hold in our hand, and either entreats us to pay our fee of admission into the gardens of fancy which he has laid out, cultivated, and enclosed; or, taking higher ground, reproaches us for not giving him a fair hearing by requiring an unmutilated and certified edition of his works. Whilst we are on the point of yielding to the apparent justice of his claim, the American publisher hastens to explain that this plaintive author has already parted with all property in the fruits of his genius in favor of the foreign publisher, and that any legislation on the subject whilst it would only add to the already boundless wealth of the latter, would be depriving hundreds of our own people of the honest and honorable support they now derive from the manufacture of paper, types, and the various appliances for the production of books. He tells of the millions of minds needing intel

lectual culture and anxiously devouring the cheap editions of standard works, which his predatory excursions into the camp of his rival enable him to bring back, and feelingly asks, whether, to satisfy a few greedy cormorants, we would arrest the march of mental progress. The American author, except where, in rare instances, his reputation has become world-wide, complains that his works are unheeded, or scorned, by the reading public of Europe, and demands that vengeance be taken on the writers for the contempt of the readers; whilst again the British publisher proclaims himself ready and anxious to introduce our literature to his countrymen provided he can do so without pecuniary loss.

In spite of the vehemence of self-interest with which all parties uphold their claims, we cannot lose sight of the great principle of justice which gives a man the reward of his labor.

The time when a crown of leaves was a tribute worthy to repay the productions of Homer has passed away, and it has gone by from the fact that the march of civilization is always to be measured by the enhanced appreciation of the value of property, suggesting a different reward. This appreciation proves our superiority over the boasted nations of antiquity who were but one degree removed from the nomadic tribes whose achievements they sang, and we doubt not that most of their refinement is gathered from the halo of time. The first yearning which civilized man experiences is the desire for property.

Property may be defined as the right inherent in every man to the unrestricted possession and disposition of such evidences of value, as he has acquired by industry, inheritance, or purchase. Whilst all men agree that land, reduced to possession, is inalienable, without the consent of him to whom it belongs, except by process of law, and whilst barriers of every kind are set up to shut out every intrusion upon the ownership of the objects of material industry, the articles forged in the workshop of the brain, the hard-earned results of sleepless nights and hours of anxious study, have ever been subject to the predatory attacks of the avaricious and designing.