It will undoubtedly have struck any person, in hearing this passage read from the speech of the Senator from Vermont, whom I regret not to see in his seat to-day, that the whole argument, ingeniously as it is put, rests upon this fallacy—­if I may say so with due respect to him—­that a man cannot have title in property wherever the law does not give him a remedy or process for the assertion of his title; or, in other words, his whole argument rests upon the old confusion of ideas which considers a man’s right and his remedy to be one and the same thing.  I have already shown to you, by the passages I have cited from the opinions of Lord Stowell and of Judge Story, how they regard this subject.  They say that the slave who goes to England, or goes to Massachusetts, from a slave State, is still a slave, that he is still his master’s property; but that his master has lost control over him, not by reason of the cessation of his property, but because those States grant no remedy to the master by which he can exercise his control.

There are numerous illustrations upon this point—­illustrations furnished by the copyright laws, illustrations furnished by patent laws.  Let us take a case, one that appeals to us all.  There lives now a man in England who from time to time sings to the enchanted ear of the civilized world strains of such melody that the charmed senses seem to abandon the grosser regions of earth, and to rise to purer and serener regions above.  God has created that man a poet.  His inspiration is his; his songs are his by right divine; they are his property so recognized by human law; yet here in these United States men steal Tennyson’s works and sell his property for their profit; and this because, in spite of the violated conscience of the nation, we refuse to give him protection for his property.  Examine your Constitution; are slaves the only species of property there recognized as requiring peculiar protection?  Sir, the inventive genius of our brethren of the North is a source of vast wealth to them and vast benefit to the nation.  I saw a short time ago in one of the New York journals, that the estimated value of a few of the patents now before us in this Capital for renewal, was $40,000,000.  I cannot believe that the entire capital, invested in inventions of this character in the United States can fall short of one hundred and fifty or two hundred million dollars.  On what protection does this vast property rest?  Just upon that same constitutional protection which gives a remedy to the slave owner when his property is, also found outside of the limits of the State in which he lives.