territories, and by the Vice-President, the secretary of the Senate, and clerk of the House of Representatives, during their official terms.

$265. The heads of the executive departments and commissioners of the different offices and bureaus are also authorized to send and receive free all letters and packages upon official business, but not their private letters or papers. Deputy postmasters may send free all letters and packages relating exclusively to the business of their offices; and those whose compensation did not exceed $200 for the year ending June 30, 1846, may also send and receive free all letters on their own private business.

§ 266. Acts of Congress, except in a few cases, prohibit the conveyance by private expresses, of letters or other mailable matter (except newspapers, magazines, periodicals, or 'pamphlets) from one place to another in the United States, between which the mail is regularly transported.

§ 267. Congress has, in some instances, exercised its power of actually making post-roads, but it has generally selected and established as post-roads those roads which are already in use throughout the country. Waters on which steamboats regularly pass from port to port, the navigable canals of the several States, and all railroads in the United States, are also declared to be post-roads.

[Clause 8.] "To promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

$268. This power was not granted to Congress by the Articles of Confederation. It is vested in Congress by the Constitution, because the laws enacted by that body will

operate uniformly throughout the whole country; if vested in the States, they might establish different systems, which, by coming into conflict, and thus occasioning difficulties, would defeat the result intended to be attained.

§ 269. The object of the clause is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. The means to be employed, are the securing for limited times to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries. A similar provision exists in England by act of Parliament, and extends to those who introduce from abroad new inventions and discoveries into England, provided they are new within the realm. This clause of the Constitution is not applicable to those who introduce new discoveries into the United States from abroad; it protects nope but the first and original inventors and discoverers.

$270. Letters patent are granted by the United States to the inventors or discoverers of any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement on any art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, not known or used by others. before the applicant's discovery or invention thereof, and which has not been in public use, or on sale, with the consent or allowance of the applicant, for more than two years prior to the application for a patent.

§271. There is attached to the department of the interior, an office denominated the patent-office, the chief officer of which is called the commissioner of patents, who is to receive applications for patents, and to superintend or perform all things respecting the granting and issuing of patents, according to the various acts of Congress. There are engaged in the patent-office a number of clerks called examiners, whose duty it is to investigate the originality

and novelty of every invention for which a patent is solicited.

§ 272. The patent is an official document issued from the patent-office in the name of the United States, signed by the secretary of the interior and by the commissioner of patents, and sealed with the seal of the patent-office. It contains the title of the invention or discovery, and grants to the applicant and his heirs or assigns, for the term of fourteen years, the full and exclusive right and liberty of making, using, and vending to others to be used, the invention or discovery claimed.

§ 273. There is annexed to the patent a full description of the invention by the inventor, called the specification, together with drawings where the nature of the case admits of drawings. The specification must set forth a particular description of the invention or discovery, and the manner and process of making the same, in such full, clear, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it relates, to make and use it.

§ 274. The applicant must fully explain in his specification the principles of his invention, and particularly specify and point out the part, improvement, or combination claimed by him as new. He must also furnish a model, together with drawings in all cases which admit of them, and make oath that he verily believes he is the original and first inventor of that which he seeks to patent.

§ 275. Upon the receipt of the application, specification, drawings, and model, the commissioner causes an examination of the invention or discovery to be made by one of the examiners attached to the patent-office, and if upon such examination the application appears to be wellfounded, he issues a patent; if not, he rejects the applica

tion. The cost of a patent to a citizen of the United States is thirty dollars. Patentees are required to stamp on each article offered for sale, the date of the patent.

§ 276. In cases where the invention is new and useful, and is valuable and important to the public, and the inventor has not been adequately remunerated, notwithstanding he has used diligence in introducing his invention into use, the commissioner of patents is authorized, at the expiration of the fourteen years for which the patent originally issued, to extend it for an additional period of seven years.

§ 277. The authors of books, maps, charts, and musical compositions, and the inventors and designers of prints, cuts, and engravings, being citizens of the United States or residents therein, are entitled to the exclusive right of printing, publishing, and selling them, for the term of twenty-eight years. If the author be living, and a citizen of the United States, or a resident therein, at the end of that term, or if he shall have died and left a widow or children living, he or they are entitled to a renewal of the same exclusive right for the further period of fourteen years. This exclusive privilege is termed a copyright.

§ 278. The author or proprietor, in order to obtain a copyright, must, before publication, deposit a printed copy of the title of the book, map, or engraving, etc., in the office of the clerk of the district court of the United States in the district wherein such author or proprietor shall reside; and then within three months after publishing the book or other work, he must deliver a copy of it to the clerk of the court, who is required to transmit it to the Secretary of State, to be preserved in his office. The author must also, within the same period, deliver one copy to the

Smithsonian Institute at Washington, and one to the Library of Congress.

§ 279. The person to whom the copyright is granted is required to cause to be inserted in every copy of each edition published, during the duration of the right, on the title-page, or the page immediately following, if it be a book, or if a map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, or engraving, on the face thereof, the following words, viz.: "Entered according to act of Congress in the year, in the clerk's office of the district court of This is to be done in order to give notice of the copyright, so that persons may not violate it from ignorance of its existence.

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§ 280. An author has a right over his unpublished compositions. By an act of Congress it is provided that any person who shall print or publish any manuscript whatever without the consent of the author or legal proprietor first obtained, (if such author or proprietor be a citizen of the United States or resident therein,) shall be liable to suffer and pay to the author or proprietor all damages occasioned by such injury; and such publication of any manuscript may be restrained by a court of the United States.

[Clause 9.] "To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court."

§ 281. This clause will be considered when we come to a subsequent part of the Constitution which treats of the judiciary.

[Clause 10.] "To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations."

§ 282. By the Artic'es of Confederation, (Art. 9,) Con