will find the saddest hour of your life to be that in which you will look down upon the grave of your victim, and " mourn with compunctious sorrow" that you should have done so great injustice to the " poor handful of earth that will lie mouldering before you."

I have been long and tedious. I remember that it is the harvest moon, and that every hour is precious while you are detained from your yellow fields. But if you shall have bestowed patient attention throughout this deeply interesting investigation, and shall in the end have discharged your duties in the fear of God and in the love of truth, justly and independently, you will have laid up a store of blessed recollections for all your future days, imperishable and inexhaustible.

EXTRACT FROM THE PROCEEDINGS IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE EXTENSION OF PATENT CASE.

JAMES G. WILSON

versus

LEWIS ROUSSEAU AND CHARLES EASTON.

OPENING ARGUMENT FOR THE PLAINTIFF BY

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Where there is no assignment or testamentary direction, choses in action, whether legal or equitable, and whether absolute or contingent, always pass by mere operation of law to the personal representative of a deceased owner, without any words of perpetuity. An administrator, although not "nominated" in the obligation, may sue on a bond executed to his intestate, whether the bond be for the payment of money, or for the performance of a condition. So any personal right, whether arising by express agreement or by mere implication of law, whether absolute, or conditional, or contingent, may be asserted with the same effect by an executor as by the party to whom in life the right belonged. No property becomes extinct by operation of law on the death of the owner; nor does the State seize any property, or transfer

it to others than those to whom the owner expressly or impliedly devotes it. The administrator's right of succession to personal property is as absolute and universal as the right of succession of heirs to real estate. These rights are essentially the same in principle. Heirs at law succeed directly to the inheritance of real estate. They succeed by the intervention of the administrator to the enjoyment of personal property. And this transmissibility of all property and rights is so universal that it has only one limitation. The law limits to a party himself the right to redress for mere injuries to his person or character. That right ceases on the death of either the wrong doer or the sufferer, but all other rights survive. The entire policy of civilized communities, and even of despotic States, is opposed to seizure or confiscation of the property of the citizen at his death. On the other hand, all property, whether real or personal, is permitted to pass, in compliance with what seems to be a dictate of natural justice, to those whom the owner shall have elected as his successors or representatives. And if he make no such election, the law nevertheless, reads and regards his unexpressed

affection, and transfers his estate to those who, by reason of their consanguinity, are presumed to be nearest in his love.

Man, in a civilized State, cannot altogether die. Administration is the execution of the last will and testament, which the law infers every citizen would have made had time and circumstances favored. It is not an ordinance of human society, but a decree of the Creator, which provides that, as we bring nothing into the world, so we can take nothing out of it. Society attempts to mitigate the hardship of this law by giving to every member of the state a legal continuance here after death; and recognizes him in his children, his heirs, or his creditors. And this is in harmony with all the motives and affections of our race. It is not for ourselves, chiefly, that we live or labour, but for those whom Providence has committed to our care and who are destined to survive us.

Is national injustice to the dead less censurable than to the living? Is living genius discouraged less by neglect of the children and the memory of public benefactors, than by neglect of such benefactors themselves? Is the Inventor stimulated

less than other men by rewards of his labour proffered to his children? Far otherwise. There is eminent justice in securing to the children of authors and inventors the fruits of their genius, for it is property acquired exclusively by their own efforts. It confers distinction, and often, enduring renown, while certainly no children in the commonwealth more deserve to be secured in their paternal possessions than those of parents whose intellectual labours were devoted to the improvement and happiness of their countrymen and of mankind. Indifference to wealth, and ill regulated economy, are very common traits of men distinguished for genius and invention; and it would be a mockery of national magnanimity and justice to offer the extension of a patent to the unrewarded inventor while in life and yet plead his death in abatement of an application for an extension on behalf of his children. The construction insisted upon by our adversaries does violence to our sentiments of justice. The commonwealth has received the consideration, a beneficial consideration, by the discovery. It pays an equivalent to the inventor. Would it not be absurd, would it