Although the Constitution
explicitly confined the encouragement to granting of exclusive rights
to the use of the invention, the cause of defeat was not the lack of
constitutional power, but the lack of means.
Washington, the friend in Virginia of every movement for the public
benefit, showed no fear lest Government assume too much power in this
particular. Years before, he had voted in the Legislature of his own
State to give exclusive right to a stage-owner to carry passengers
over a road because "he had expended a considerable sum of money in
the purchase of carriages and horses ... which will be productive of
considerable public convenience and utility ... and therefore it is
reasonable that he should possess for a reasonable time any emoluments
resulting therefrom." Once, in complaining to Jay that the
Postmaster-General under the Confederation had delayed the Virginia
mails by using horses and showing an antipathy to patronising the
stages, Washington had said: "It has often been understood by wise
politicians and enlightened patriots that giving a facility to the
means of travelling for strangers and of intercourse for citizens was
an object of legislative concern and a circumstance highly beneficial
to any country.
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