The next subject in the order of the report made by the committee of detail was that general clause now found at the close of the enumeration of the express powers of Congress, which authorizes them "to make all laws which may be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."[266] Nothing occurred in the proceedings on this provision which throws any particular light upon its meaning, excepting a proposition to include in it, expressly, the power to "establish all offices" necessary to execute the powers of the Constitution; an addition which was not made, because it was considered to be already implied in the terms of the clause.[267] The subjects of patents for useful inventions and of copyrights of authors appear to have been brought forward by Mr. Charles Pinckney. They gave rise to no discussion in the Convention, but were considered in a grand committee, with other matters, and there is no account of the views which they took of this interesting branch of the powers of Congress. We know, however, historically, that these were powers not only possessed by all the States, but exercised by some of them, before the Constitution of the United States was formed. Some of the States had general copyright laws, not unlike those which have since been enacted by Congress;[268] but patents for useful inventions were granted by special acts of legislation in each case. When the power to legislate on these subjects was surrendered by the States to the general government, it was surrendered as a power to legislate for the purpose of securing a natural right to the fruits of mental labor. This was the view of it taken in the previous legislation of the States, by which the power conferred upon Congress must of course, to a large extent, be construed.