F. F. Bruce confirmed this fact in The Canon of Scripture: "Before the Declaration of Independence American Christians were debarred by British copyright regulations from printing the English Bible" (p. 111, note 24). It is of particular interest to find that after the American Revolution had created a new nation, "an effort was made in its first Congress to restrict the printing of the [Bible] to licensed houses," but this effort "was cut short by the first amendment to the Constitution, and the book was thrown into the hands of the trade at large, with anything but a beneficial effect on its general integrity" (Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological,and Ecclesiastical Literature, edited by John M'Clintock and James Strong, vol. I, p. 563).
