Well, I think that it could very well be yes, for the reason that in the 1790 statute the Congress specifically was aware of -- that there were State copyright laws which didn't last as long as the Federal statute. Several of the States hadn't finished enacting those copyright laws, and a couple of States hadn't enacted them at all.
The statute was in the early 1700's
The statute was 1790 which is the late 1700's.
( z1 statute :time ( z2 early :op ( z3 date-entity :century 1700 ) ) )