Dom Copy Table

I have the follwoing code

<div id="detailtable" style="visibility:hidden">
<table id="detailtablehidden" width="100%" border="0">
....
</table>
</div>

I'm trying to copy the table inside to another table by appending it to
a td tag.

...
var the_table = document.getElementById("detailtable").innerHTML;
var td_content = document.createTextNode(the_table);
td.appendChild(td_content);

The problem right now is that I'm getting the table inserted as Text
instead of html. the follwing is an example.

&lt;table _vpps_id=&quot;65&quot; id=&quot;detailtablehidden&quot;
border=&quot;0&quot; width=&quot;100%&quot;&gt; &lt;thead&gt; &lt;tr
_vpps_id=&quot;66&quot;&gt; &lt;td _vpps_id=&quot;67&quot;&gt;Student
Name &lt;/td&gt; &lt;td
_vpps_id=&quot;68&quot;&gt;PaymentAmount&lt;/td&gt; &lt;td