John Peter Zenger
Found Not Guilty!
In 1735,
John Peter Zenger was found "not guilty" of seditious libel against
the Governor of New York. The Royal Governor of New York, William
Crosby, went after John Peter Zenger, one the few skilled printers in
the colonies, because of the things printed against the governor in
the New-York Weekly Journal, the news paper where Zenger was
a printer. Zenger's attorney, Andrew Hamilton, argued that Zenger
should not be found guilty if what he printed was true. While this was
not a defense allowed under the seditious libel laws at the time, the
jury came back with a verdict of not guilty.
This case
and the outcome of it, laid much groundwork for the American
Revolution.
The rights
to free speech and freedom of the press were being limited by the
British government and dissenters were being targeted.
Blackstone, later in his Commentaries on the Laws
of England, supported criminal punishment for libel without regard for
truth. "
For the same reason it is immaterial with respect to the
essence of a libel, whether the matter of it be true or false."
However, the Letters of Cato gave a different sentiment about free
speech: “
The exposing therefore of publick wickedness, as
it is a duty which every man owes to truth and his country, can never
be a libel in the nature of things.” Cato's Letters
No. 32.
The right
to free speech wasn't the only right argued for in this case. Atty
Hamilton also argued that the jury had the right to nullify bad
government. In spite of the Judge's warning that the only question
before the jury was whether the words printed by Zenger were libelous
according to the law (a thing to which Atty Hamilton had already
admitted to the jury), the jury returned with a verdict of "not
guilty," setting Zenger free.
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