Trial of John Peter Zenger (1735): Press Freedom in New York

The trial of John Peter Zenger was a seditious libel case heard in New York City on 4 August 1735. Zenger, a German-born printer, had published newspaper attacks on the royal governor of New York, William Cosby. When his lawyer Andrew Hamilton persuaded the jury to acquit him on the grounds that what he printed was true, the verdict became one of the most celebrated moments in the history of press freedom in America.

Background

John Peter Zenger was born in the Palatinate, in Germany, in 1697 and came to New York as a boy in 1710 with a group of Palatine refugees. He was apprenticed to William Bradford, the colony’s official printer, and later set up his own small press.

William Cosby arrived as governor of New York in 1732 and quickly made enemies. He sued the acting governor, Rip Van Dam, for half the salary Van Dam had drawn before his arrival. When Chief Justice Lewis Morris ruled against him on a key point, Cosby removed Morris from office in 1733 and appointed the young James DeLancey in his place. Morris and his allies, including the lawyer James Alexander, formed an opposition faction.

The New-York Weekly Journal

The opposition needed a voice, since Bradford’s New-York Gazette supported the governor. On 5 November 1733 Zenger began printing the New-York Weekly Journal, often described as the first politically independent newspaper in the colonies. Alexander was its main writer and editor, contributing essays on liberty and satirical attacks on Cosby and his supporters, usually anonymously or under pen names.

Cosby’s council ordered several issues to be publicly burned. Unable to identify the authors, the authorities targeted the printer. On 17 November 1734 Zenger was arrested on a charge of seditious libel, meaning publications intended to bring the government into hatred or contempt. Bail was set so high that he could not pay, and he remained in jail for about nine months. His wife, Anna Zenger, kept the paper going, and he reportedly passed instructions to her through a hole in the door.

The trial

Zenger’s lawyers, Alexander and William Smith, challenged the legitimacy of Chief Justice DeLancey’s appointment. DeLancey responded by striking them from the roll of attorneys. The court appointed a lawyer, John Chambers, to defend Zenger, but his supporters quietly arranged for Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, one of the most respected lawyers in the colonies, to take the case.

When the trial opened on 4 August 1735, Hamilton surprised the court by admitting that Zenger had printed the articles. Under English law as then understood, that should have ended the matter: the judges decided whether the words were libellous, and truth was no defence. Indeed, the old maxim held that the greater the truth, the greater the libel.

Hamilton instead appealed directly to the jurors. He argued that they had the right to decide both the facts and the law. He also maintained that truthful criticism of a corrupt official could not be libel, and he told them their decision concerned not just one poor printer but the liberty of every free person in the colonies. The chief justice instructed the jury that it should leave the question of libel to the court. After a short deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and the courtroom erupted in cheers. Zenger was released the next day.

Aftermath and legacy

In 1736 Alexander published A Brief Narrative of the Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger, an account of the trial that was reprinted many times in America and Britain. It spread Hamilton’s arguments far beyond New York. Zenger later became public printer of New York and New Jersey and died in 1746. Cosby died in office in 1736.

The verdict did not change the law. A jury acquittal sets no precedent, and colonial assemblies and courts continued to punish printers for seditious libel. Its significance lay in its example: it showed that colonial juries might refuse to convict for truthful criticism of officials.

The principles Hamilton argued for eventually became law. In Britain, Fox’s Libel Act of 1792 gave juries the power to decide whether a publication was libellous. In the United States, the First Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, protected freedom of the press, and even the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 allowed truth as a defence. New York adopted truth as a defence by statute in 1805.

Timeline

• 1710: Zenger arrives in New York as a Palatine refugee.
• 1732, August: William Cosby arrives as governor of New York.
• 1733: Cosby removes Chief Justice Lewis Morris from office.
• 1733, 5 November: The first issue of the New-York Weekly Journal appears.
• 1734, 17 November: Zenger is arrested for seditious libel.
• 1735, April: Zenger’s lawyers Alexander and Smith are disbarred.
• 1735, 4 August: The jury finds Zenger not guilty.
• 1736: Alexander publishes A Brief Narrative of the Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger.

Why it matters

The Zenger trial became a founding story of American press freedom. Although it did not change the law at the time, it popularised the ideas that truth should be a defence against libel and that juries could protect citizens from overbearing officials, ideas later built into American law and the Constitution.