John Peter Zenger

John Peter Zenger (October 26, 1697 – July 28, 1746) was a German-American printer, publisher, editor and journalist in New York City. He was a defendant in a landmark legal case in American jurisprudence that determined that truth was a defense against charges of libel and "laid the foundation for American press freedom."

Zenger case in history

The "Penman of the Constitution", Gouverneur Morris, wrote this of the Zenger case: "The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently than eight months in prison, Zenger went to trial defended by illustrious Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton. The case was now a cause celebre with public interest at fever-pitch. Rebuffed repeatedly by Chief Justice Delancey during the trial, Hamilton decided to plead his client's case directly to the jury. After the arguments for both sides were finished, the jury was retired, only to return shortly with a verdict of not guilty.

To better understand the significance of this historic case it is important to examine an actual issue of the New-York Daily Journal prior to Zenger's arrest. Here we see a typical attack against the government in Zenger's original newspaper as it originally appeared more than 260 years ago. Page one of this issue dated February 25, 1733, carries an article under the pseudonym "Cato". This article gave its readers a preview of the same argument Attorney Hamilton would present 18 months later in the government's libel case against Zenger: That the truth is an absolute defense against libel. In successfully defending Zenger in this landmark case, Hamilton established the precedent that a statement, even if defamatory, is not libelous if it can be proved, thus affirming freedom of the press in America.

Cato writes:

But this Doctrine ('A lible (sic) is not leſs a Libel for being true') only holds true as to private and personal failings; and it is quite otherwise when the Crimes of Men come to Affect the Publick? Every Crime against the publick, is a great crime? – The exposing therefore of Publick Wickedness, as it is a Duty which every Man owes to the Truth and his Country, can never be a Libel in the Nature of Things? – it has been hitherto generally understood, that there was no other Libels but those against Magistrates and those against private Men. Now to me there seems to be a Third set of Libels, full as Destructive as any of the former can probably be, I mean Libels against the People. – I have indeed often wondered that the Inveighing against the Interest of the People, and calling their Liberty in Question? has never been made an express Crime. – I know not what Reason is if sapping and betraying the Liberties of a People be not Treason. – almost all over the Earth, the People for one Injury they do their Governor, receive Ten Thousand from them. Nay, in some Countries it is made Death and Damnation, not to bear all the Oppression and Cruelties, which Men made Wanton by Power inflict upon those that gave it them.

See also

• Areopagitica

External links

• Historybuff.com First report of the trial
• Zenger Trial
• John Peter Zenger
• The Crown v. Zenger
• Considering Zenger: Partisan Politics and the Legal Profession in Provincial New York
• "Peter Zenger and Freedom of the Press | Early American Bookmarks"
•  "Zenger, John Peter". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1889. 
• John Peter Zenger at Find a Grave