The Acquittal of John Peter Zenger (1735)
On August 5, 1735, a New York City jury acquitted printer John Peter Zenger of seditious libel after just minutes of deliberation. The case, which centered on Zenger's newspaper criticism of the colony's royal governor, became a foundational moment in the American conception of a free press, establishing truth as a defense against libel charges long before such protections were written into law.
A Printer Under Fire
John Peter Zenger, a German immigrant who had settled in New York, ran a print shop that produced the New York Weekly Journal, a newspaper launched in November 1733. The paper became a mouthpiece for critics of William Cosby, the colony's royal governor, who had earned enemies among New York's political elite after removing a chief justice, Lewis Morris, for ruling against him in a salary dispute. Backed by Morris and his allies, the Journal published a series of unsigned essays accusing Cosby of corruption, incompetence, and abuse of power. Furious, Cosby ordered several issues of the paper publicly burned by the common hangman and had Zenger arrested in November 1734 on charges of seditious libel. Zenger spent nearly eight months in jail awaiting trial, during which his wife, Anna Catherina Zenger, kept the Journal running, ensuring the paper's critical voice was not silenced even as its printer sat behind bars. The prosecution's case rested on English common law, which at the time held that the truth of a libelous statement was irrelevant, and indeed could make the offense worse, since true criticism was considered more damaging to a government official's authority than false claims.
Did You Know?
Andrew Hamilton, Zenger's defense attorney, was so celebrated for his victory that the phrase 'Philadelphia lawyer' entered American slang as a term for an especially skilled attorney. Zenger himself, meanwhile, spent his nearly eight-month imprisonment communicating instructions to his wife Anna Catherina through a hole in his jail cell door, ensuring the Weekly Journal never missed an issue.
The Trial and Andrew Hamilton's Defense
When the case finally went to trial in August 1735, Zenger's original lawyers had already been disbarred by the colonial court for challenging the judges' authority, leaving him without adequate counsel. Into this gap stepped Andrew Hamilton, a prominent and elderly Philadelphia lawyer who traveled to New York to take on the defense, reportedly without charging a fee. Hamilton did not dispute that Zenger had printed the offending essays; instead, he argued directly to the jury that the essays were true, and that truth should be a complete defense against a charge of libel. This was a radical departure from accepted legal doctrine. The presiding judge, James DeLancey, a Cosby appointee, instructed the jury that the truth of the statements was immaterial and that they should only decide whether Zenger had printed them, a fact never in dispute. Hamilton appealed instead to the jury's sense of justice and liberty, famously arguing that the case concerned not just Zenger but the cause of liberty itself, affecting every free person living under British rule in America. He urged the twelve jurors to exercise their right to judge both the law and the facts, a bold challenge to judicial authority.
Acquittal and Its Lasting Legacy
On August 5, 1735, the jury returned its verdict after only about ten minutes of deliberation: not guilty. The courtroom erupted in cheers, and Zenger walked free the next day. Although the case did not immediately change English or colonial libel law, which continued to reject truth as a formal defense for decades, it had an enormous practical and symbolic impact. Newspapers throughout the American colonies reported on the trial, and it became a rallying point for arguments that a press free to criticize government officials was essential to protecting liberty against tyranny. The trial's account, published by Zenger himself as A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trial of John Peter Zenger, circulated widely and influenced colonial attitudes toward government power in the decades leading up to the American Revolution. Its principles were eventually enshrined in American law, most notably through the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791, which explicitly protects freedom of the press. Legal scholars and journalists have long cited the Zenger case as an early cornerstone of American press freedom, a moment when ordinary citizens on a jury asserted that government officials must tolerate public criticism, even when that criticism stings.