New York State Honoring Freedom of Press With Memorial to John Peter Zenger

It took 250 years, but New York has decided to establish a permanent memorial to John Peter Zenger, an uneducated printer who unwittingly began the American free speech movement when he stood trial for libel.

Zenger, who was charged with libeling the governor when New York was an English province, was acquitted on Aug. 4, 1735. The case established, for the first time in American history, that a person has the right to criticize the government. The rotunda of the state Supreme Court building is the site for the plaque.

“The Zenger trial was the moment in Colonial history at which freedom of the press was first recognized and protected,” said Floyd Abrams, one of the nation’s leading constitutional lawyers and chairman of the Zenger Commemoration Committee.

“So, it’s really the birth date for freedom of press in our country.”

The Zenger trial decision went against existing law, which said a person could not say or publish anything that damaged a government official--even if it was true.

“The trial was the moment at which truth was first recognized as a defense in libel cases,” Abrams said. Some historians believe the Zenger case was the direct inspiration for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, press and religion.

New York Chief Judge Sol Wachtler and Abrams came up with the idea of erecting a plaque while talking about the Zenger case over dinner.

“There’s not one plaque or memorial anywhere in New York to mark the trial, which is one of the most important events in the history of the state,” Wachtler said. “The fact that the New York legal system can claim credit for giving birth to this freedom gives us good cause to mark the event.”

Zenger was a printer who was enlisted by political opponents of provincial Gov. William Cosby to publish a newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal. The Journal was begun in 1733 as an alternative to the New York Weekly Gazette, a mouthpiece for the royalist governor and the only newspaper in the province.

The Journal was harshly critical of Cosby, accusing him of incompetence and corruption. It also ridiculed the governor, calling him a “monkey,” an “impudent monster” and an “overgrown criminal.”

Zenger was arrested in November, 1734, charged with seditious libel and held for nearly nine months before his one-day trial.

When the trial began, the prosecutor quickly proved that Zenger had broken the law against libel by publishing articles damaging to the governor’s reputation.

Andrew Hamilton, a Philadelphia lawyer who defended Zenger, argued that citizens have a right to speak out when government officials abuse their power. He said people should be able to “put their neighbors up on their guard against the craft or open violence of men in authority.”

The jury agreed with Hamilton and acquitted Zenger.

A freedom of speech amendment incorporated into the state constitution of 1821 drew freely upon the Hamilton’s language.