John Peter Zenger

John Peter Zenger (October 26, 1697 – July 28, 1746) was a German printer and journalist in New York City. Zenger printed ''The New York Weekly Journal''. He was accused of libel in 1734 by William Cosby, the royal governor of New York, but the jury acquitted Zenger, who became a symbol for freedom of the press.

In 1733, Zenger began printing ''The New York Weekly Journal'', which voiced opinions critical of the colonial governor, William Cosby. On November 17, 1734, on Cosby's orders, the sheriff arrested Zenger. After a grand jury refused to indict him, the Attorney General Richard Bradley charged him with libel in August 1735. Zenger's lawyers, Andrew Hamilton and William Smith, Sr., successfully argued that truth is a defense against charges of libel.

Early life

Peter Zenger was born in 1697 in the German Palatinate. Most of the details of his early life are obscure. He was a son of Nicolaus Eberhard Zenger and his wife Johanna. His father was a school teacher in Impflingen in 1701. The Zenger family had other children baptised in Rumbach in 1697 and in 1703 and in Waldfischbach in 1706. The Zenger family immigrated to New York in 1710 as part of a large group of German Palatines, and Nicolaus Zenger was one of those who died before settlement. The governor of New York had agreed to provide apprenticeships for all the children of immigrants from the Palatinate, and John Peter was bound for eight years as an apprentice to William Bradford, the first printer in New York. By 1720, he was taking on printing work in Maryland, though he returned to New York permanently by 1722. After a brief partnership with Bradford in 1725, Zenger set up as a commercial printer on Smith Street in New York City.

On 28 May 1719, Zenger married Mary White in the First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. On 24 August 1722, widower Zenger married Anna Catharina Maul in the Collegiate Church, New York. He was the father of many children by his second wife, six of whom survived.

Libel case

In 1733, Zenger printed copies of newspapers in New York to voice his disagreement with the actions of the newly appointed colonial governor William Cosby. On his arrival in New York City, Cosby had plunged into a rancorous quarrel with the council of the colony over his salary. Unable to control the colony's supreme court, he removed Chief Justice Lewis Morris, replacing him with the royalist James DeLancey. Supported by members of the Popular Party, Zenger's ''New-York Weekly Journal'' continued to publish articles critical of the royal governor. Finally, Cosby issued a proclamation condemning the newspaper's " divers scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections."

Zenger was charged with libel. James Alexander was Zenger's first counsel, but the court found him in contempt and disbarred him, removing him from the case. After more than eight months in prison, Zenger went to trial, defended by the Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton and the New York lawyer William Smith, Sr. The case was now a ''cause célèbre'', with public interest at fever-pitch. Rebuffed repeatedly by chief justice James DeLancey during the trial, Hamilton decided to plead his client's case directly to the jury. After the lawyers for both sides finished their arguments on August 5, 1735, the jury retired only to return in ten minutes with a verdict of not guilty.

In defending Zenger in this landmark case, Hamilton and Smith attempted to establish the precedent that a statement, even if defamatory, is not libelous if it can be proved, thus affirming freedom of the press in America; however, succeeding royal governors clamped down on freedom of the press until the American Revolution. This case is the groundwork of freedom of the press, not its legal precedent. As late as 1804, the journalist Harry Croswell lost a series of prosecutions and appeals because truth was ''not'' a defense against libel, as decided by the New York Supreme Court in ''People v. Croswell''. It was only the following year that the assembly, reacting to this verdict, passed a law that allowed truth as a defense against a charge of libel.

"Cato" article

In the February 25, 1733 issue of ''The New York Weekly Journal'' is an opinion piece written under the pseudonym "Cato." This was a pen-name used by British writers John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, whose essays were published as ''Cato's Letters'' (1723). Jeffery A. Smith writes that "Cato" was "The leading luminary of the 18th century libertarian press theory...Editions of ''Cato's Letters'' were published and republished for decades in Britain and were immensely popular in America." This article gave its readers a preview of the same argument attorneys Hamilton and Smith presented 18 months later in the government's libel case against Zenger — that truth is an absolute defense against libel. The words are reprinted from Cato's essay "Reflections Upon Libelling":

Death

Zenger died in New York on July 28, 1746, with his wife continuing his printing business.

Legacy and honors

During World War II, the Liberty ship was named in his honor.

'' Zenger'' was a Madison, Wisconsin based underground newspaper that operated during the late 20th century.

See also

* Early American publishers and printers
* ''Areopagitica''
* Federal Hall
* Freedom of the press
* Freedom of speech in the United States
* Saint Paul's Church National Historic Site
* ''The New York Weekly Journal''

Bibliography

* Copeland, David. "The Zenger Trial." ''Media Studies Journal'' 14#2 (2000): 2-7.
* Covert, Cathy. "‘Passion Is Ye Prevailing Motive’: The Feud Behind the Zenger Case." ''Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly'' (1973) 50#1 pp: 3-10.
* Eldridge, Larry D. "Before Zenger: Truth and Seditious Speech in Colonial America, 1607-1700." ''American Journal of Legal History'' (1995): 337-358
in JSTOR
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* Levy, Leonard Williams, ed. ''Freedom of the press from Zenger to Jefferson: early American libertarian theories'' (Irvington Publishers, 1966)
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Further reading

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Primary sources

*
John Peter Zenger; his press, his trial, and a bibliography of Zenger imprints ... also a reprint of the first edition of the trial
' by Livingston Rutherfurd, New York : Dodd, Mead & company, 1904
*
The tryal of John Peter Zenger, of New-York, printer, who was lately try'd and acquitted for printing and publishing a libel against the government: with the pleadings and arguments on both sides
' London : Printed for J. Wilford 1738

References

External links

First report of the trial
''The Crown v. Zenger''
* Early American Bookmarks"*
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* (1957 book, edited by Vincent Buranelli)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zenger, John Peter
1697 births
1746 deaths
18th-century American newspaper publishers (people)
18th-century American people
American male journalists
Colonial American printers
German emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies
German Palatines
People from Südliche Weinstraße
People of the Province of New York
Writers from New York City