Volume 2, Chapter 27 The Communication of Ideas, Postal Service
and the Freedom of the Press One of the most important domestic developments
shared by the colonies in the first half of the 18th century was the emergence of more
regular and effective channels for the sharing and dissemination of ideas. No newspapers
Printers had existed in 17th century America, which had virtually no printing of any kind.
Through that century, Massachusetts was the only colony containing a press, and this was
under tight censorship and government control. By the 18th century, printers had begun to
spread throughout the colonies, and slowly a newspaper press emerged. Books and news
still emanated mainly from England, but the colonies were slowly developing a press of
their own. Unfortunately, the press was long hobbled by tight government regulation, expressed
first through prior licensing, then through the law of seditious libel and parliamentary
privilege. Effective control of the press was also exercised through lucrative contracts
Postal Service for Public Printing and by the valuable and ever-necessary tie-in of
the press with the Royal Postmasters, who had the power to exclude all papers but their
own from the mails.
Control through the important Postal Service was assured at the turn of the 18th century
by the compulsory monopolization of the Post in the hands of the Crown.
Special service began in the early American colonies as freely competitive private enterprises
of varying forms and types. Letters between neighboring villages were sent by special
messengers who were often Indians. For longer journeys, letters were carried by travelers
or regular merchants. Letters to or from England were carried by private ship captains who
You often hung a bag in the local coffee house to receive letters for shipment. The price
was generally a penny for a single letter and two pence for a double letter or parcel.
Unfortunately, English precedent held out little hope for the unhampered development
of a freely competitive postal service. In 1591, the Crown had issued a proclamation
granting itself the monopoly of all foreign male. And in 1609, the Crown's proclamation
extended its own monopoly to all male, foreign or domestic. The purpose of this postal monopoly
was quite simple, to enable governmental officials to read the letters of private citizens in
in order to discover and suppress treason and sedition.
Thus, when the Privy Council decided in 1627 to allow merchants to operate an independent
foreign post, the King's Principal Secretary of State wrote sternly,
Your Lordship best knoweth what account we shall be able to give in our places of that
which passeth by letters in or out of the land, if every man may convey letters under
the course of merchants, to whom and what place he pleaseth. How unfit a time this is
to give liberty to every man to write and send what he lists.
And in 1657, when the Commonwealth Parliament continued the English governmental postal
and Monopoly, the preamble of the act stated a major objective, to discover and prevent
many dangerous and bigoted designs which have been and are daily contrived against the peace
and welfare of this commonwealth, the intelligence whereof cannot well be communicated but by
letter of script.
The first government meddling in the Postal Service in America came as early as 1639 in
Massachusetts. At that time the government appointed Richard Fairbanks to be a receiver
and deliverer of foreign letters for the price of one penny. No monopoly privilege was granted
and no one was prevented from using other postal intermediaries. The Dutch government
in New Netherland went far beyond this when in 1657 it awarded itself a compulsory monopoly
of receipt of foreign mail. Anyone presuming to board a vessel first to obtain his own
mail was fined thirty guilders. Ship captains were fined heavily for carrying letters for
anyone except the government postal monopolist. The first governmental postal service was
was established by Governor Lovelace in New York in 1673, primarily for carrying intergovernmental
mail between New York and Boston. But the Dutch Wars rendered this attempt abortive.
Massachusetts and Connecticut established government post in 1673, but only for governmental
and not for private letters. In 1677, Massachusetts appointed John Hayward to carry private mail,
Mail, and in 1680, Hayward was granted the monopoly of the postal business in the colony.
Pennsylvania established a public but not monopoly post for private mail in 1683.
The specter of a single colonial monopoly was now beginning to loom on the horizon.
Parliament had granted the revenues of the British Post Office to the Duke of York and
Governor Dongan of New York outlined in 1684 an ambitious scheme for a vast inter-colonial
system of post houses, a good part of the profit of which would also accrue to the Duke
of York. The rates charged were to be three pence a letter, and more for letters carried
over 100 miles. This and similar plans, however, again proved abortive.
None of these actions and restrictions had gone beyond one or two colonies. The true
monopolization of the entire American postal service came in 1692, when the King granted
a patent of monopoly privilege over all the American colonies for 21 years to Thomas Neel,
a court favorite whom he designated as postmaster general. Neel's agent in operating the post
was Andrew Hamilton, who also served as governor of East New Jersey and who persuaded some
colonial assemblies to pass legislation enforcing the monopoly.
Thus, a New York law of 1692 prohibited post from competing with Hamilton's and prescribed
postage rates ranging from four and one-half pence for nearby mail to 24 pence to more
distant colonies.
The enormous rise in postal rates from the days of free competition make clear how valuable
the monopoly privilege was. Most of the colonies followed suit. The particularly free and independent
colonies of Rhode Island and North Carolina, on the other hand, passed no enabling legislation
at all. Despite the enormous rise in rates, the postal monopoly suffered net losses, for
For the service was slow and inefficient, and undoubtedly Hamilton had priced himself
out of the consumer market. But typical of monopolists, his only suggested remedy was
to raise the rate still further, from 6 pence to 42 pence per letter. The U.S. Postmaster
General, however, incisively held that the proposed rates were much too high and that
He said that a greater revenue would be obtained by lowering rather than raising the rates, for then the easy and cheap correspondency thus encouraged people to write letters.
He also charged that the colonial governments did not grant enough subsidies to the post and were insisting on free and special delivery transmissions of all governmental letters.
On Neal's death, the patent of postal privilege fell partly to his creditor, Hamilton, and
after Hamilton's death in 1703, the latter's creditors carried on the work.
In 1707, however, the Crown refused to consider renewing the grant and instead purchased the
privilege back from the owners for somewhat less than 1,700 pounds.
The American Postal Service became, from that point on, a crown monopoly.
The crown moved immediately to raise its postal rates.
In the Act of 1711, it established a range of some four pence to six pence on local mail
to one shilling six pence on letters to distant colonies.
The Act also appointed a royal postmaster general for the whole empire, with a deputy
Postmaster General stationed in New York to run the post for the English colonies on the
American continent. The colonies proceeded to evade the postal monopoly and its charges
more than ever before. Officially, the bulk of the colonies accepted the imposition without
protest, with the honorable exception of Virginia. Virginia pointed out that the establishment
of Postal Rates by the Crown in effect constituted taxation, and a crucial point in Crown-Colony
relations was always that England could not impose taxation on the colonies without the
consent of their assemblies. The Virginia House of Burgesses therefore refused to grant
any money for the post office and also passed laws crippling its operation. Virginia, however,
The Crown, however, was induced to join the Royal Continental Monopoly when its former governor, Alexander Spotswood, became Deputy Postmaster General in 1732.
All in all, the Crown was no more able than Hamilton to make the Postal Service self-sufficient, and it continued to lose money.
The Royal Postmasters soon found a peculiarly unfortunate way to use their posts to enrich their personal coffers.
The law made no provision for admission of newspapers to the mails.
And so the various postmasters adopted the custom of publishing their own newspapers,
circulating them in the mails and prohibiting the post writers from delivering any competing papers.
The effect on freedom of the press may well be imagined.
Not that the content of the press was free anyway.
Indeed, the first newspaper in America, The Boston Public Occurrences,
had been issued by Benjamin Harris in 1690 and was suppressed by the governor and council
after the first issue for being critical of the war being prosecuted against France.
The excuse was that the paper was unlicensed and therefore illegal. A licensing requirement
for all publications had long been in effect in Massachusetts and had effectively prevented
the publication of seditious literature for over 20 years.
The first continuous newspaper in the colonies was the Boston News Letter, a weekly founded
in 1704 by Boston Postmaster John Campbell. Campbell's paper, which kept carefully away
from political criticism, was warmly approved and assisted by the Massachusetts authorities,
by whom it was licensed despite the ending of press licensing in the mother country in
1695. Campbell asked for and obtained several governmental subventions for his newsletter.
These editorial policies were in keeping with this cozy relationship.
When the tyrannical and widely hated ex-Governor Joseph Dudley died in 1720, the newsletter
wildly exalted the deceased as the glory of his country, early its darling, always its
ornament and in his age its crown.
It was not until 1758, upon orders of Benjamin Franklin, deputy postmaster general for the
colonies, that the repressive system of prohibiting the mails to the postmaster's competitors
was ended, and the post was ordered to accept all newspapers at a uniform rate.
John Campbell's toting weekly remained the sole newspaper in the colonies until about
1720, around which year two new papers were opened in Boston. One was the Boston Gazette,
begun by Campbell's successor as postmaster and continued in turn by each succeeding postal
officer. Campbell's old newsletter, however, continued to be as fawning as the official
organ of the royal postmaster. On the other hand, the other new Boston newspaper, the
The New England Courant, begun by Benjamin Franklin's older brother James, was a hard-hitting,
critical and unlicensed publication.
The Franklins soon lined up the Courant with the lower house against tyrannical intrusions
by the governor and the council.
The Courant could remain unlicensed because in the spring of 1721, Governor Shute had
had urged the legislature to pass a law for censorship through licensing of the press.
The council had approved it, but the lower house had quickly rejected the bill. James
Franklin directed much of his withering fire against the venerable despot, the reverend
Inquis Mathur. After Mathur's standard invocation of the judgment of God failed to deter Franklin
Mathur wistfully recalled that in the old days the civil government would have taken
an effectual course to suppress such a cursed libel, which if be not done, I am afraid that
some awful judgment will come upon this land and the wrath of God will arise and there will
will be no remedy. But this time Mather faced a foe who hit back as effectively as he received.
It must have been liberating indeed for the Massachusetts citizenry merely to read in
the current that Mather was a reverend scribbler who quarrels with his neighbors because they
do not look and think just as he would have them. The assembly's rejection of licensing
Dealing did not mean, however, that the lower house was at all libertarian. Indeed, the
house's main reason for rejection was fear of aggrandizing executive power over the press
at its own expense. Thus, when James Franklin criticized the government for laxity in pursuit
of pirates in the summer of 1722, both houses censored Franklin and summarily imprisoned
The assembly continued to refuse to pass a press licensing bill, but in early 1723, the
Courant again angered the government.
Both Houses of the General Court then censored the paper and ordered the prohibition of Franklin's
further publishing of the Courant.
Franklin continued to publish the paper without a license and courageously continued to attack
The Council tried to arrest him for contempt, but Franklin cleverly managed to evade the
legislative order by naming his younger brother Benjamin publisher of the paper, and the grand
jury failed to indict.
The Franklin case ended prior censorship and licensing of the press in Massachusetts.
This did not mean that the press was now free.
As in all the other colonies, it was subject, albeit after publication, to the vague and
pernicious common law doctrine of seditious libel, affecting virtually any criticism of
the government, and to the unlimited parliamentary privilege of a legislature to arrest and punish
its critics.
Of these, the most pernicious and unchecked was the power of the legislature.
As we have seen in the Franklin case, the legislature needed only to vote its punishment.
It had no need for a non-governmental expression of the people, such as a grand jury to indict
or a petty jury to convict.
In the colonies, the assembly as well as the governor and council could and did summon
and invoke criminal penalties against anyone who had decided had impeached its behavior
or had traduced its honor or affronted its dignity, these were all seditious scandals
against the government and punishable as a breach of parliamentary privilege. That under
these twin engines of oppression the press was still not free in Massachusetts was dramatically
illustrated the following year in the case of the Reverend John Checkley, the leading
Anglican Minister in Massachusetts In 1719, Checkley had written a tract criticizing
Calvinist doctrines. With the governor still exercising prior censorship, Checkley was
prevented from publishing his essay. Returning from England in 1724 with a printed stock
of his book, Checkley was denounced by the council for vile and scandalous passages reflecting
on the Puritan ministers of the Gospel established in this province, and denying their sacred
function and the holy ordinances of religion as administered by them. The Council ordered
the Attorney General to try Checkley, who was convicted of seditious libel, fined fifty
pounds and bonded for future good behavior. There were virtually no intrusions on freedom
of the Press in Massachusetts in the next two decades, but only because this freedom
was not exercised very vigorously. After Franklin discontinued the Courant in 1726, the newspapers
settled down to being timid sheets, with no editorial viewpoint of their own. The boldest
publisher was Thomas Fleet, publisher of the Boston Evening Post. Fleet maintained the
The General Practice of giving equal hearing to both sides of every controversial question,
but more vigorously and trenchantly than did his competitors. For daring to publish
unorthodox opinions, however, the ministers denounced Fleet and urged the magistrates
to suppress the evening posed as a dangerous engine, a sink of sedition, error and heresy.
In the spring of 1742, Fleet published an item critical of Britain's conduct of the
war with Spain, and the Council immediately ordered prosecution for liable against the
Crown. Fleet was able to avoid prosecution, but only by proving the truth of the item
in question. Thus, newspapers were alerted to the narrow bounds within which they could
In the fall of 1754, the Massachusetts lower house demonstrated its power to punish criticism
as a supposed breach of its privileges. A pamphlet was anonymously written and published
satirizing debates in the house on an unpopular tax bill. The lower house angrily denounced
the humorous piece as a false, scandalous libel, ordered the hangman to burn the pamphlet
publicly and to drag before it Daniel Fowle, suspected of doing the printing. Fowle was
induced to confess his deed and to implicate his brother as well as Royal Tyler, a prominent
merchant as the author. Fowle did not, however, beg mercy from the lower house and he was
The lower house was summarily thrown into prison, incommunicado, on the mere charge
of suspicion and prevented from writing to his wife. After five days of such imprisonment
under foul conditions, the lower house bitterly reprimanded Foul for publishing seditious
libel and sent him back to his cell until he could pay the cost of the case. Tyler in
In the meanwhile had demanded a lawyer, and when this was denied him by the house, refused
to incriminate himself by answering any questions.
He was thrown into jail without bail, but was suddenly released after two days, along
with Fowle's apprentice.
After six days in prison, Fowle himself was released to visit his sick wife.
The lower house finally bowed to an upsurge of public sympathy for the printer and did
Daniel Fowle, outraged at the injustice of the whole affair, wrote a pamphlet about the
case, A Total Eclipse of Liberty, 1755, and then bravely proceeded to sue the Speaker
of the House, the House's messenger and its jailkeeper for illegal imprisonment. But the
The inferior and superior courts ruled against the unfortunate fowl. Government officials
have rarely been liable for any deed done in their official capacity. These official
duties apparently being enough to invoke a double standard of justice and criminality,
one for ordinary citizens and the other for government officials.
The best known and most highly touted case concerning freedom of the press in the colonies
was the trial of John Peter Zenger in New York.
Historians have been prone to wild exaggeration of the importance and
significance of the Zenger case.
A typical example,
the case was a monument to freedom
and established the freedom of the press in North America.
Actually, it did nothing of the sort.
Before the Zenger case, there was little freedom to speak or publish criticism of
the government.
In the early eighteenth century, the main enemy of freedom of criticism was the Assembly.
Between 1706 and 1720, the New York Assembly prosecuted four such cases, one of which involved
the mass arrest of nine people and another of seventeen grand jurors, for seditious
remarks about the New York Assembly. As for the press, the first newspaper in New York
New York was the New York Gazette founded in 1725, the only paper in the colony. The
Gazette was the licensed and pampered organ of the government, its editor William Bradford
also serving as the official public printer. The arrival in 1732 of William Cosby as Governor
of New York soon set off a bitter, factional dispute in the politics of the province. The
The historical zealots for Zenger have grand eloquently referred to the opposition to Cosby
as the Popular Party. In reality, the dispute was strictly between two factions of the landed
oligarchy, and the trouble was raised over extremely petty issues. The opposition was
headed by such oligarchs as Louis Morris, the Livingstons and the Stuyvesants, while
While the Cosby faction was led by Delancey and Phillips, there were here no great liberal
issues or principled liberal opposition. To advance their cause, the Morris faction established
the New York Weekly Journal in 1733, with the learned lawyer James Alexander as its
editor and John Peter Zenger of Palatine German descent as printer. While the Morris faction
was not rooted in vital issues, the slashing, bitter nature of the weekly journal's attacks
on the administration was in itself a bracing exercise of the freedom of the press in an
America that badly needed such an example. Furthermore, the corollary exposés of cause-beast
tyrannies and misdeeds had a liberal effect, even though not so intended by the authors.
The articles were anonymous and written by various members of the Moors faction.
Cosby soon decided to strike back by moving against the vulnerable Zenger.
Twice he tried to obtain a grand jury indictment for seditious libel, and twice the jury refused.
He then ordered the public burning of the journal, and on November 17, 1734, the governor
Governor and Council ordered the summary arrest of Zenger on the charge of seditious libel.
Avoiding the need for a grand jury indictment, the government placed the bail at the enormous
sum of £400, forcing Zenger to remain in prison for nine months before coming to trial.
Furthermore, for protesting Cosby's packing of the court with the two leading members
The struggle against Cosby was not, at root, a popular or liberal affair, but in the Zenger
In the Zenger case it became transformed, for the already unpopular Cosby was now generally hated, and the popular sympathies were all with the defendant.
On August 4, 1735, Andrew Hamilton won acquittal of Zenger by the trial jury.
Two things were significant about this decision.
First, Hamilton was able to persuade the jury to broaden its jurisdiction to cover the law
as well as the facts. The customary practice insisted on by the court had been to limit
the jury severely to deciding whether or not an item had been published by the defendant.
It was then supposed to be the judge's role to decide whether the item was indeed libelous.
Now Hamilton persuaded the jury to broaden its powers so as to decide the guilt or innocence
of the defendant on the charge. Secondly, Hamilton defended the journal's articles on
the ground that they were true, and thus was able to establish a precedent for truth as
a valid defense against seditious libel. This contrasted to the earlier despotic practice
These were legal advances to be sure, but they hardly justify the payens of praise that have been delivered for the Zenger decision.
The important point is that the root evil, the common law of seditious libel, remained virtually intact.
The jury is a protection against government judges, to be sure, but juries too can be
despotic and rule against the liberty of the person.
And truth as a defense is a very shaky read, for in political criticism there is no simple
and precise method of demanding truth.
If X prints the charge that Y is a tyrant, is this truth?
And is a jury qualified to determine its truth? Should it have the power to do so? James Alexander,
the legal mastermind of the Zanger defense, along with Andrew Hamilton, had conceded that
to infuse into the minds of the people an ill opinion of a just administration is a
crime that deserves no mercy. But how could a defendant be expected to prove the truth
The Theory of Money and Credit
Law Code, so essential to the orderly administration of justice. Each jury would then be deciding
the law of the case on its arbitrary whim, and no citizen could know in advance whether
his utterances or writings would be libelous or not. Furthermore, the Zenger case did not
establish either of its two major contentions, narrow as they were, in English or in American
Law. English law did not accept the power of juries to judge guilt until 1792, or truth
as a defense until 1843. In America, the Chief Justice of New York was still maintaining
that truth did not constitute a defense against seditious libel as late as 1804.
Finally, perhaps the most important reason for belittling the importance generally given
to the Zanger case is the fact that royal judges were not the major threats to freedom
of the press in the colonial era. The main threat was the use of parliamentary privilege
by which the assembly or the governor and council tried and punished the seditious libeler
without benefit of jury. Trials for seditious libel at court were few and far between in
in the colonial period. It was, in fact, the very rarity of the phenomenon that gave
the Zenger case its fame. Far more important were the actions of the legislature. As Dean
Levy writes, the traditionally maligned judges were virtually angels of self-restraint when
compared with the intolerance of community opinion, the tyranny of governors, acting
in a quasi-judicial capacity with their councils, and especially the popularly-elected assembly,
that the law bore down so harshly on verbal crimes in colonial America was the result
of inquisitorial propensities of the non-judicial branches which bide with each other in ferreting
out slights on the government. The law of seditious libel was enforced in America chiefly
by the provincial legislatures, exercising their power of punishing alleged breaches
of parliamentary privilege.
The common law courts gathered a very few seditious scalps and lost as many two acquittals,
but the assemblies, like the House of Commons, which they emulated, needing no grand jury
The Zenger case thus made virtually no impact on the legislative oppression of the press, even in New York, let alone in the other colonies.
Furthermore, from 1745 on, the assembly consistently prohibited the printing of the votes or debates of the legislature without prior authorization.
In 1753, the printer Hugh Gain published the king's instructions to the new governor of New York, as well as the latter's speech to the assembly.
Immediately, the assembly summoned Gain and demanded to know how he dared print the letter to the new governor of New York.
New Governor of New York, as well as the latter's speech to the Assembly.
Immediately, the Assembly summoned Gain and demanded to know how he dared print any part
of the proceedings without license or prior approval.
Humbly abasing himself, the startled Gain was released by the Assembly, but only after
it forced him to pay the cost of the case.
A more serious case occurred in 1756 when James Parker published an article on the depressed
conditions of the country in his New York Gazette. The Assembly took this to be a grave
reflection on itself and summarily voted Parker and his assistant to be guilty of high misdemeanor
and contempt of authority. Seized and hauled into the Assembly, the frightened Parker and
and his aid abjectly confessed their guilt and begged pardon and showed their good faith
by informing on the Reverend Hezekiah Watkins of Newburgh as author of the offending article.
Despite their abasement, the editors were put into jail for a week by the assembly,
which also moved, of course, for the immediate arrest of the unfortunate minister. The Reverend
Mr. Watkins proved to be no more heroic than his editors, begging forgiveness for his misplaced
zeal. He, too, was jailed by the assembly. Watkins was discharged the next day, but only
after being forced to pay the costs of his case.
Two years later, Samuel Townsend, Justice of the Peace in Queens County, sent a petition
to the Speaker of the Lower House, asking for relief for some refugees stationed on
The speaker denounced Townsend's letters insolent, and the assembly then promptly ordered his appearance.
When Townsend bravely failed to heed the summons, he was cited for contempt, seized and hauled before the assembly.
Townsend surprisingly failed to show the usual abject humility.
The Enraged Assembly voted him clearly guilty of a high misdemeanor and most daring insult and threw him into prison.
In this atmosphere Townsend had ample opportunity to reflect on the error of his ways and soon sent the House a profound apology and a promise to avoid all such misconduct in the future.
The Assembly then graciously released Judge Townsend.
It is certainly significant that of the hapless defendants appearing before the New York Assembly
twenty years after Zenger, none bothered to justify himself on the basis of liberty of the press.
Editor James Parker, battling for his own conception of freedom of the press in 1759,
summoned up the most enlightened of American opinion.
Liberty truly reigns, wrote Parker, where every one hath the privilege of declaring his sentiments upon all topics with the utmost freedom, provided he does it with proper decency and a just regard to the laws.
And the laws, let it not be forgotten, included punishment of seditious libel and breach of parliamentary privilege.
Indicative of more reactionary opinion was an editorial in 1753 by a trio of prominent new young New York lawyers and friends of Parker.
These lawyers, William Livingston, John Moran Scott, and William Smith, radical Republicans all, averred that whatever a printer prostitutes his art by the publication of anything injurious to his country, it is criminal.
It is high treason against the state. Treason of course constituted a capital crime in contrast
to the mere misdemeanor involved in seditious libel. Thus, far from the Zenger case establishing
freedom of the press in either thought or action, we find New York opinion a generation
later backsliding to the pre-Zenger status quo. James Alexander's narrow advance for
of the Freedom of the Press turned out to be an isolated spark rather than the spearhead
of a mighty move forward. During the remainder of the colonial period, only Thomas Boland
in 1766, an eminent lawyer in Massachusetts, reached at the modest height of Alexander's
devotion to freedom of the press. Nor were the points pressed by this angered
and Defense Original, as some writers have stated.
The Principle of Truth as a Defense Against Liable was taken by Alexander from the famous
Cato's Letters, written in the early 1720s, by two leading English liberals, John Trenchard
and Thomas Gordon.
The argument that the jury should decide the law, as well as the facts in Seditious Liable,
was explicitly put forward in 1692 by William Bradford, defendant in the first criminal
trial for seditious libel in the colonies. Bradford, the first printer to work in Pennsylvania,
had been a member of the Keith faction of dissident Quakers, and for printing Keithian
tracts he was charged with seditious libel. Moreover, Bradford's trial judge was convinced
William Bradford's successful example was followed four years later in Massachusetts
by Thomas Moll, a Quaker merchant who had published a book attacking tyranny in Massachusetts
Bay. Moll also succeeded and was acquitted by the jury, but on religious rather than
on Freedom of the Press grounds.
The case of William Bradford highlights an ironic aspect of the Zenger affair. Bradford
was soon appointed royal printer by Governor Fletcher of New York, who at that time was
briefly in control of Pennsylvania. Bradford's minimal devotion to Freedom of the Press,
despite his own experiences, is shown by his editorship of the very fawning and licensed
New York Gazette, against which Zenger and his backers were rebelling.
Bradford's reaction to the arrest of Zenger was characteristic. He condemned the defendant
for publishing pieces tending to set the province in aflame and to raise sedition and tumults.
A further irony is the earlier role of the presumed champion of freedom of the press,
In 1719, Bradford's son, Andrew, founded the first paper in Philadelphia, the American Weekly Mercury.
Three years later, the Council hauled young Bradford before it to answer the charge of publishing a pamphlet and article criticizing the government.
Bradford not only humbly apologized, but treacherously tried to place responsibility for the printing on his assistance.
The governor and council, not yet mollified, ordered Bradford that he must not for the
future presume to publish anything relating or concerning the affairs of this government
or the government of any other of his majesty's colonies without the permission of the governor
or secretary of the province. Such was the state of freedom of the press in colonial
of Pennsylvania. The ironic twist is the fact that one of the counselors laying down
this appalling and despotic order was none other than Andrew Hamilton.
As it happened, Andrew Bradford was again in trouble in 1729 when his Mercury published
a letter critical of the British government. The Council of Pennsylvania denounced the
Bradford was jailed, and his home and shop searched. Characteristically, Bradford saved
himself by pleading innocence and naming the author as a Reverend Mr. Kimball of Long Island.
Bradford was recommitted to jail for his sins, but was finally released for his cooperative
of Attitude. Again, it is interesting to note that the recorder of the Council and one of
the major persecutors of Bradford was Andrew Hamilton. Hamilton, moreover, was able to
use the young and ambitious Benjamin Franklin to pursue a vendetta against Bradford. By
aiding Franklin's new Pennsylvania Gazette against the rival Mercury and by giving Bradford's
Coveted Public Printing Contract to His Young Protégé
It is no surprise that in this inter-colonial struggle of factions Andrew Bradford should
join his father in taking a leading role in approving the persecution of Zenger. Bradford's
acid stricture against Hamilton that a single attempt on the side of liberty hardly overweighed
Hamilton's long record of hostility to a free press is not refuted by the Bradford's own
lack of consistent dedication to the libertarian cause. Neither did the Zenger case establish
freedom of the press in the colonies beyond New York. We have already seen its lack of
influence in Massachusetts. In 1758, the Quaker-run Pennsylvania Assembly decided to take revenge
Smith's future father-in-law, Judge William Moore, had been investigated in late 1757,
for conduct of his office.
The judge's defense was printed in Smith's German-language newspaper, as well as in
other papers, and the assembly used this as an excuse to arrest Smith and Moore for criminal
libel of itself.
Moore was imprisoned for five days and convicted by the assembly for false, scandalous, virulent
and seditious libel of itself.
The public hangman was ordered to burn the publication and the sheriff to keep him in
in jail indefinitely and to ignore any writs of habeas corpus. After this act of high-handed
despotism the assembly turned its tender ministrations to the Reverend Mr. Smith. Smith was now charged
with abetting the publication of the vicious libel by Moore. The assembly took the precaution
of voting Smith's guilt by a large majority even before his so-called trial began, thereby
by launching the fascinating procedure of deciding upon the verdict before the trial was underway.
The imprisoned Smith was denied bail, and the assembly took the further pretrial precaution
of not permitting Smith either to dispute its authority or to argue that Moore's article
was not a libel.
Questions against Smith and more were procured by intimidation. Smith's friend, Dr. Phineas
Bond, first refused to answer questions against Smith. He was thereupon found guilty of high
contempt by the assembly and thrown into jail for an indefinite period. After a few hours
of this treatment, Bond changed his mind and gave testimony along with other chastened
Friends of Smith, Anthony Ambruster, printer of the German paper involved, also proved
an easy mark for the assembly. At first refusing to answer certain questions, Ambruster was
committed to jail indefinitely. After one day he begged the assembly's pardon and answered
all of its questions. The trial of Smith, with the assembly functioning as prosecutor, judge
and Jury, with its verdict already pronounced, proceeded to its foregone conclusion. Smith
was denied the privilege of appeal to the King, and was sentenced to jail until he should
purge himself of his crime by humble submissions and confession of error. Smith proved a tougher
nut to crack than the witnesses. He rose to protest his innocence, and striking his hand
Smith, upon his breast, assured them no punishment they could inflict would be half so terrible
to him as the suffering his tongue to give his heart the lie.
Smith also had the courage and the vision to invoke, at least fleetingly, the freedom
of the press as part of his defense.
Smith's noble and dramatic speech moved several people in the audience to burst into applause.
They were of course promptly arrested and only released after being forced to beg the pardon
of the mighty assembly.
As for Smith, he was returned to jail for an indefinite term and the sheriff was again
ordered to disregard any writs of habeas corpus.
The embattled Smith and more petitioned the chief justice and the governor for habeas
corpus writs, but the highest court ruled that while the assembly sat in session its
Smith and Moore were only released when the Assembly was recessed in three months' time,
but they were arrested again in three weeks when the Assembly reconvened. Fortunately,
the Assembly adjourned for the summer and the hapless prisoners were again released,
but on meeting again in the fall, the Assembly yet again ordered the arrest of Smith and
and more. This time the two victims had wisely turned fugitives and could not be found.
In hiding, Moore courageously published another attack on the Assembly. Once again a new session
of the Assembly reordered his and Smith's arrest, but Smith had fled to England to appeal
to the Crown while the Assembly continued to seek the elusive Moore.
In England, Smith's battle against the despotism of the assembly was strenuously opposed by
that great fighter for freedom, Benjamin Franklin, English agent for the assembly. Finally, however,
the Privy Council issued its ruling in 1759. It decided that Moore's criticism had indeed
been a libel, thus continuing the law of seditious libel in full force, but ruled that the assembly
had no power to imprison for breach of privilege or to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Their
long ordeal over, Smith and Moore were finally allowed to return to Philadelphia. Future
Assemblies, sad to say, paid little attention to the Crown's attempt to check their power
to imprison the seditious. The situation was about the same in the other colonies. The
The Rhode Island Legislature and the New Hampshire Assembly each imprisoned a critic
in the mid-1750s. If there were fewer cases in the South, it was only because the Southern
press was more passive and more under government control. Virginia had no newspapers until
1733, and the government newspaper enjoyed a monopoly in the colony until as late as
The Carolinas and Georgia came to enjoy the benefits of printing and of a non-government
press even earlier.
Clearly, there was little chance for popular opposition to the government to develop in
the southern colonies.
Freedom of speech was of course subject to the same severe restraints for seditious libel
as was expression in the press.
The record of persecution of opinion in the 17th century included the cases of Roger Williams
and Anne Hutchinson and the Baptist and the Quakers.
In 1711, Governor Spotswood of Virginia issued an order threatening loss of life or limb
or imprisonment to anyone daring to disseminate seditious principles in the province.
The Virginia Council persecuted a justice of the peace in 1714 for many seditious speeches
and a minister six years later for false and scandalous speeches against the Crown.
In 1758, the Virginia House of Burgesses arrested the Reverend Jacob Rowe, professor of philosophy
at the College of William and Mary, for a scandalous and malicious criticism of itself
at a Private Party. Roe was forced to beg the House's pardon and to pay its cost in
the case. There were few common law prosecutions for seditious libel, but as we have seen,
this did not mean that freedom of expression in 18th century America was well protected.
In fact, its powerless state is indicated by the common law trial in 1723 of two Pennsylvania
The Trial Judge, Robert Ashton, instructed the jury herewith,
What severity impudent and presumptuous for private persons to meddle with matters of so high in nature, and it will be impossible to preserve the peace unless subjects will quietly submit themselves to those whom providence has placed over them? What severity can be too harsh for those who thus despise dominions and speak evil of dignitaries?