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SUMMER 1985 Journalism Quarterly Devoted to Research in Journalism and Mass Communication By David Paul Nord The Authority of Truth: Religion And the John Peter Zenger Case Freedom of expression had gious roots. The Zenger affair reveals important religious roots. some of these roots. Beneath the Sut$ace w This article is about religion in the John Religion lay beneath the surface and Peter Zcnger case of 1735. Its main argu- between the lines of the Zenger case; the ment is that an appreciation of the reli- overt issues were political and legal. John gious milieu of the case can help to explain Peter Zenger's New York Weeklv Journal, the nature of Zenger's defense, the mean- which began publication in 1733, has been ing of the jury's verdict, and the ambig- described as the "first political indepen- uous legacy of the trial for freedom of dent" newspaper in America.1 This is not expression in America. In essence, the quite true. It would be more accurate to Zenger case was a disputation on truth, call it the first political party paper. The and on how truth is revealed to man. Journal was launched by a group of New Because this issue lay at the heart of Prot- York politicians. led by Lewis Morris, estant religion as well as colonial politics who opposed the administration of Gov- in the 1730s. the Zenger case can be seen ernor William Cosby. Although Zenger as an interesting intersection of the two. was the printer and proprietor of the Throughout their history, Americans have Journal, the true editor seems to have been strangely intolerant libertarians, of- been James Alexander, a well-known law- ten suppressing individual liberties in the yer. a member of the Morrisite circle, and name of a more transcendent freedom. later the mastermind of Zenger's defense.* This article contends that America's heri- The heart of each issue was usually a polit- tage of freedom of expression is ambig- ical essay. either an excerpt from "Cato's uous, at least in part, because of its reli- Letters" or a pseudonymous letter written by one of the Morrisite leaders. Most of I Vincent Buranelli. "Introduction." in Vincent Buranclli. ed.. these essays were abstract attacks on 771~Trial uf Peter Zenger (New York: New York University tyranny and official abuse of power, but Press. 1957). p. 24. Stanley Nidcr Katz. 'Introduction." in Stanley Nidcr Katz. ed.. A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trid uf John Peter Professor Nord, a specialist in journalism history, (Footnote continued) teaches journalism at Indiana University. 22 7 Downloaded from jmq.sagepub.com by FELICIA GREENLEE BROWN on April 12, 2012 228 JOURNALISM QUARTERLY the connection to the Cosby administra- something like the first shot fired in the tion was always unmistakable.' Not sur- American Revolution.7 prisingly, Governor Cosby immediately In the early 20th century, the case came began to plot his revenge. Throughout to be celebrated more as a legal landmark 1734, Cosby sought, unsuccessfully, the in the development of the law of libel. help of the New York grand jury and the Vincent Buranelli's laudatory account of colonial assembly in suppressing the pa- the trial was probably the apotheosis of per. Finally, in November, 1734, Zenger this view. He declared in 1957 that was arrested and charged with publishing Zenger's acquittal "was not just a personal seditious libels. After much legal wran- thing, or the wresting of a momentary gling, Zenger came to trial in August of privilege from an indolent or interested 1735.4 official. It was a legal precedent."* After The story of the trial itself is well 1960, prompted chiefly by the work of known, largely because of the perennial Leonard Levy, historians moved away popularity of James Alexander's pamphlet from this view, generally agreeing that the A Brief Narrative ofthe Case and Trial of Zenger verdict had no direct impact on the John Peter Zenger. which was first pub- law of libel and little indirect legal impact lished in 1736 and frequently reprinted of any sort9 The standard view today thereafter.5 In the trial, attorney Andrew seems to be that the case was neither a Hamilton, then the most celebrated of political nor a legal landmark, but that it American courtroom lawyers, made his did become an important symbolic event famous plea that truth should be admitted Zenger, 2nd Ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Bdknap Press of Harvard as a defense and that the jury should University Press. 1972). pp. 7-8. See also Vincent Buranelli. "Peter Zenger's Editor." American Quarrerir. 7: 174-8I (Sum- decide not only the facts of publication mer, 1955): Cathy Covert. "Passion Is Ye Prevaling Motive': but also how the law should be applied. The Feud Behind the Zenger Case." Journalism Quurrerlv. 503-10 (Spring, 1973). On New York politics during this era. These two principles were good politics in see Gary 8. Nash. The Urban Crucihle: Social Change. Polirical New York but bad law in an English Consciousness. and the Origins o/ rhe American Revolurion court; the presiding judge rejected both. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979). pp. 140-46; Patricia U. Bonomi. A Facrious People: Politics and Soriel? in Hamilton ignored the rulings from the Coloniol New York (New York: Columbia University Press. bench, however, and appealed directly to 1971). Pan IV. the jury. He admitted that Zenger pub- 3 New York Weeklv Journal. 1733-1734.passim.A few selec- tions from the Journal are reprinted in Katz. op. cir.. and in lished the statements in question, but he Leonard W. Levy. ed.. Freedom o/rhe Press from Zenger ro argued that they were true statements and Jefferson: Earlv American Libertarian Theories (Indianapolis: therefore not libelous. And he told the Bobbs-Merrill. 1966). 4 Katz. op. dr.. pp. 20-23.Katz also includes reprints of pre- jurors that they had the right to so decide. trial materials. Hamilton's plea on both principles was 5 Katz. op. cir.. is the most recent republication of the Zenger persuasive. and the jury brought in a ver- trial pamphlet. An uncorrected literal version of the trial pam- phlet is contained in Livingston Rutherfurd. John perer Zenger: dict of "not guilty." When the verdict was His Prers. Hi> Trial and a Bibliography o/ Zenger lmprinrs read, three "huzzas" rang out in the court- (New York: Dodd. Mead & Company. 1904). For other edi- tions. see "Bibliography of the Trial of John Peter Zenger." in room. And later that night the Morrisites Rutherfurd. Rutherfurd's book was reprinted (1968) by the gathered at the Black Horse Tavern tc Johnson Reprint Corporation. drink toasts to Hamilton and to celebrate Katz. op. d..p. 101 and passim: Rutherfurd. op. cir.. p. the vindication of liberty in America.6 But 126. For example. see George Bancroft. Hisrory ofrhe Unired what were they really celebrating? Siare3 tiom rhe Di.wJl.ery of (he American Conrinenr. Vol. 3 The legal and political significance of (Boston: Little Brown. 1859). pp. 393-94;Richard Hildreth. The History of the Unired Yares pf America. Vol. 2 (New York: the Zenger case seemed simple enough to Harper and Brothers, 1882). p. 360. the celebrants that night at the Black * Buranelli. Triolo/ Peter Zenger. p. 57. See also John Fiske. Horse. But the meaning of the case has The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in Ameriu~.Vol. 2 (Boston: been warmly debated by historians, law- Houghton Mifllin. 1900) p. 296; Rutherlurd. op. d.,p. 131. 9 Levy. up. cir., pp, xxxi-xxxiii. See also Levy. &gOl',V of yers and journalists ever since. In the 19th Suppre,sion: Freedom pf Speech and Press in Earlv American century, the trial was generally viewed as a Hislory (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). p. 133: Katz. "Introduction." op. cir.. pp. 1-2: Warren C. Price, landmark in the growth of political free- "Reflections on the Trial of John Peter Zenger," Journalnm dom and resistance to tyranny in America- Quarrerlv. 32161-68 (Spring, 1955). Downloaded from jmq.sagepub.com by FELICIA GREENLEE BROWN on April 12, 2012 Religion and the John Peter Zenger Case 229 for 18th-century politics in America-a about. Hamilton did not-he could not- kind of “guiding light for those who were ask the jury to decide the nature and gradually developing an ideology of free- extent of individualism and free thought. dom of expression.”IO He asked them instead to decide the ques- But what was this developing ideology tion, “What is truth?“ In our age of rela- of free expression? It was not, certainly, an tivism and skepticism. this would seem to unqualified libertarian commitment to be the more troubling question. But in individualism and individual freedom. It 1735, the jury was prepared to take it on. was, rather, a belief that people should It is the thesis of this article that the have the right to speak the truth. This was audacity displayed by the Zenger jury in Andrew Hamilton’s plea to the 12 jury- accepting the burden of this great question men. He asked them to affirm, not the is understandable only when viewed in the sanctity of Zenger’s individual rights, but context of religion-religion as displayed the sanctity of the truth. “Truth ought to in the trial itself, in the pages of the New govern the whole affair of libels,” Hamil- York Weekly Journal, and in the wider ton told the jury. “For as it is truth alone society of colonial New York in 1735. which can excuse or justify any man for complaining of a bsd administration, 1 as The Trial frankly agree that nothing ought to excuse First, it is clear from the text of the trial a man who raises a false charge or accusa- that Hamilton meant to associate politics tion.” Time and time again, Hamilton and political liberty with religion and reli- made it clear that he was pleading only for gious dissent.
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