The Zenger case was the 1735 criminal trial of New York printer John Peter Zenger, who was charged with seditious libel for publishing newspaper articles critical of the colony’s royal governor. A jury acquitted him even though he had admitted printing the articles, rejecting the English rule that truthful criticism of officials could be punished as a crime. The verdict carried no binding legal force, but it became a touchstone for American press freedom and was cited during the debates that produced the First Amendment.
What Zenger Was Charged With
The charge was seditious libel, a crime inherited from English common law. Under that framework, any published criticism of government officials or institutions was criminal, and it did not matter whether the criticism was accurate.1The First Amendment Encyclopedia. Seditious Libel Truthful criticism was, if anything, treated as more dangerous, because a factual accusation of corruption was harder to dismiss and more likely to turn the public against the government.2First Amendment Watch. The End of Seditious Libel, 1964
Trial procedure matched the substance. The judge decided whether the published material was libelous. The jury’s only job was a narrow factual one: did the defendant actually print or distribute the material? If yes, the judge handled the rest, and conviction was close to automatic. For Zenger, that meant admitting he ran the press should have been enough to send him to prison.1The First Amendment Encyclopedia. Seditious Libel
Why the Governor Went After Zenger’s Paper
William Cosby arrived as royal governor of New York in 1732 and quickly picked fights with the colony’s political establishment, including removing Chief Justice Lewis Morris from the bench after Morris ruled against him.3Famous Trials. Key Figures in the Trial of John Peter Zenger Morris and his allies needed a public outlet, and the colony’s only existing newspaper was loyal to Cosby. The lawyer James Alexander founded the New York Weekly Journal in late 1733 and hired Zenger, a German immigrant printer, to publish it.4Famous Trials. Prelude to the Zenger Trial: A Colony Divided Alexander and other members of the opposition wrote most of the articles; Zenger ran the press. The Journal accused Cosby of removing judges, rigging elections, and enriching himself at the colony’s expense.
Cosby tried to shut it down. He had the public hangman burn several issues, and when two grand juries declined to indict Zenger, Cosby’s allies on the provincial council issued a warrant directly. On November 17, 1734, the sheriff arrested Zenger and took him to the Old City Jail.5National Park Service. The New York Weekly Journal and the Arrest of John Peter Zenger Bail was set at £400, well beyond what Zenger could pay, and he sat in jail for roughly eight months awaiting trial.6Historical Society of the New York Courts. Crown v. John Peter Zenger, 1735
Andrew Hamilton’s Defense
Zenger’s original lawyers, James Alexander and William Smith, were struck from the rolls of practicing attorneys by order of Chief Justice James DeLancey, a Cosby ally who would also preside over the trial.6Historical Society of the New York Courts. Crown v. John Peter Zenger, 1735 In their place, Zenger’s allies brought in Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, widely regarded as the most skilled trial lawyer in the American colonies.
When the trial opened on August 4, 1735, Hamilton immediately conceded that Zenger had printed and published the articles named in the indictment. Under the existing rules, that admission should have ended the case.6Historical Society of the New York Courts. Crown v. John Peter Zenger, 1735 Hamilton wasn’t giving up. He was clearing the decks so the trial could focus on the question he actually wanted argued: were the published statements true? He asked the jury to consider the accuracy of the Journal’s accusations, arguing that truthful statements about a public official’s misconduct could not be criminal. Chief Justice DeLancey rejected the argument and instructed the jurors that their role was limited to confirming the fact of publication.7Jack Miller Center. Trial of John Peter Zenger
Hamilton appealed directly to the jurors. “It is not the cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying,” he told them. “It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty.” He asked them to lay what he called “a noble foundation” for the right to expose and oppose abuses of power “by speaking and writing truth.”8Liberty Fund. 1736: Brief Narrative of the Trial of Peter Zenger
The Verdict and What the Jury Actually Did
The jury deliberated briefly and came back with a not-guilty verdict, delivered by foreman Thomas Hunt.9National Park Service. The Trial of John Peter Zenger The courtroom erupted in three rounds of cheers so loud that DeLancey threatened spectators with arrest, then gave up and left.
What the jury did was an early and dramatic example of jury nullification: they refused to convict a defendant who was technically guilty under the existing law because they believed the law itself was unjust.10National Constitution Center. Argument in the Zenger Trial Zenger had admitted publication. Under DeLancey’s instructions, that was all the jurors needed to find. By acquitting anyway, they effectively declared that truth should matter in a libel case, even though the law said otherwise.
Why the Case Still Matters
The verdict did not change the law. A jury acquittal creates no binding precedent, and seditious libel remained on the books in both England and the colonies for decades afterward. Gouverneur Morris later described the trial as “the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America.”11The First Amendment Encyclopedia. John Peter Zenger
The principle Hamilton had argued, that truth should be a defense to a libel charge, took decades to become formal law. In 1804, the New York Supreme Court still refused to accept truth as a defense in People v. Croswell. The following year, the New York legislature changed the law to allow it, breaking with English precedent, and other states and the federal government eventually followed.12Wikipedia. United States Defamation Law In England, Parliament passed the Libel Act of 1792, which finally gave juries the power to render a general verdict on the whole case rather than just confirming publication, codifying the authority Hamilton had asked the Zenger jurors to take for themselves fifty-seven years earlier.
The trial was referenced repeatedly during the drafting of the First Amendment, which guaranteed that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Today, truth is an absolute defense against defamation claims in the United States, and the idea that a government could jail someone for accurately criticizing public officials is treated as fundamentally incompatible with American law. The Zenger case did not create that reality on its own, but it planted the seed that grew into it.