I would not be surprised if many have not heard the name, John Peter Zenger. This instrumental character of the pre-revolution era in the American Colonies is the center of one of the most defining free speech cases in British colonial history that built a sturdy foundation for what would eventually become the first amendment in the United States constitution.
The story of Zenger is a fascinating one. A German immigrant to the colony of New York, Zenger was a printer who published the New York Weekly Journal. The first issue was printed in Novemeber of 1733. This Journal was a collective of authors who were opposed to the policies of Royal Governor William Cosby. Think of a pamphlet as the social media of the day. The pamphlets laid criticism upon the actions of Cosby and called out what the authors saw as bad governance and treasonous choices by the governor.
The paper accused the governor of a wide spectrum of crimes. Including rigging elections in the favor of the Governor and his desired policies and allowing the French free access at New York harbor without any defense or control of the port. These actions were called out by many of Zengers colleagues in this weekly paper and ultimately became a consistently harsh criticism of the governor and his capacity for office.
Although Zenger was only the printer and assembler of the articles, who had mostly been written by his more learned colleagues, the crown held Zenger responsible for libel - which in those days included a provision of guilt simply for the criticism of the government. He was arrested a year after the first publication of the pamphlet and held in jail for 10 months, an exceedingly long time for a trial of this nature.
The trial was fascinating. Initially the jury was stacked with people on the payroll for Governor Cosby. It seemed inevitable that this very winnable case by the state was going to go quickly and the whole embarrassing scene would be used to send a message to dissenters. If you speak out against the crown or its servants, your judgement will be quick and punitive.
Uniquely though, Zenger's wife and the co-authors of the periodical saw the injustice and kept the presses rolling, building up a groundswell of demands that the crown selected jury be replaced. Buckling under public pressure the judge agreed and replaced the jury, with one of Zenger’s peers. Setting the ground work for a more fair trial. The judge was so confident that the merits of the case would find Zenger guilty that his choice to allow for the jury replacement seemed like an opportunity to appease the politics, all while assuring his government authorities that the libel case was definitive and shouldn’t be hard to convict. After all, Zenger's publicaion had slandered the governor, and Zenger had never denied his involvement in printing or publishing of the pamphlet. This was the definition of the crime and therefore the government could accomplish both an optical win by appointing a jury more in alignment with Zenger and still send the harsh message that criticism of the government would not be tolerated.
But something unique happened - Zenger had retained a lawyer who was considered to be the most brilliant in America, Andrew Hamilton. He made an appeal to the new jury that the argument should not be whether or not Zenger had printed the pamphlets - that was undeniable and even willfully admitted by Zenger himself. The argument instead should be if the accusations against the governor were true or false. Hamilton plead with the jury that if what had been printed about the government were true, then this was a case for liberty and no libel had been committed.
The judge, trying to wrest back the case to the merits that he had defined, admonished the jury that if they believed Zenger had printed the pamphlets, they must find the defendant guilty of the crime. There was to be no discussion of the argument that Mr. Hamilton had asked for. The jury returned in 10 minutes, to the thunderous applause of the courtroom after pronouncing Zenger not guilty of the crime. Hamilton and Zenger had laid the fist building block of free speech in the colonies. While the law remained intact, the newspapers and publishers within the colonies realized a certain liberation to print what they wanted to discuss, which would become a much more valuable asset the nearer the revolution came.
Here we stand again - governments around the world are pressing in on speaking out against their actions and holding platforms in social media responsible for their publication of the people's commentary.
They care little if the merits of their actions are damnable or wrong - they have built an infrastructure designed to use the laws to punish the voice of the masses. They see criticism of themselves as an affront to their divine right of rule. Brazil, Canada, Europe all have authorities that demand for the silence of the people. But the citizens have to continue to speak out - they have to become the new press. They cannot be intimidated by the threats of the powerful. They must keep the "presses" rolling to call out the injustice, incompetence, and inhumanity of their governments. There must be an insistence that the sheer act of speaking out against the powerful is the only way to sustain a peaceful society. The more that the totalitarians choose to crimp down on speaking, the more agitated and radical the solutions become for the people.
You cannot quell the drive of humankind towards a free life. It won’t matter the technology or the punishment, the people must be at liberty to speak, especially about the ills of a their rulers. Stand firm against their threats and management through rules. We have the voice that overwhelms the ramparts of paper that they hide behind. The castle walls need proverbial storming through more speech. Set aside the disagreements on petty issues and hyper divided culture wars, and work towards the natural state of humanity…liberty. When they come to silence us - be the next one in line who steps up to keep the presses printing.
Essay 70 - The Desire To Silence