The liberty of the press is a subject of the greatest importance, and in whichevery individual is as much concerned as he is in any other part of liberty.
New York Weekly JournalNovember 12, 1733
THE TRIAL OF
Peter Zenger
EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY
Vincent Buranelli
Washington Square
New York University Press
1957
© 1957 by New York University Press, Inc.
Library of Congress catalogue card number: 57-6370
Manufactured in the United States of America
Numb. XVI.
THE
New-York Weekly JOURNAL.
Containing the freshest Advices, Foreign, and Domestick.
MUNDAY February 18, 1733.
Mr. Zenger;
I beg you will give the following Sentimentsof CATO, a Place in your weekly Journal,and you’ll oblige one of your Subscribers.
Without Freedom of Thought, therecan be no such Thing as Wisdom,and no such Thing as public Liberty, withoutFreedom of Speech, which is theRight of every Man, as far as by it he doesnot hurt or controul the Right of another:And this is the only Check it ought to suffer,and the only Bounds it ought to know.
This sacred Privilege is so essential tofree Governnments, that the Security ofProperty, and the Freedom of Speech alwaysgo together; and in those wretchedCountries where a Man cannot call hisTongue his own he can scarce call anyThing else his own. Whoever would overthrowthe Liberty of a Nation must beginby subduing the Freeness of Speech; aThing terrible to publick Traytors.
This secret was so well known, to theCourt of King Charles the First, that hiswicked Ministry procured a Proclamationto forbid the People to talk of Parliaments,which those Traytors had laid aside.
To assert the undoubted Right of theSubject, and defend his Majesty’s legalPrerogative, was called Disaffection, andpunished as Sedition.
That Men ought to speak well of theirGovernours, is true, while their Governoursdeserve to be well Spoken of, butto do publick Mischief without Hearingof it is only the Prerogative and Felicityof Tyranny a free People will be shewingthat they are so, by their Freedom ofSpeech.
The Administration of Government, isnothing else but the Attendance of theTrustees of the People upon the Interest,and Affairs of the People. And it is thePart and Business of the People, for whoseSake alone all publick Matters are or oughtto be transacted, to see whether they bewell or ill transacted; so it is the Interest,and ought to be the Ambition of all honestMagistrates, to have their Deeds openlyexamined and publickly scanned.
Freedom of Speech is ever the Symptomas well as the Effect of good Government.In old Rome all was left to theJudgment and Pleasure of the People, whoexamined t