Zenger Trial

Name: A Dictionary of American History - Zenger Trial
Author: Thomas L. Purvis

Zenger Trial In 1732 N.Y. Governor William Cosby claimed that part of his own salary was wrongly appropriated by his predecessor, Acting Governor Rip Van Dam. Cosby appointed a special chancery court, which rendered verdicts without a jury, in which he sued Van Dam; he also dismissed Van Dam’s supporters from political office and threatened their land titles. Cosby’s enemies hired John Peter Zenger to edit the New York Weekly Journal, which began publication on 5 November 1733 and denounced Cosby as a danger to civil liberties and property rights. Cosby prosecuted Zenger for seditious libel, but Zenger was acquitted on 4 August 1735. The case blocked further abuse of seditious libel prosecutions in N.Y., but was not interpreted as a major precedent for freedom of the press until after 1820.

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Chicago: Thomas L. Purvis, "Zenger Trial," A Dictionary of American History in A Dictionary of American History (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Reference, 1995), Original Sources, accessed December 4, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=5R9WB7GA11W7Q74.

MLA: Purvis, Thomas L. "Zenger Trial." A Dictionary of American History, in A Dictionary of American History, Cambridge, Mass., Blackwell Reference, 1995, Original Sources. 4 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=5R9WB7GA11W7Q74.

Harvard: Purvis, TL, 'Zenger Trial' in A Dictionary of American History. cited in 1995, A Dictionary of American History, Blackwell Reference, Cambridge, Mass.. Original Sources, retrieved 4 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=5R9WB7GA11W7Q74.