Delancey and the Zenger Case

Manatvs gelegen op de Noot [sic] Riuier. Joan Vinckeboons, 1639.
Cities and Towns,
Map Collections (1500-Present)

James Delancey was born into the English aristocracy on November 27, 1703. He presided over the 1733 libel suit brought by Governor William Cosby against journalist Peter Zenger. This case is a major landmark in establishing freedom of the press in America.

Delancey was educated at Cambridge and trained in law. He arrived in colonial Manhattan in 1729. Prior to being named Chief Justice by Royal Governor William Cosby, he served on the Governor's Council and as second judge of the colony's Supreme Court.

Eighteenth century American colonists demanded increased freedom while proponents of royal rule desperately sought to maintain power in the face of rising opposition and democracy. Delancey and Cosby staunchly supported the English Crown and the concept of royal privilege. Many colonial New Yorkers were individualistic entrepreneurs seeking financial success and independence and did not quietly defer to what they viewed as antiquated claims of royal privilege.

Statue of Force, Appellate Court Building, New York, between 1900 and 1906.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920

Statue of Wisdom, Appellate Court Building, New York, between 1900 and 1906.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920

Conflicts between proponents of royal privilege and colonists occurred throughout the 18th century. No skirmish proved as significant as the libel suit against Peter Zenger. Zenger's New York Weekly Journal enjoyed the enthusiastic support of critics of royal privilege and, in the early 1730s, published articles exposing Governor Cosby's unjust policies, backroom financial deals, and bullying tactics. Cosby condemned the Journal and imprisoned Zenger for eight months while he awaited trial for seditious libel. Zenger's imprisonment and trial created widespread public outrage and helped further fuel anti-royal sentiment.

Farm Journal 1906, Alfred Harrell, photographer.
Buckaroos In Paradise, 1945-1982

A hostile Chief Justice Delancey presided over the case. The prosecution argued that there were sufficient grounds for conviction as the publication was highly critical of Cosby and thus libelous and treasonous. In the eyes of the prosecution, the relative truth of the publication was irrelevant.

Zenger's lawyer, Andrew Hamilton (like Zenger a former indentured servant turned successful businessman), directed his defense to the jury rather than the judge, hoping that a public fearful of royal abuses of power would condemn Cosby and protect Zenger. Hamilton conceded that Zenger had published articles critical of Cosby but eloquently argued that because the articles contained truths in the form of statements of verifiable facts, they could not be libelous. The jury's "not guilty" verdict generated spontaneous cheers from anxious onlookers.

This first colonial freedom-of-the-press case established the veracity of reported statements as the principal criteria for determining grounds for libel and set a precedent against judicial tyranny in libel suits, thus marking a major advance for freedom of expression later enshrined in the United States Constitution and its First Amendment.

• Search across the American Memory collections on press to learn about the diverse topics that have been the object of journalist interest.
• Learn more about New York City. Search on New York to review the exciting and diverse archival items in:
  • Life of a City: Early Films of New York, 1898-1906
  • FSA/OWI Photographs, 1935-1945
  • Washington As It Was, 1923-1959
• To read a wide range of material concerning freedom of the press search on that term in the Periodicals section of The Nineteenth Century in Print.

Robert R. Livingston

Bust of Livingston Fresco in U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., Theodor Horydczak, photographer, ca. 1920-1950.
Washington As It Was, 1923-1959

November 27, 1746 marks the birth of Robert R. Livingston, jurist, statesman, and political leader of the Revolutionary period. Livingston served on numerous committees in the Continental Congress, including the one that drafted the Declaration of Independence, helped draft New York's first constitution, and served as the minister to France at the time of the Louisiana Purchase.

Born into a wealthy and influential New York family, Livingston's great grandfather had purchased the Indian claims to large tracts of land along the Hudson River, eventually acquiring an estate of 160,000 acres. After studying at King's College—today known as Columbia University—Livingston formed a law partnership with another alumnus, John Jay, the eventual Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Soon after being appointed to a New York City judicial post by the British, Livingston was removed because of his support for independence for the American colonies.

In June 1776, Livingston was one of five men—along with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Roger Sherman—appointed by the Continental Congress to draft the Declaration of Independence. However, his signature is not on the document as Livingston was in New York at the time of its formal signing. Along with John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, Livingston was instrumental in his role as chancellor in persuading New York to ratify the federal Constitution. He also administered the first oath of office to President George Washington in New York on April 30, 1789.

Livingston was one of the founders of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures. George Washington, owner of the plantation at Mount Vernon, shared Livingston's interests in agricultural matters and corresponded frequently with him. On February 10, 1793 he wrote to Livingston, "that the prosperity of our Country is closely connected with our improvement in the useful Arts." Two years later, on February 16, 1795, Washington again wrote to Livingston stating, "Works of this sort are of the most interesting importance to every country…" and he sent Livingston a pamphlet on the cultivation of potatoes.

Livingston served as America's minister to France at the turn of the nineteenth century under Thomas Jefferson, who instructed him to buy New Orleans and the Floridas from Napoleon. Jefferson subsequently sent James Monroe to Paris with authority to offer the French ten million dollars. When Napoleon unexpectedly offered to sell the entire Louisiana territory for fifteen million, Livingston and Monroe decided the offer was too good to pass up and signed a treaty, subsequently ratified on October 20, 1803 by the U.S. Senate.

Clermont, between 1892 and 1899.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920

Clermont Looking Aft, 1909.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920

The inventor John Stevens was Livingston's brother-in-law, and they were associates in experiments relating to the development of steam navigation. Livingston also supported Robert Fulton whose steamer Clermont, named for Livingston's estate in New York, became the first successful steam-propelled vessel. For many years Livingston and Fulton held a hotly contested monopoly in steam navigation in New York State, still unresolved at the time of Livingston's death at Clermont in 1813.

• Search on Robert Livingston in The George Washington Papers, 1741-1799 to read correspondence between Washington and Livingston dating from the 1770s through the 1790s.
• Search on Robert Livingston in A Century of Lawmaking, 1774-1875 to read about Livingston's work with the Continental Congress as recorded in the Journals of the Continental Congress.
• Livingston and Madison arranged one of the most important land purchases in U.S. history. To learn more about how that purchase shaped U.S. history, search the Today in History Archive on Louisiana Purchase.
• To persuade New Yorkers to support the new Constitution, Livingston's law partner John Jay along with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote The Federalist Papers, a series of articles originally published under the pen name "Publius." To learn more about the Federalist Papers, read the Today in History feature for October 27.
• Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789 includes items such as extracts of the journals of the Continental Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, and treaties. There are also links to text versions of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
• Search across the American Memory collection on the term steamboat for a wide variety of both images and written documents concerning this mode of transportation so commonly used in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including John Fitch's sketch and description of a piston for steamboat propulsion from around 1795.