Indelible Ink

The story of the battle to legalise free expression in America.

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In 1733, John Peter Zenger scandalised New York by launching a newspaper, The New-York Weekly Journal, which assailed the new British governor as corrupt and arrogant—a direct challenge to the prevailing law against “seditious libel” that criminalised any criticism of the government. Fronting for a group of anti-royalist politicians, Zenger was thrown in jail before his landmark one-day trial on 4 August 1735 where he was brilliantly defended by lawyer Andrew Hamilton. In Indelible Ink, Richard Kluger re-creates the dramatic clash of powerful antagonists that marked the beginning of press freedom in America and its role in vanquishing colonial tyranny. Here is an enduring lesson on the importance of free public expression as the underpinning of democracy.