[Hamilton, Alexander] | A landmark case in the history of the First Amendment

[Hamilton, Alexander]

The Speeches at Full Length of Mr. Van Ness, Mr. Caines, the Attorney-General, Mr. Harrison, and General Hamilton, in the Great Cause of the People, Against Harry Croswell, on an Indictment for a Libel on Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States. New York: G. & R. Waite, 1804

8vo (205 x 126 mm). Title-page; 2 marks in pen to title, light foxing and toning throughout. Disbound, two punctures to inner margin through all leaves.

First edition. The speeches by Alexander Hamilton, William W. Van Ness, George Caines, and Richard Harrison, argued in the trial of People v. Croswell. 

In response to attacks on his administration by Federalist newspapers, Thomas Jefferson sought to prosecution for criminal libel under the Sedition Act. The political journalist Harry Croswell was indicted for his periodical, The Wasp, which had accused Jefferson of hiring pamphleteer James Callender to write articles charging Washington and Adams with various crimes—and referring to them as a "hoary-headed incendiary" and a "traitor, robber, and perjurer," respectively. Croswell was convicted in trial, as the court refused to allow him to prove the truth of what he had printed or intended, ruling that the truth was not a defense.

Croswell was defended by a group of eminent lawyers, including William W. Van Ness and Alexander Hamilton, though the latter only argued on his behalf in appeal. In one of Hamilton's greatest speeches, a six-hour appellate argument, he argued that the freedom of the press consists in publishing the truth, regardless of how it reflects on its subjects; further, he argued for a rejection of libel based on English common law principles, which had been the basis for the court's original ruling. Nonetheless, Croswell was convicted, though never sentenced. The following year New York overturned the English libel laws based on Hamilton's argument.

A landmark case in the history of the First Amendment

REFERENCE

Ford, Bibliotheca Hamiltoniana 90; Cohen, Bibliography of Early American Law 13322.