Existing comment:
William Peter Van Ness
The Speeches... Against Harry Croswell, on an Indictment for a Libel on Thomas Jefferson
Hamilton was always interested in cases involving Constitutional law -- and he relished any opportunity to attack his rival Thomas Jefferson. He signed on to help defend Harry Croswell, an editor of a Federalist newspaper, who was being sued by President Jefferson. Croswell had claimed in print that Jefferson encouraged James T. Callendar to publish incendiary takedowns of George Washington and John Adams. Jefferson had stood up for Republicans prosecuted for libel under the Federalists' Sedition Act, citing freedom of the press, but he now reversed his position.
In a speech many considered to be his best, Hamilton championed an idea that was beginning to percolate in the courts and would become a national standard after is death: if a libelous statement were both true and not malicious, it should not be punished. |