The liberty of written and spoken expression has been fixed in the firmament of our social values since our nation's beginning--the government of the United States was the first to legalize free speech and a free press as fundamental rights. But when the British began colonizing...
In 1735, struggling printer John Peter Zenger scandalized colonial New York by launching a small newspaper, the New-York Weekly Journal. The newspaper was assailed by the new British governor as corrupt and arrogant, and as being a direct challenge against the prevailing law...