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Conceived in Liberty Companion · Volume II, chapter 27 · 4 August 1735

John Peter Zenger is acquitted · the second-floor courtroom of City Hall on Wall Street, New York City

Three huzzas in the hall

How much can one jury verdict change the limits on criticism of government?

In a packed courtroom, men swing hats and raise their arms as a pale printer grips the bar beside a grave, grey-wigged lawyer, with a stern judge in a white wig watching from the raised bench and jurors standing at left.
Modern AI-assisted reconstruction. New York, 4 August 1735. The jury comes back in ten minutes, and the crowded hall answers with three huzzas as printer John Peter Zenger stands at the bar beside Andrew Hamilton. Rothbard is cooler than the legend: a quarrel between two factions of the landed oligarchy, though it did win truth as a defense and a jury’s voice on the law. Chapter 27 of Conceived in Liberty.

Before this scene

John Peter Zenger printed criticism of Governor William Cosby and was jailed before his trial. The accusation was libel, meaning a published statement treated as unlawfully damaging to someone’s reputation. His defense lawyer Andrew Hamilton asked the jury to consider both the truth of the articles and the law used against the printer. The dispute also involved competing political factions. Rothbard praises the defense while warning against turning the acquittal into a simple story of permanent press freedom. [1] [2]

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The story, from several sources

This account blends Rothbard’s chapter with the other sources listed below and has not yet been separated into Rothbard’s own account and the fuller story. Read Rothbard’s chapter 27 for his account.

On 4 August 1735, in the second-floor courtroom of City Hall on Wall Street, the jury withdrew and came back in about ten minutes. Asked whether John Peter Zenger was guilty of printing libels, the foreman answered Not Guilty, and, in the words of the printed narrative of the case, there were three huzzas in the hall, which was crowded with people. Zenger had sat in jail for nine months on Governor Cosby’s order, and the court had disbarred his lawyers for objecting to Cosby’s packing of the bench, so the Morris faction brought in Andrew Hamilton, the venerable lawyer from Philadelphia. He won by asking the jury to judge the law as well as the facts and by arguing that the articles were true. Zenger was freed the next day, and Hamilton was given a dinner and a salute of cannon when he left. Rothbard praises the two legal points, then cuts the legend down. The fight was between two factions of the landed oligarchy, truth as a defense is “a very shaky reed,” and English law took neither point until 1792 and 1843 (CiL, p. 646). The real enemy of a free press in those years, he says, was the colonial Assembly.

Why it matters

Interpretation: A jury may protect a particular defendant without settling every future conflict over expression. Distinguishing the outcome of a case from a lasting change in law prevents an attractive origin story from replacing analysis. [1] [2]

Examine and discuss

  1. What did Hamilton ask the jury to consider?
  2. Why does the political rivalry matter when interpreting the trial?
  3. Compare Zenger’s acquittal with Bradford’s confiscated press: what protected expression, and what remained vulnerable?

About the reconstruction

This is an AI-assisted adaptive companion inspired by Murray N. Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty. It draws on sources beyond the book and is not Rothbard’s original text or a condensation of it. Each scene identifies whether its narration combines sources or separates an account of the book from additional context.

The sources establish the event and accounts of it. The painting’s poses, expressions, lighting, and arrangement are artistic choices rather than a surviving visual record.

Suggest a correction to this companion scene. Notes about the original book are recorded separately.

Full sources and reuse information

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. II, ch. 27, pp. 639-653. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. [James Alexander], A Brief Narrative of the Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger, Printer of the New-York Weekly Journal (New York, 1736), the account of the verdict, as reprinted on Encyclopedia.com (accessed 2026-09-30). Primary source
  3. ‘Crown v. John Peter Zenger, 1735’, Historical Society of the New York Courts (accessed 2026-09-30): the courtroom on the second floor of City Hall; Chief Justice De Lancey and Justice Philipse; foreman Thomas Hunt; cheers in the crowded courtroom; the dinner at the Black Horse Tavern and the salute of cannons; Zenger freed the day after. Secondary source
  4. National Park Service, Federal Hall, ‘The Trial of John Peter Zenger’ (as cited in registry/eras/middle-colonies-1710-1770): the trial in the second-floor courtroom of City Hall on the site of Federal Hall. Secondary source
  5. ‘John Peter Zenger’, Wikipedia (accessed 2026-09-30): born 26 October 1697; the jury retired and returned in ten minutes with a verdict of not guilty; Hamilton repeatedly rebuffed by Chief Justice DeLancey. Secondary source

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Painting and companion additions: CC BY 4.0, credit freecapitalists.org. How to credit.

Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0. External sources retain their own terms.

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