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#AceHistoryDesk – Today in History – James De Lancey, lawyer, jurist and eventual acting governor of New York, was born in New York City on November 27, 1703. As Chief Justice of New York, De Lancey presided over the landmark 1733 libel suit brought by Royal Governor William Cosby against printer John Peter Zenger.

Cosby accused Zenger of printing stories critical of Cosby in his newspaper. Although De Lancey served at the pleasure of Cosby, and was himself biased against Zenger’s cause, the jury at Zenger’s trial still ruled in favor of the printer’s right to publish.

The eldest son of a French Huguenot merchant and a New York Dutch heiress, James De Lancey was sent to England at age twenty to receive his legal education. In 1728 he married Anne Heathcote of Scarsdale Manor (later Scarsdale, West Chester County) with whom he had six children. The following year he was admitted to the New York bar. With his superior training and family connections, De Lancey rose rapidly in political circles. Prior to his appointment as Chief Justice of New York by Cosby in August, 1733, De Lancey also served on the Governor’s Council and as second justice of the colony’s Supreme Court of Judicature.

The basis of the conflict surrounding Zenger’s newspaper lay in partisan politics, stemming from Cosby’s 1732 arrival as the new Royal Governor. Cosby demanded a pay raise, but also placed a claim on half the money previously paid to the colony’s interim governor, Rip Van Dam, as salary. New York’s provincial council granted the pay increase but opposed the surrender of Van Dam’s earnings. Cosby brought suit through New York’s Supreme Court. When Chief Justice Lewis Morris refused to hear the case, Cosby responded by removing Morris from the court—the reason for De Lancey’s quick appointment. The politically powerful Morris and his allies next looked for ways to discredit Cosby and his supporters. Led by lawyer James Alexander, the Morris faction soon started the New York Weekly Journalnone as an opposition newspaper specifically to criticize Cosby, employing printer John Peter Zenger to represent their cause. As printer, Zenger, a German immigrant, was the public face of the anti-Cosby paper, but he was neither the author nor the editor of its largely anonymous content.

After several legal attempts to stifle the paper and a full year of public attacks against him, Cosby had had enough of the New York Weekly Journalnone. In November, 1734, he ordered that four of the most offensive issues be publicly burned. Ten days later, Cosby had Zenger arrested on charges of seditious libel. Unable to afford an excessively high bail, Zenger spent more than eight months in prison awaiting trial, while the Weekly Journal continued to appear with the help of Zenger’s wife Anna. Though a grand jury refused to indict him, Zenger was finally brought to trial on August 4, 1735.

A hostile Chief Justice De Lancey presided over the case. De Lancey had disbarred Zenger’s original defense attorneys and replaced them with a pro-Cosby lawyer. On the day of the trial, however, Zenger was defended by the prominent Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton, by surprise arrangement of the Weekly Journal’snone supporters. Hamilton directed his defense to the jury rather than the judge, conceding that Zenger had published articles critical of Cosby but eloquently arguing that because the articles contained truths in the form of verifiable facts, they could not be libelous—an argument that defied the accepted understanding of libel law at that time.

The Zenger jury’s “not guilty” verdict came quickly and was widely celebrated. Zenger soon published a transcript of the trial, while Hamilton was awarded the “Freedom of the City” and an inscribed gold box by the Common Council of New York. Though scholars may disagree about the long-term effects of the Zenger case in law or legislation, it fully captured the public’s attention. The case set an important political precedent for colonial America, fortifying emerging concepts of freedom of the press while earning the trial of John Peter Zenger an enduring place in America’s historical imagination.

For De Lancey, the Zenger affair was only a minor setback in his own rise to power. With Cosby’s death in 1736, De Lancey joined the governor’s council, now exerting great influence on all three branches of New York government. By 1744, he had earned the role of chief justice “in good behavior,” which effectively meant he could hold the position for life. Three years later he became Lieutenant Governor. During the 1750s James De Lancey served twice as acting governor of New York, convening the Albany Congress of 1754 and signing the charter for King’s College (now Columbia University) the following year. He died suddenly of a heart attack in July of 1760.

Learn More

• Search the Library’s collections on press to learn about the diverse topics that have been the object of journalist interest. Search on libelto learn more about issues of truth and slander across American history. View resources about the Alien and Sedition Acts to learn about another formative episode concerning freedom of speech in the United States.
• Search Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera on De Lancey to see two official proclamations issued by James De Lancey as Lieutenant Governor of New York.
• Read Today in History entries about Benjamin Franklin and his “Join or Die” cartoon, as well as the first daily newspaper, to learn more about newspapers in early American History. View a presentation on Publishing the Declaration of Independence to learn about the role of newspapers in furthering the cause of American Independence.
• View the exhibit First Among Many: The Bay Psalm Book and Early Moments in American Printing to learn more about the overall history of printing in what is now the United States.
• Browse or search Chronicling America, a collection of historic American newspapers dating back to 1777.

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