The Administration of Government, is nothing else but the Attendance of the Trustees of the People upon the Interest, and Affairs of the People. And it is the Part and Business of the People, for whose Sake alone all publick Matters are or ought to be transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted; so it is the Interest, and ought to be the Ambition of all honest Magistrates, to have their Deeds openly examined and publickly scanned. Freedom of Speech is ever the Symptom as well as the Effect of good Government. In old _Rome_ all was left to the Judgment and Pleasure of the People, who examined the public Proceedings with such Discretion, and censured those who administred them with such Equity and Mildness, that in the Space of three Hundred Years, not five public Ministers suffered unjustly. Indeed whenever the Commons proceeded to Violence, the great ones had been the Agressors. Guilt only dreads Liberty of Speech, which drags it out of its Lurking Holes and exposes its Deformity and horror to to[sic] Day light; the best Princes have ever incouraged and promoted freedom of Speech they know that upright Measures would defend themselves and that all upright Men would defend them. _Tacitus_ speaking of the Reign of good Princes says with extasy; _A blessed Time, when you might think what you would, and Speak what you Thought_. I doubt not but old _Spencer_ and his Son who were the chief Ministers and Betrayers of _Edward_ the Second would have been glad to have stopt the Mouths of all the honest Men in _England_. They dreaded to be called Traytors because they were Traytors. And I dare say Queen Elizabeths Preface In this book you will find the reasons for the fame of Peter Zenger and Andrew Hamilton. You will also find the reason why James Alexander deserves mention as the third member of a great trio. Zenger was the central figure of a colorful and influential historical event—his trial for seditious libel. Hamilton was the champion who won him his freedom. The place of Alexander in all this is virtually unknown, and yet without him Hamilton’s fame would be cut in half, while Zenger would not merit even a footnote in the histories of America, of democracy, or of journalism. Alexander edited the _New York Weekly Journal_. That simple fact means that he was the first American editor to practice freedom of the press systematically and coherently, and the first to be justified legally. The defense of Zenger’s person was a defense of Alexander’s philosophy of journalism. The victory engineered by Hamilton was the result of a courtroom campaign along lines laid down by Alexander.