Did you know that the Zenger trial was about election fraud?

[Smarmie Doofus]

Did you know that the famed "freedom of the press" trial of Peter Zenger was really about election fraud? The more things change.....the more they *don't*.

I'm helping my son with a social studies project.

Seems the British governor of NY, William Cosby ( no, not the 'Fat Albert' Cosby), told his local flunkie... sheriff of Eastchester, NY.... to challenge the credentials of Quakers( those Quakers were always trouble; still are, in fact) who were trying to vote in an election for NYS assembly, an election in which Gov. Bill had a stake.

The challenge was that the Quakers, overwhelmingly anti Cosby and anti-Royalist, refused to swear the oath required of voters at that time but prohibited by the Quakers' religion.

They couldn't vote. Cosby's candidate lost anyway. (I guess in those days they actually *counted* the votes.) Zenger wrote about the incident and was picked up a few mos. later and incarcerated for 10 mos. or so before his historic precedent-setting trial.

The jury nullification ( in effect that's what it was) established the principle that truth is a valid defense to charges of libel and, more broadly, the principle of 'freedom of the press'.

( Perhaps someone can notify the corporate media of the later? Just askin').

Any DU historians want to quibble with the above? Do we have it right? Most of this can be had from Wikipedia and related links. Don't want to send the boy to school with bad history. This is fourth grade. There's enough bad history around at the post-graduate level.

And in the public school textbooks, of course.