The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

Chapter 8
Liberty of the Press
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The liberty of the press in Virginia evolved in just a few decades from an
extremely limited theory to a broader right that was highly valued. This transition is
visible on the pages of the eighteenth-century Virginia Gazettes and the nearby
Maryland Gazettes. The early expressions of this freedom were so limited that they
did not include the right to question political authority. Over the next thirty years,
as political deference declined and civic discourse broadened, a revolutionary
concept of press freedom developed and various writers in the public prints
championed the cause. It was on the pages of the newspapers and the political
pamphlets where civic discourse began, and the ability of those pages to freely
publish such thoughts had become highly valued.
When the framers of the new Virginia Constitution with its Declaration of
Rights sat down in 1776, the local public prints—far more than the political
philosophers or the British legal precedents—influenced their thinking. The author
of this first-ever clause ensuring constitutional protection for freedom of the press
is actually not known, although most historians assume that George Mason wrote
it. More important than who wrote the clause is why it was written—why it was
considered so important. This chapter focuses on why freedom of the press was
considered so valuable that it had to be protected as an essential liberty, and what
colonial Virginians intended when they wrote and supported that clause.
A close examination of the record of seditious libel in the colony
demonstrates much broader origins of press freedom than were previously
recognized. The Virginia Declaration of Rights was an important precedent for
other states’ protection of rights. These were, in turn, influential in the writing of