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

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suggestions for the Declaration of Rights. Richard Henry Lee showed a consistent
concern regarding press liberty.
Richard Henry Lee or Thomas Ludwell Lee could have been the author of
the free press clause in the Declaration of Rights, but it could also have been
Mason, any other committee member, or another correspondent. If Mason had
composed the article, it would have likely been in his handwriting. It is far from
clear, however, just who did originate the concept. Whether or not Mason wrote
the free press clause is less important than the fact that Mason did originate the
concept of the Declaration of Rights, that free press became part of those rights,
and that the need for such a right came out of a cultural transformation within the
colony. As Edmund Randolph wrote a few decades later, the Virginia Declaration
of Rights is a monument deserving of admiration, and he had a useful observation
upon the article in question here: “The twelfth securing the freedom of the press,”
Randolph wrote, was the fruit “of genuine democracy and historical experience.” 111
This contemporary recognized both the democratic impulses and the historical
imperatives that led to this important protection. Yet, the realities of war quickly
altered the meaning of “liberty of the press.”
Revolution and Press Freedom
The American Revolution brought a troubled time for newspapers and for
freedom of the press. Paper to print on was hard to obtain as imports were limited,
and mobs attacked printers and destroyed presses not fully behind the patriot cause.
The meaning of a free press changed from one that was free from all influence to
one that was free from Tory influence or free from influence from a corrupt British
111 Randolph, “Essay on the Revolutionary History of Virginia," Virginia Magazine of History
and Biography, vol. 44, (1936), 43-47. Reportedly written between 1809-1813, from Bernard
Schwartz, The Bill of Rights, 1:246-249. The original section included the thirteenth article,
preferring militia to standing armies, as the “fruits” of experience.