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

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Printing the laws, Eisenstein suggested, helped to preserve them, helped to
fix them, and helped to democratize them. Printed copies were distributed in
greater numbers and lasted longer than did manuscripts. While errors did occur in
printed collections, the errors were at least uniform, whereas in manuscripts, errors
regularly crept in randomly, and no two copies were exactly alike. 81 Thomas
Jefferson was well aware of the preservative properties of print. In researching the
laws of Virginia, he discovered that many of the old laws had already been lost. His
solution was not to store ancient manuscripts on locked shelves, but rather to spread
printed copies of the historic records. He noted that printed copies of law not only
helped to preserve the records; it also was democratizing to have multiple copies in
distribution. As he wrote, “Has there ever been one [a law] lost since the art of
printing has rendered it practicable to multiply & disperse copies?” 82
Perhaps of even greater significance was the influence of writing (versus oral
communication) and later printing upon the way that people thought about the
laws. Indexing became more common with printed works. That was important in
that it organized and made information more accessible. In essence, it changed the
logic of rational thought; helping people to think more linearly, allowing for
80 A Collection of All the Acts of Assembly, Now in Force, in the Colony of Virginia [1661-1732] ...
(Williamsburg: Parks, 1733). Susan Stromei Berg, compiler, Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg
Imprints (New York: Clearwater Publishing Company, 1986), 3-7. The Journals apparently were
not regularly kept, until an order in 1679/80 by the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and
Foreign Plantations requiring the Clerk of the Assembly to keep such, make copies, and send one
back to England. This was perhaps because in 1677, when Bacon’s Rebellion was being
investigated, the clerk refused to send the journals. From Journals of the House of Burgesses, 2: xxi.
81 Eisenstein, Printing Revolution, 79-81.
82 Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, January 16, 1796, The Thomas Jefferson Papers Series
1. General Correspondence. 1651-1827 The Works of Thomas Jefferson in Twelve Volumes.
Federal Edition. Collected and Edited by Paul Leicester Ford. Accessed online at
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field(DOCID+@lit(tj080097)), quoted in
Eisenstein, Printing Revolution, 79-81.