III.

Legal Background

The crime of seditious libel combined two legal concepts. Sedition refers to conduct intended to create dissatisfaction with the government and those exercising authority. Libel is the communication of defamatory (damaging) statements. Thus if a person communicated damaging statements against the government, he or she committed seditious libel. A printer by trade, Zenger's role in the Weekly Journal was essentially technical. He did not write the articles. However, as the publisher he was responsible under the law of libel for the content of the paper.

At the time of Zenger’s trial a publisher could be convicted of libel, even if what he printed was true. This rule was based on the belief that all defamatory statements about the government were dangerous to its stability. The courts generally held that a truthful libel was a greater crime because it was more likely to be believed, and thus more likely to undermine the government.