This indictment comes from the case The United States v. Ann Greenleaf involving charges of libel and printing "wicked and malicious lies" about the United States Congress. This primary source comes from the Records of District Courts of the United States.National Archives Identifier: 18538768
Freedom of the Press Under Stress
Though freedom of the press was protected in the 1st Amendment in the Bill of Rights, its application would be tested just a few years later when political parties developed in the mid-1790s. As politicians split into Federalists (including Alexander Hamilton and John Adams) and Democratic-Republicans (such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison), newspapers sprouted up supporting the opinions of one side or the other.
Greenleaf’s New Daily Advertiser, published by Ann Greenleaf, was one of these divisive papers that frequently opposed the decisions of the party in power: the Federalists. Greenleaf would be one of 25 people (all spouting anti-Federalist opinions) arrested for violating the Sedition Act, a bill that made it a crime punishable by two years in jail and a $2,000 fine to “print, utter, or publish…any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against any part of the Government.
Through the indictment of Ann Greenleaf from the case United States v. Ann Greenleaf, students can see how the Sedition Act passed by the Federalist-controlled Congress in the summer of 1798 limited freedom of the press:
Students can learn the impact of this important law by exploring how the indictment describes both Ann Greenleaf personally (“a wicked, malicious and seditious person”) and the controversial statements that were published in her paper.
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