How's Your Onus Probandi? Thank You, John Peter Zenger, Andrew Hamilton and Miss Savannah Squirrel
The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.
-Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787
'Tis Press Freedom Day, folks! Do you know where your journalists are? One trial, one bonkers-brilliant attorney, one timid, German printer and one stunning and shocking verdict of "Not Guilty" and the concept of onus probandi changed the course of American journalism and conferred upon us the all too important freedom of the press.
Don't let the poncy squirrel in a frock scare you. The thousands of readers and scholars who have made Savannah of Williamsburg: Ben Franklin, Freedom & Freedom of the Press #88 in Amazon's Law Fiction/Legal Perspectives genre can't be wrong. Let my Squirrel Girl and John Peter Zenger share with you one of the cornerstones of our great democracy. Read on, keep up, write oft and speak out, people!
