ABSTRACT
By 1730 the last British attempt to reassert licensing control over the feisty Puritans had failed, and Massachusetts journalism was generally peaceful. New York editor, John Peter Zenger was thrust into the vortex of a controversy that would determine whether the press liberty developed in reformed New England could spread through the other colonies. Zenger first sent a message in the Journal's second issue by differentiating an absolute monarchy from one based on Biblical principles of fixed law and limitations on power. The context of Zenger's defense is clarified further by an essay published in his newspaper, the New York Journal, in 1733. The article proposed that true freedom required the subjecting of consciences to divine authority, because only through the Bible would people know how to use liberty without turning it into license. The first newspaper outside New England, The American Weekly Mercuryhad even shown a willingness to see God's sovereignty in politics, although at a distance.
