1. 1
Thomas Jefferson repeatedly asserted that freedom of the press was the foundation of
republican government. In his first inaugural address, he identified the essential principles of the
United States Government that would shape his Administration, and among them he included
freedom of the press.1 He demanded “the preservation of the General Government in its whole
constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor for…peace.”2 He insisted that the Sedition Act, which
illegalized any conspiracy against the government or publication of “any false, scandalous and
malicious writing,”3 was unconstitutional—warning that its continuation would lead to “bitter
and bloody prosecutions.”4 And he advocated repeal of the Act, declaring, “should we wander
from [constitutional principles] in moments of error…let us hasten to…regain the road which
alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.”5 Jefferson sought to guide the government down this
road but failed to protect freedom of the press throughout his Presidency.
The Sedition Act expired on March 3, 1801, and Jefferson did not ask Congress to
reinstate it. This rid the nation of the unconstitutional statute and restored the government to its
intended constitutional vigor. He corrected the Acts’ injustices by pardoning the Republicans
suffering its penalties, returning the fines the government had collected, and dropping the
prosecution of William Duane.6
Duane was an Irishman who came to the United States in 1796. He met Benjamin
1 Stephen Howard Browne, Jefferson’s Call for Nationhood: The First Inaugural Address
(College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2003), p. xv-xvi.
*Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address, delivered March 4, 1801.
2 Ibid.
3 Francis Wharton, State Trials of the United States during the Administrations of Washington
and Adams (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Carey and Hart, 1849), p. 704.
*The Sedition Act of 1798, approved July 14, 1798
4 Browne, Jefferson’s Call for Nationhood, p. xiv.
5 Ibid, p. xvi.
6 John C. Miller, Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (Boston, Massachusetts: Little,
Brown and Company, 1951), p. 202.

2. 2
Franklin Bache, the founder of The Aurora, who offered him an editor position with the
Philadelphia Republican paper.7 Bache was a staunch Republican who attacked Federalists. 8 He
paid no heed to the Sedition Act of 1798 and continued to write as if the statute never existed. He
was arrested for this behavior just twelve days after the Act’s passage.9 But before he could be
brought to trial, he died of yellow fever.10
Duane carried on Bache’s legacy, continuing to write for The Aurora and setting the tone
for the Republican press.11 He tested the limits of freedom, asserting that “the British minister
exerted more influence upon the government than did veterans of the Revolutionary army”12 and
that the Federalists were trying to establish a powerful congressional tribunal in an attempt to
deprive Thomas Jefferson of the Presidency.13 Duane avoided punishment for the former
contention, but not the latter. He was accused of “tending to defame the Senate of the United
States, and to excite against them hatred of the good people of the United States.”14 Congress,
however, did not indict Duane before the termination of Adams’ Presidency. The charges were
still pending when Jefferson took office; at which point, he ordered the suit against Duane
dismissed.15
Jefferson’s actions were controversial. Federalists were outraged that he pardoned men
they had convicted under the Sedition Act, and Abigail Adams wrote Jefferson in 1804 to
7 Miller, Crisis in Freedom, p. 194-196.
8 Bache was also Benjamin Franklin’s grandson, embodying many of Franklin’s ideals.
9 Richard N. Rosenfeld, American Aurora: A Democratic – Republican Returns (New York,
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 169.
*The Aurora, June 27, 1798.
10 Miller, Crisis in Freedom, p. 96.
11 Ibid, p. 97.
12 Ibid, p. 196.
13 Ibid, p. 199-200.
14 Ibid, p. 201-202.
15 Ibid, p. 202

3. 3
criticize him for acquitting the “scoundrels” convicted during her husband’s administration.16
Jefferson replied that his actions were appropriate, arguing that the statute had exceeded the
powers of the government and that “Congress [did not] have a right to controul [sic] the freedom
of the press.”17 This, however, was not a defense of absolute freedom of expression. He had
promised toleration in his inaugural address, saying, “If there be any among us who would wish
to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments
of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat
it.”18 But, three years later, he told to Mrs. Adams that state legislatures possessed the power to
restrain slander and falsehoods—likely changing his position as a result of the slanderous attacks
against him. 19
James Callender’s libels were particularly detrimental to Jefferson’s faith in absolute
freedom of the press.20 He began his journalistic career attacking Federalists. In his pamphlet,
The History of the United States for the year 1796, he accused Alexander Hamilton, the first
Federalist Secretary of the Treasury, of having an affair with a married woman and corrupting
the nation’s finances.21 Jefferson was impressed with Callender’s work because he believed the
written word was powerful. He also supported Callender’s attacks on Federalist leaders, securing
16 Leonard W. Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 59.
17 Lester J. Cappon, The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between
Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams Volume I (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1959), p. 279.
18 Browne, Jefferson’s Call for Nationhood, p. xiv.
19 Cappon, Letters, p. 279.
20 Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation (New York, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1970), p. 714.
21 James T. Callender, The History of the United States for the year 1796 (Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania: Snowden and McCorkle, 1797), p. vi-viii.

4. 4
him a position on The Aurora and providing him money for several years.22
Of course, the Federalists did not allow Callender to continue his written attacks
unopposed. They passed the Sedition Act in 1798, and—one day before its enactment—
Callender fled to Loudoun County, Virginia, to avoid prosecution.23 He eventually moved to
Richmond, where he wrote for the Recorder and published another pamphlet, The Prospect
Before Us. This pamphlet, like his previous work, attacked the Federalists—asserting that “the
reign of Mr. Adams has been one continued reign of malignant passions.”24 This time, however,
his work landed him in Federal court. Despite Jefferson’s efforts, Callender was convicted by an
all-Federalist jury and sentenced to a $200 fine and nine months in prison.25 After his release,
Jefferson—the new President—pardoned him.
But Callender demanded more than a pardon. Believing he should be rewarded for his
services, he asked Jefferson to appoint him Postmaster of Richmond. Jefferson refused.
Callender felt betrayed and raved that he had been “equally calumniated, pillaged, and destroyed
by all parties.”26 He took his revenge by attacking Jefferson, publishing his most damaging
article, “The President Again,” in the Recorder on September 1, 1802. It accused Jefferson of
fathering a child with one of his slaves and smeared his reputation.
The incident provoked Jefferson. He once had insisted that he would protect his critics
“in the right of lying and calumniating, and still go to merit the continuance of it”27 because he
believed people were “capable of conducting themselves under a government founded not on the
22 “James Callender,” The Jefferson Encyclopedia, accessed May 18, 2014.
http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/james-callender
23 Ibid.
24 Wharton, Trials, p. 700.
25 Peterson, Thomas Jefferson, p. 635.
26 Ibid, p. 706.
27 Ibid, p. 714.

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fears of man, but on his reason.”28 Now, however, he argued that slander and libel compromised
the usefulness of the press and the stability of the government.29
Jefferson’s correspondence with Pennsylvania Governor Thomas McKean further reflects
this belief. McKean wrote to Jefferson on February 7, 1803, to ask for his advice. He had
observed that “the nearly daily seditious libels published in newspapers against the chief officers
of the nation verged on intolerable”30 and believed prosecutions would check their publication.
Because the “evil” occurred on a national scale, he sought the President’s guidance.31 Jefferson
told McKean that “a few prosecutions of the most eminent offenders would have a wholesome
effect in restoring the integrity of the presses.”32 He also enclosed a paper which he thought
provided “as good instance in every respect to make an example of,”33 insisting his purpose was
“not to suppress freedom but to save it, not to muzzle political debate but to make it meaningful,
[and] not to destroy the press…but to lead it into a career of useful freedom.”34 It is unknown
what paper Jefferson enclosed with his letter. However, scholars suggest it was a clipping from
The Port Folio, a Philadelphia journal of literature and politics edited by Joseph Dennie—a
Federalist who directed the enforcement of the Sedition Act.35
Jefferson was not unwavering in his support of freedom of the press. He promised
toleration in his first inaugural address and pardoned men convicted under the Sedition Act, but
28 Peterson, Thomas Jefferson, p. 714.
29 Ibid.
30 Leonard W. Levy, Emergence of a Free Press (London, England: Oxford University Press,
1985), p. 340.
*Jefferson to McKean, Feb. 19, 1803.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid, p. 341.
33 Levy, Free Press, p. 341.
34 Peterson, Thomas Jefferson, p. 715.
35 Levy, Free Press, p. 341.

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he later approved the prosecution of slanderers on the grounds that integrity of the press must be
maintained. He supported criticism and slander aimed at his political foes but, during his
Presidency, he would not tolerate slander aimed at himself. Callender, the man Jefferson had
admired for his “false, scandalous, and malicious writing”36 about Federalists, critically damaged
Jefferson’s vision of an absolute freedom of expression. His work lead Jefferson to believe that
the press was publishing falsehoods, not providing a useful service to society,37and—
ultimately—that the government could be damaged by the publication of malicious writing.
When he entered office, Jefferson used the First Amendment to the Constitution to protect the
rights of the press. But, later on, he insisted its protections were not absolute after all.
36 Wharton, State Trials, p. 704.
37 Ibid, p. 715.

7. 7
Works Cited:
Browne, Stephen Howard. Jefferson’s Call for Nationhood: The First Inaugural Address.
College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2003.
Callender, James T. The History of the United States for the year 1796. Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania: Snowden and McCorkle, 1797.
Cappon, Lester J. The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between
Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams Volume I. Chapel Hill, North Carolina:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1959.
Levy, Leonard W. Emergence of A Free Press. London. England: Oxford University
Press, 1985.
Levy, Leonard W. Jefferson and Civil Liberties. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1963.
Levy, Leonard W. Legacy of Suppression: Freedom of Speech and Press in Early
American History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 1960.
Lynch, Jack. “The Alien and Sedition Acts,” CW Journal, (Winter 2007). Accessed May
17, 2014, http://www.history.org/Foundation/journal/Winter07/alien.cfm.
Miller, John C. Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts. Boston, Massachusetts:
Little, Brown and Company, 1951.
Peterson, Merrill D. Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation. New York, New York:
Oxford University Press, 1970.
Rosenfeld, Richard N., American Aurora: A Democratic – Republican Returns (New York, New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997).
Wharton, Francis. State Trials of the United States during the Administrations of
Washington and Adams. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Carey and Hart, 1849.
“James Callender,” The Jefferson Encyclopedia. Accessed May 18, 2014,
http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/james-callender.