Question

what was significant about the trial of john peter zinger?

Answer 1

The Zenger trial established no new law with respect to seditious libel, but in unmistakable terms it signaled the public's opposition to such prosecutions. Concern about likely jury nullification discouraged prosecutions, and press freedom in America began to blossom. A half-century after the Zenger trial, as members of the First Congress debated the proposed Bill of Rights, one of the Constitution's principal drafters and great-grandson of Lewis Morris, Governor Morris, would write of the Zenger case: "The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America."