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''The People of the State of New York v. Harry Croswell'' (3 Johns. Cas. 337 N.Y. 1804), commonly known and cited as ''People v. Croswell'', is an important case in the evolution of United States defamation law. It was a criminal libel case brought against a Federalist journalist named Harry Croswell for his statements about a number of public officials, including then-President Thomas Jefferson. Croswell was initially convicted in Columbia County court, where the jury was instructed to consider only the question of fact before them, as to whether Croswell had been the one to publish the statements at issue under a pseudonym. He appealed to the Supreme Court of New York, then the state's highest court, for a new trial on several issues including those instructions. In a famous and lengthy argument on Croswell's behalf, Alexander Hamilton tried to convince the judges that truthful statements should not be considered defamatory, regardless of what they concerned. The judges deadlocked and Croswell's conviction stood, although he was never sentenced or retried. The following year the issue became legally moot as the New York State Legislature wrote Hamilton's argument into the state's libel law, breaking with English precedent under which the truthfulness of the statements alone is not a defense. Other states and the federal government followed suit. Since then it has been a cornerstone of American law on the subject that truthful statements are not actionable. ==Background of the case== In 1801 the 22-year-old Harry Croswell, originally from West Hartford, Connecticut, moved across the Hudson River from Catskill, New York, where he had learned the trade from his brother Mackay Croswell to the growing port city of Hudson. A strong sympathizer with the Federalist Party of then-president John Adams, he took a job writing for the ''Balance and Columbian Repository'', a newspaper of similar political leanings. Around the same time, another journalist, Charles Holt, had come to Hudson, in his case from Connecticut. His sympathies were as strongly with the opposing Democratic-Republican Party, usually known as Republicans, of Thomas Jefferson as Croswell's were with the Federalists. The two parties were often at odds, attempting to convince the public that their respective visions of the new nation and policies were the best, and that those of the other party were flawed and would lead to disaster and tyranny. To this end, Holt came to Hudson to start ''The Bee'', meant to counteract the influence of the ''Balance''.〔 When Croswell heard about this, he convinced his own editor at the ''Balance'' to let him start ''The Wasp'', a small sheet which was dedicated to attacking and antagonizing Holt and disparaging Republican politicians and Jefferson. Croswell wrote under the pseudonym of "Robert Rusticoat". The two newspapers engaged in vicious and often witty exchanges over several months.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「People v. Croswell」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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