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| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Collection Reference Number | GLC01558 |
| From Archive Folder | Documents Relating to 1700-1753 |
| Title | Note from Andrew Hamilton to Jeremiah Langhorne requesting charges to be pressed against James Robinson |
| Date | 29 May 1738 |
| Author | Hamilton, Andrew (ca. 1676-1741) |
| Recipient | Langhorne, Jeremiah |
| Document Type | Correspondence |
| Content Description | Requests that a writ be issued against James Robinson on charges of trespassing and destruction of property. |
| Subjects | Law |
| People | Hamilton, Andrew (ca. 1676-1741) Robinson, James (fl. 1730-1738) |
| Theme | Law |
| Sub-collection | The Gilder Lehrman Collection, 1493-1859 |
| Additional Information | If he had done nothing else, Andrew Hamilton deserves fame for two remarkable accomplishments: his brilliant, eloquent, and successful defense of John Peter Zenger on the charges of seditious libel, and his design of the Philadelphia building that would come to be known as Independence Hall, the site of the 1787 convention that led to the drafting of the United States Constitution. Hamilton, a native of Scotland, emigrated to Pennsylvania, where he became attorney general (1717-24), speaker of the colonial assembly, and the most famous trial lawyer in the colonies. According to a contemporary, Hamilton had "art, eloquence, vivacity, and humor, was ambitious of fame, negligent of nothing to ensure success, and possessed a confidence which no terrors could awe." Hamilton was almost 60 when he accepted the request to take up Zenger's cause following the disbarment, for criticism of the court, of the printer's first two attorneys. Hamilton won the case by convincing the jury to judge both the law of the case and the facts. Though, legally, there was no question that Zenger had committed seditious libel, Hamilton gave the jury the push it needed to decide the case in a way consistent with their own sympathies. |
| Copyright | The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |
| Module | Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859 |