In People v. Croswell (3 Johns Cas 337 [NY Sup Ct 1804]), the defendant was indicted for a libel upon President Thomas Jefferson. After hearing the evidence, Chancellors Kent and Thompson held that truth should be received in evidence and that the jury should judge both the facts and the law. 14 In his learned and exhaustive opinion, Chancellor Kent stated: "Whatever may be our opinion on the English law, there is another and a very important view of the subject to be taken, and that is with respect to the true standard of the freedom of the American press. In England they have never taken notice of the press in any parliamentary recognition of the principles of the government, or of the rights of the subject, whereas the people of this country have always classed the freedom of the press among their fundamental rights. This I can easily illustrate by a few examples. "The first American congress, in 1774, in one of their public addresses, (Journals, vol. 1, p. 57,) enumerated five invaluable rights, without which a people cannot be free and happy, and under the protecting and encouraging influence of which these colonies had hitherto so amazingly flourished and increased. One of these rights was the freedom of the press, and the importance of this right consisted, as they observed, 'besides the advancement of truth, science, morality, and arts in general, in its diffusion of liberal sentiments on the administration of government, its ready communication of thoughts between subjects, and its consequential promotion of union among them, whereby oppressive officers are shamed or intimidated into more honorable and just modes of conducting affairs.' The next high authority I shall mention, is the Convention of the people of this state, which met in 1788. They declared[,] unanimously, (Journals, pp. 44, 51, 52, 73, 74,) that the freedom of the press was a right which could not be abridged or violated. The same opinion is contained in the amendment to the constitution of the United States, and to which this state was a party. It is also made an article in most of the state constitutions, that the liberty of the press was essential to the security of freedom, and ought to be inviolably preserved." ( People v. Croswell, supra, at 390-391.)