Andrew Hamilton was the leading attorney in America's greatest 18th-century city, Philadelphia. He was born in Scotland in 1676 and arrived in Virginia at the age of twenty-one. He worked as attorney general from in Pennsylvania from 1717 and 1724. His most famous trial was defending John Peter Zenger.
Zenger created the newspaper the New York Weekly Journal, criticizing with great severity the government. In a time where the media was a simple tool of the governor and the law persecuted those who criticized the state. Zenger was arrested by the charge of seditious libel. Andre Hamilton was selected by the leaders of political society to defend Zenger. The case was tried on August 4, 1735, with a verdict of "not guilty. The American concept of free speech can be said to have had a birthday that day.
