Morris, a wealthy man and a judge, joined other colonial elites in believing that the royal officials recently appointed to govern New York were tied to ministerial corruption in England. Morris thus presented himself as the voice of the common man when he ran against a candidate approved by Cosby. On election day, hundreds of his supporters marched across the town green of Eastchester behind “two Trumpeters and 3 Violines.” His opponent also mustered followers on horseback, escorted by royal officials, including the “high sheriff.” But the voters chose Morris. The Morrisites then helped launch a newspaper, published by John Peter Zenger, a printer, to mobilize laborers, shopkeepers, and artisans on their behalf.

In his New-York Weekly Journal, Zenger leaped into the political fray, accusing Governor Cosby and his cronies of corruption, incompetence, election fraud, and tyranny. The vitriolic attacks led to Zenger’s indictment for seditious libel and his imprisonment in November 1734. At the time, libel related only to whether published material undermined government authority, not whether it was true or false. But Zenger’s lead attorney, Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, argued that truth must be recognized as a defense against charges of libel. Appealing to a jury of Zenger’s peers, Hamilton proclaimed, “It is not the cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying. . . . It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty.” In response, jurors ignored the law as written and acquitted Zenger. A pamphlet about the case, authored by one of his lawyers and printed by Zenger in 1736, gained a wide readership in Britain and America.

Although the decision in the Zenger case did not lead to a change in British libel laws, it did signal the willingness of colonial juries to side with fellow colonists against king and Parliament, at least when it came to their right to censure public officials. Building on their success, Morris and his followers continued to gain popular support. In 1737 his son, Lewis Morris Jr., was appointed speaker of the new Assembly, and the Assembly appointed Zenger as its official printer. But soon after this victory, the group fell into disarray when royal officials offered political prizes to a few of their leaders. Indeed, the elder Morris accepted appointment as royal governor of New Jersey, after which he switched allegiances and became an advocate of executive authority. Nonetheless, the political movement he led had aroused ordinary freemen to participate in elections, and newspapers and pamphlets now readily attacked corrupt officials and threats to the rightful liberties of British colonists.

Even as freemen gained a greater voice in urban politics, they could challenge the power of economic and political leaders only when the elite were divided. Moreover, the rewards they gained sometimes served to reinforce class divisions. Thus many city workers had benefited when the elder Morris used his influence to ensure the building of the city’s first permanent almshouse in 1736. The two-year project employed large numbers of artisans and laborers in a period of economic contraction. Once built, however, the almshouse became a symbol of the growing gap between rich and poor in the city and in the colonies more generally. Its existence was also used by future city councils as a justification to eliminate other forms of relief, leaving the poor in worse shape than before.