The Helderberg Advocate: A Public-Nuisance Prosecution a Century before Near v. Minnesota

Abstract

The Helderberg Advocate: A Public-Nuisance Prosecution a Century before Near v. Minnesota Ralph Frasca (bio) Ralph Frasca Ralph Frasca is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Marymount University. ENDNOTES 1. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Helderbergia; or, The Apotheosis of the Heroes of the Anti-Rent War (Albany: Joel Munsell, 1855). 2. The Helderberg Advocate, May 25, 1842. 3. The best source on these episodes is Fred W. Friendly, Minnesota Rag (New York: Random House, 1981). See also Reed L. Carpenter, “John L. Morrison and the Origins of the Minnesota Gag Law,” Journalism History 9 (Spring 1982): 16–17, 25–28; John E. Hartmann, “The Minnesota Gag Law and the Fourteenth Amendment,” Minnesota History 37 (December 1960): 161–173; Paul L. Murphy, “Near v. Minnesota in the Context of Historical Developments,” Minnesota Law 66 (November 1981): 95–160. 4. Near v. Minnesota, 383 U.S. 697 (1931). 5. Ibid., 707. 6. Ibid., 718. Other than the prosecution of The Helderberg Advocate in 1842, the only other known case of a newspaper being declared a public nuisance was Ex parte Neill, 22 Southwestern Reporter 923 (1893). A Texas appellate court overturned a news dealer’s fine for selling a Chicago newspaper that the Seguin, Texas city council had banned from within its corporate limits. However, the newspaper itself was not prosecuted. 7. The literature about the patroon system and the resulting antirent war is extensive. See, e.g., Martin Bruegel, “Unrest: Manorial Society and the Market in the Hudson Valley, 1780–1850,” The Journal of American History 82 (March 1996): 1393–1424; Edward Potts Cheyney, The Anti-Rent Agitation in the State of New York, 1839–1846 (Philadelphia: Publications of the University of Pennsylvania, 1887); Henry Christman, Tin Horns and Calico (New York: Henry Holt, 1945); David M. Ellis, Landlords and Farmers in the Hudson-Mohawk Region, 1790–1850 (New York: Octagon, 1967); Jay Gould, History of Delaware County (Roxbury, NY: Keeny and Gould, 1856); Arthur B. Gregg, Old Helleburgh (Altamont, NY: Altamont Enterprise, 1936); Reeve Huston, “The Parties and ‘The People’: The New York Anti-Rent Wars and the Contours of Jacksonian Politics,” Journal of the Early Republic 20 (Summer 2000): 241–271; Albert Champlin Mayham, The Anti-Rent War (Jefferson, NY: Frederick Frazee, 1906); S. G. Nissenson, The Patroon’s Domain (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937); Eldridge Honaker Pendleton, “The New York Anti-Rent Controversy, 1830–1860” (Ph.D. diss., University of Virginia, 1974). 8. Indenture of Arent Van Der Carr to Stephen Van Rensselaer III, May 25, 1797, manuscript collections, Town of Berne Historical Society, Berne, New York. 9. He was eulogized as “emphatically a good man” in The Albany Argus, January 28, 1839. On the same date, The Albany Evening Journal identified him as “the liberal benefactor of all those noble Christian charities which adorn the age in which he has lived.” 10. Christman, Tin Horns and Calico, 2–11. 11. The Helderberg Advocate, December 8, 1841. 12. Cheyney, The Anti-Rent Agitation, 19–20; platform of the Blenheim Hill Anti-Rent Society, 1843, in Mayham, The Anti-Rent War, 31–32. 13. Blenheim Hill Anti-Rent Society, in Mayham, The Anti-Rent War, 31–32. Mayham’s grandfather was one of the leaders of the antirent movement, and he had access to documents not publicly available. 14. The Albany Argus, December 6, 1839. 15. “Libertymen’s Declaration of Independence,” June 8, 1844, in manuscript collections, New York State Library. 16. The Helderberg Advocate, May 25, 1842. 17. Christman, Tin Horns and Calico, passim. 18. ? to Silas Forbes, January 1, 1845, manuscript collections, New York State Library. 19. M. E. Lintner to J. Albert Lintner, May 29, 1845, manuscript collections, New York State Library. 20. Charles Hathaway to ?, July 12, 1844, manuscript collections, New York State Library. 21. See, e.g., The Helderberg Advocate, December 8, 1841; May 25, 1842. 22. The Helderberg Advocate, May 25, 1842. 23. Ibid.; Christman, Tin Horns and Calico, passim; Donald F. Cameron, “The Helderberg Advocate,” The Journal of the Rutgers University Library 15 (December 1951): 19–21. Christman and Cameron both had the opportunity to see a complete run of The Helderberg Advocate. However, this set has long...