Seditious Libel

The End of Seditious Libel, 1964 The landmark decision of New York Times v. Sullivan brought an end to the reign of seditious libel in America. Seditious libel was the crime of criticizing government or public officials, and was long justified on several grounds. Criticism that brought public officials into disrepute could potentially lead to internal strife. And many legal commentators believed that the government could not act effectively unless the people had a good opinion of it.

Seditious libel originated in a statute passed by Parliament in 1275 that prohibited “any false news or tales whereby discord . . . may grow between the king and his people.” Falsity was a necessary part of seditious libel, but even true libels became part of the crime in 1606, thus subjecting people to penalties for any criticism of officials whether it was true or false. True libels were considered to pose a great threat to public officials because truthful criticism, including the revelation of malfeasance in office, was difficult for public officials to effectively counter.