The ABC Settlement Marks the Beginning of Trump's Media Clampdown, with History Indicating the Future Path.
Throughout history, American presidents have frequently clashed with the First Amendment, often emerging victorious in these conflicts.
TroibNews 
In July 1864, Edward Fuller, the editor of the Newark Evening Journal, issued a scathing editorial that condemned the Lincoln administration’s appeal for up to 500,000 new conscripts to reinforce the Union Army as the Civil War entered its fourth year. “Those who wished to be butchered, step forward,” the editorial stated.
Shortly thereafter, Maj. Gen. John A. Dix arrested Fuller, a Confederate sympathizer fiercely opposed to Lincoln’s leadership. Fuller was indicted on federal charges for his newspaper's efforts to dissuade recruitment for the Union Army. He was ultimately convicted, served a small fine, and resumed his editorial position, a fate shared by hundreds of Northern journalists whom the Lincoln administration targeted throughout the war. Many faced arrest, prosecution, or other punitive measures based on thin accusations alleging their writings undermined the Union's military efforts. While some journalists endured significant prison time, many were deterred by the mere threat of indictment or censorship.
Following the recent settlement between ABC News and Donald Trump, after he sued the network for defamation related to an interview where anchor George Stephanopoulos stated Trump was “found liable for rape,” concerns have resurfaced regarding the dangers posed to the free press by the president-elect. Trump has publicly labeled the media as the “enemy of the people” and is threatening to wield legal and criminal tools to “straighten out” journalists.
However, as Lincoln's crackdown on Fuller illustrates, Trump’s opposition to the press is not without precedent. Historically, U.S. presidents from John Adams to Richard Nixon utilized both legal and military might to silence their critics. The period since Watergate, during which courts and civic institutions discouraged presidential interference with independent journalism, was an anomaly in American history—a situation that may be unraveling as Trump prepares for a return to power.
While America has a rich tradition of robust political reporting, there exists a troubling narrative of presidents leveraging state power to coerce journalists and editors into compliance. This narrative reveals a pattern of progress followed by regression, with long strides toward freedom occasionally followed by setbacks. History suggests that when presidents suppress the press, public backlash often serves as the only safeguard against executive overreach; the courts rarely intervene decisively. Ultimately, it is public opinion that upholds a free press.
The first significant offensive against the free press in the U.S. occurred under John Adams, whose administration, amid tensions with France, supported the Sedition Act of 1798, designed to stifle dissent and critique of the federal government during a period of heightened national anxiety. Adams’ political opponent, Thomas Jefferson, characterized it as a measure intended for the “suppression of the whig [opposition] presses,” especially targeting papers like Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Aurora, a leading anti-administration outlet.
The Sedition Act criminalized any “false, scandalous, and malicious writings” about the government, Congress, or the president, effectively silencing negative commentary about Adams.
This provoked outrage among Republican leaders and their supporters. The Bill of Rights was only seven years old, yet a president—only the second in U.S. history—was trampling the First Amendment, a right previously suppressed under British rule.
Nonetheless, the newness of the amendment meant its boundaries were heavily contested. Fearing that Jeffersonian Republicans might act as a fifth column for France, Federalists like Robert Goodloe Harper expressed grave concerns about a “domestic... conspiracy... to effect a revolution or subjugation of this country” by foreign powers.
The administration wasted no time enforcing the act, leading to the arrest of 25 Republican journalists, with 17 ultimately charged with seditious libel. One such journalist, Bache, contracted yellow fever while incarcerated, dying even as supporters attempted to gather bail—an exorbitant amount of $2,000 in 1798. The administration even convicted a former journalist and serving member of Congress, Matthew Lyon, who continued publishing critical articles about the Sedition Act during his four-month imprisonment, even winning reelection from jail.
The Sedition Act quickly turned controversial and unpopular. Even notable Federalists like Alexander Hamilton viewed it as a political liability and a genuine threat to the developing republic. “Let us not establish a tyranny,” he cautioned, explaining that “Energy is a very different thing from violence.”
Ultimately, public sentiment led to the collapse of the Sedition Act—and consequently, Adams' administration. Despite Federalist judges enforcing the act zealously, the American populace turned against Adams. Far from silencing Republican journalists, the act invigorated them. Between 1798 and 1800, Republican newspapers proliferated, contributing to Adams’ defeat by Jefferson in the 1800 election, making Adams the first sitting president to lose a reelection bid.
In 1801, Jefferson allowed the Sedition Act to lapse.
Subsequent presidential administrations that imposed crackdowns on press freedom frequently justified their actions on national security grounds. President Abraham Lincoln, for instance, suppressed over 300 Northern newspapers during the Civil War, particularly in border states like Missouri, where there was significant sympathizing with the Confederacy. In Missouri alone, the administration managed to suppress 55 of the state’s 148 newspapers.
The suppression took various forms. In certain instances, the government restricted telegraphic communications to inhibit the spread of journalists' stories. In other cases, U.S. marshals arrested individual journalists. Military commanders also employed gag orders and detained offending editors, especially after Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in areas with strong Southern sympathies.
Private citizens, including soldiers and Union League members, contributed to these efforts through mob violence aimed at pro-Confederate or anti-war publications, mirroring the assaults on antislavery newspapers before the war.
Notable journalists imprisoned by the administration included Frank Key Howard of the Baltimore Exchange, John Mullaly of the New York Metropolitan Record, and John Murphy of the Baltimore Republican. Dennis Mahoney of the Dubuque Herald was also arrested by orders from Defense Secretary Edwin Stanton and later chronicled his experiences in a book titled *Prisoner of State*.
Lincoln generally did not intervene in individual cases against journalists; his generals and civilian officials usually handled the enforcement. However, he was undoubtedly aware of how his authority was employed.
Most journalists arrested by the administration served relatively short sentences. The objective was not mass incarceration but rather instilling self-censorship among dissenting newspapers. However, this strategy was largely unsuccessful. The Democratic press, even voices within the pro-Confederate Copperhead faction, remained vocal and active throughout the war. Notably, Democratic newspapers launched harsh, and at times, racially charged attacks during Lincoln's 1864 reelection campaign, perhaps the harshest campaign against any incumbent in U.S. history. Editors coined terms like “miscegenation” to accuse Lincoln of pursuing a war aimed at racial integration and portrayed him as “the outcrop of a remote African in his ancestry.” A biting satire named *Lincoln Catechism* even ridiculed the president with the moniker “Abraham Africanus the First” and rewrote the Ten Commandments in mockery, including lines like: “Though shalt have no other God but the Negro.”
The vitriol of the opposition press led Lincoln to comment to his aide, John Hay, “It is a little singular that I who am not a vindictive man should have always been before the people for election in canvasses marked for their bitterness.”
In reality, the Lincoln administration attempted to balance its stance. Officials sought to quell newspapers that hindered draft enforcement, recruitment, and other wartime initiatives, rather than merely suppressing political dissent. However, military enforcers did not always recognize this distinction.
Similar to the trend in the 1790s, judges largely supported the administration’s initiatives. Ultimately, it fell on the public to safeguard their First Amendment rights. In many border and lower Midwest states, government crackdowns on journalists sparked significant backlash, leading to major Republican losses in the off-year elections of 1862. The Lincoln administration had to navigate carefully, understanding that excessive pressure could alienate supporters in pivotal areas.
The same pattern of press suppression under the guise of national security recurred well into the 20th century. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson backed a new Sedition Act, which was vigorously enforced. Socialist journalists like Eugene Debs and Victor Berger faced imprisonment for publishing antiwar material. One editorialist in New Hampshire received a three-year sentence for asserting that “this was a Morgan war and not a war of the people,” implying Wilson had been influenced by financiers like J.P. Morgan to propel American involvement in the European conflict.
Fear of arrest was just one tactic in the government's arsenal. The Post Office effectively shut down dissenting publications such as *The Masses* and the American Socialist, revoking their mailing privileges.
Again, the courts largely complied with the administration's stance. Public dissent primarily arose from socialist labor unions and progressive critics, who pushed back against the crackdowns. After the government overreached during the Red Scare of 1920, widespread opposition led to the repeal of the Sedition Act and the election of Republican Warren Harding, who promised a “return to normalcy” and famously pardoned Debs. “Well, I’ve heard so damned much about you,” Harding remarked to Debs during their meeting at the White House, “that I am now very glad to meet you personally.”
A similar pattern emerged in the 1940s when President Harry Truman’s administration invoked the Smith Act of 1940 to target individuals believed to advocate subversive ideologies, including journalists working with Communist or leftist publications. The act criminalized any advocacy for the violent overthrow of the government; its enforcement was particularly intense during the early Cold War. This led to the prosecution of writers and editors from the Communist Party’s *Daily Worker*, with leading figures like Eugene Dennis convicted under the Smith Act during the landmark 1949 trial of Communist leaders. Such prosecutions stifled dissent and cultivated a climate of self-censorship within left-leaning media.
The relaxation of strictures against opposition journalists did not arise from robust public protests, but rather from a sense of fatigue among the populace. By the late 1950s, as Cold War tensions began to ease, and with Americans enjoying unprecedented prosperity, the public's appetite for crackdowns diminished, allowing journalists to write more freely.
As Americans came to prioritize civil liberties in the postwar climate, courts began standing more firmly with the free press. In a pivotal case during the Nixon administration, the Supreme Court ruled against the government, affirming the right of *The New York Times* and *The Washington Post* to publish the Pentagon Papers despite national security claims, establishing that the government could not prevent publication unless a direct and immediate threat to national security was demonstrated.
Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads that feels unfamiliar to many Americans, as they may not recall a time when presidents actively threatened to use the courts, the Department of Justice, and other federal instruments to repress the free press. However, such a situation is not without historical precedent.
It is conceivable that a future Trump administration could escalate from civil suits intended to silence journalists to more direct actions via the Department of Justice. Current crises such as issues along the border and the fentanyl epidemic could provide a convenient rationale for perceived “national security” interests. As seen in previous administrations from Adams to Lincoln to Wilson to Truman, it only takes a handful of punitive actions against dissenting journalists to instill fear across the entire profession.
What was true in the past remains relevant today. The courts alone will not safeguard independent journalism. Instead, it falls upon American citizens to assess the value of their First Amendment rights and how vigorously they will advocate for their protection.
Max Fischer contributed to this report for TROIB News
Shortly thereafter, Maj. Gen. John A. Dix arrested Fuller, a Confederate sympathizer fiercely opposed to Lincoln’s leadership. Fuller was indicted on federal charges for his newspaper's efforts to dissuade recruitment for the Union Army. He was ultimately convicted, served a small fine, and resumed his editorial position, a fate shared by hundreds of Northern journalists whom the Lincoln administration targeted throughout the war. Many faced arrest, prosecution, or other punitive measures based on thin accusations alleging their writings undermined the Union's military efforts. While some journalists endured significant prison time, many were deterred by the mere threat of indictment or censorship.
Following the recent settlement between ABC News and Donald Trump, after he sued the network for defamation related to an interview where anchor George Stephanopoulos stated Trump was “found liable for rape,” concerns have resurfaced regarding the dangers posed to the free press by the president-elect. Trump has publicly labeled the media as the “enemy of the people” and is threatening to wield legal and criminal tools to “straighten out” journalists.
However, as Lincoln's crackdown on Fuller illustrates, Trump’s opposition to the press is not without precedent. Historically, U.S. presidents from John Adams to Richard Nixon utilized both legal and military might to silence their critics. The period since Watergate, during which courts and civic institutions discouraged presidential interference with independent journalism, was an anomaly in American history—a situation that may be unraveling as Trump prepares for a return to power.
While America has a rich tradition of robust political reporting, there exists a troubling narrative of presidents leveraging state power to coerce journalists and editors into compliance. This narrative reveals a pattern of progress followed by regression, with long strides toward freedom occasionally followed by setbacks. History suggests that when presidents suppress the press, public backlash often serves as the only safeguard against executive overreach; the courts rarely intervene decisively. Ultimately, it is public opinion that upholds a free press.
The first significant offensive against the free press in the U.S. occurred under John Adams, whose administration, amid tensions with France, supported the Sedition Act of 1798, designed to stifle dissent and critique of the federal government during a period of heightened national anxiety. Adams’ political opponent, Thomas Jefferson, characterized it as a measure intended for the “suppression of the whig [opposition] presses,” especially targeting papers like Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Aurora, a leading anti-administration outlet.
The Sedition Act criminalized any “false, scandalous, and malicious writings” about the government, Congress, or the president, effectively silencing negative commentary about Adams.
This provoked outrage among Republican leaders and their supporters. The Bill of Rights was only seven years old, yet a president—only the second in U.S. history—was trampling the First Amendment, a right previously suppressed under British rule.
Nonetheless, the newness of the amendment meant its boundaries were heavily contested. Fearing that Jeffersonian Republicans might act as a fifth column for France, Federalists like Robert Goodloe Harper expressed grave concerns about a “domestic... conspiracy... to effect a revolution or subjugation of this country” by foreign powers.
The administration wasted no time enforcing the act, leading to the arrest of 25 Republican journalists, with 17 ultimately charged with seditious libel. One such journalist, Bache, contracted yellow fever while incarcerated, dying even as supporters attempted to gather bail—an exorbitant amount of $2,000 in 1798. The administration even convicted a former journalist and serving member of Congress, Matthew Lyon, who continued publishing critical articles about the Sedition Act during his four-month imprisonment, even winning reelection from jail.
The Sedition Act quickly turned controversial and unpopular. Even notable Federalists like Alexander Hamilton viewed it as a political liability and a genuine threat to the developing republic. “Let us not establish a tyranny,” he cautioned, explaining that “Energy is a very different thing from violence.”
Ultimately, public sentiment led to the collapse of the Sedition Act—and consequently, Adams' administration. Despite Federalist judges enforcing the act zealously, the American populace turned against Adams. Far from silencing Republican journalists, the act invigorated them. Between 1798 and 1800, Republican newspapers proliferated, contributing to Adams’ defeat by Jefferson in the 1800 election, making Adams the first sitting president to lose a reelection bid.
In 1801, Jefferson allowed the Sedition Act to lapse.
Subsequent presidential administrations that imposed crackdowns on press freedom frequently justified their actions on national security grounds. President Abraham Lincoln, for instance, suppressed over 300 Northern newspapers during the Civil War, particularly in border states like Missouri, where there was significant sympathizing with the Confederacy. In Missouri alone, the administration managed to suppress 55 of the state’s 148 newspapers.
The suppression took various forms. In certain instances, the government restricted telegraphic communications to inhibit the spread of journalists' stories. In other cases, U.S. marshals arrested individual journalists. Military commanders also employed gag orders and detained offending editors, especially after Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in areas with strong Southern sympathies.
Private citizens, including soldiers and Union League members, contributed to these efforts through mob violence aimed at pro-Confederate or anti-war publications, mirroring the assaults on antislavery newspapers before the war.
Notable journalists imprisoned by the administration included Frank Key Howard of the Baltimore Exchange, John Mullaly of the New York Metropolitan Record, and John Murphy of the Baltimore Republican. Dennis Mahoney of the Dubuque Herald was also arrested by orders from Defense Secretary Edwin Stanton and later chronicled his experiences in a book titled *Prisoner of State*.
Lincoln generally did not intervene in individual cases against journalists; his generals and civilian officials usually handled the enforcement. However, he was undoubtedly aware of how his authority was employed.
Most journalists arrested by the administration served relatively short sentences. The objective was not mass incarceration but rather instilling self-censorship among dissenting newspapers. However, this strategy was largely unsuccessful. The Democratic press, even voices within the pro-Confederate Copperhead faction, remained vocal and active throughout the war. Notably, Democratic newspapers launched harsh, and at times, racially charged attacks during Lincoln's 1864 reelection campaign, perhaps the harshest campaign against any incumbent in U.S. history. Editors coined terms like “miscegenation” to accuse Lincoln of pursuing a war aimed at racial integration and portrayed him as “the outcrop of a remote African in his ancestry.” A biting satire named *Lincoln Catechism* even ridiculed the president with the moniker “Abraham Africanus the First” and rewrote the Ten Commandments in mockery, including lines like: “Though shalt have no other God but the Negro.”
The vitriol of the opposition press led Lincoln to comment to his aide, John Hay, “It is a little singular that I who am not a vindictive man should have always been before the people for election in canvasses marked for their bitterness.”
In reality, the Lincoln administration attempted to balance its stance. Officials sought to quell newspapers that hindered draft enforcement, recruitment, and other wartime initiatives, rather than merely suppressing political dissent. However, military enforcers did not always recognize this distinction.
Similar to the trend in the 1790s, judges largely supported the administration’s initiatives. Ultimately, it fell on the public to safeguard their First Amendment rights. In many border and lower Midwest states, government crackdowns on journalists sparked significant backlash, leading to major Republican losses in the off-year elections of 1862. The Lincoln administration had to navigate carefully, understanding that excessive pressure could alienate supporters in pivotal areas.
The same pattern of press suppression under the guise of national security recurred well into the 20th century. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson backed a new Sedition Act, which was vigorously enforced. Socialist journalists like Eugene Debs and Victor Berger faced imprisonment for publishing antiwar material. One editorialist in New Hampshire received a three-year sentence for asserting that “this was a Morgan war and not a war of the people,” implying Wilson had been influenced by financiers like J.P. Morgan to propel American involvement in the European conflict.
Fear of arrest was just one tactic in the government's arsenal. The Post Office effectively shut down dissenting publications such as *The Masses* and the American Socialist, revoking their mailing privileges.
Again, the courts largely complied with the administration's stance. Public dissent primarily arose from socialist labor unions and progressive critics, who pushed back against the crackdowns. After the government overreached during the Red Scare of 1920, widespread opposition led to the repeal of the Sedition Act and the election of Republican Warren Harding, who promised a “return to normalcy” and famously pardoned Debs. “Well, I’ve heard so damned much about you,” Harding remarked to Debs during their meeting at the White House, “that I am now very glad to meet you personally.”
A similar pattern emerged in the 1940s when President Harry Truman’s administration invoked the Smith Act of 1940 to target individuals believed to advocate subversive ideologies, including journalists working with Communist or leftist publications. The act criminalized any advocacy for the violent overthrow of the government; its enforcement was particularly intense during the early Cold War. This led to the prosecution of writers and editors from the Communist Party’s *Daily Worker*, with leading figures like Eugene Dennis convicted under the Smith Act during the landmark 1949 trial of Communist leaders. Such prosecutions stifled dissent and cultivated a climate of self-censorship within left-leaning media.
The relaxation of strictures against opposition journalists did not arise from robust public protests, but rather from a sense of fatigue among the populace. By the late 1950s, as Cold War tensions began to ease, and with Americans enjoying unprecedented prosperity, the public's appetite for crackdowns diminished, allowing journalists to write more freely.
As Americans came to prioritize civil liberties in the postwar climate, courts began standing more firmly with the free press. In a pivotal case during the Nixon administration, the Supreme Court ruled against the government, affirming the right of *The New York Times* and *The Washington Post* to publish the Pentagon Papers despite national security claims, establishing that the government could not prevent publication unless a direct and immediate threat to national security was demonstrated.
Today, we find ourselves at a crossroads that feels unfamiliar to many Americans, as they may not recall a time when presidents actively threatened to use the courts, the Department of Justice, and other federal instruments to repress the free press. However, such a situation is not without historical precedent.
It is conceivable that a future Trump administration could escalate from civil suits intended to silence journalists to more direct actions via the Department of Justice. Current crises such as issues along the border and the fentanyl epidemic could provide a convenient rationale for perceived “national security” interests. As seen in previous administrations from Adams to Lincoln to Wilson to Truman, it only takes a handful of punitive actions against dissenting journalists to instill fear across the entire profession.
What was true in the past remains relevant today. The courts alone will not safeguard independent journalism. Instead, it falls upon American citizens to assess the value of their First Amendment rights and how vigorously they will advocate for their protection.
Max Fischer contributed to this report for TROIB News
