[gcruse]

For a very long time, it wasn't a defense against libel in this country either.

What turned it around?

[NovemberCharlie]

As to what I have no idea, but I read this NRO article by Eugene Volokh that gives a rough idea of when: In the late 1700s and early 1800s, courts routinely held that some antigovernment speech — even speech that wasn't directly inciting crime — was constitutionally unprotected. In many states, until the 1810s and 1820s truth wasn't a defense to criminal libel prosecutions. Even when it became a defense, it generally applied only when the statement was made with "good motives" and for "justifiable ends," however a judge or jury chose to interpret these vague phrases. Those limitations weren't eliminated until the 1960s.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Essentially Alexander Hamilton's arguments in the Croswell case in New York. He lost the case because truth was no defense but his arguments so shamed the NY legislature that after his death later that year (1804) it changed state law wrt libel and slander. Other states began to change as well after NY.

Under the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were federal laws, truth was admitted as a defense. Hypocritical Jeffersonians screamed hysterically about these laws which were far more reasonable than the State laws in effect throughout the nation. These were used to stifle criticism of Jefferson as the Croswell case illustrated.

Hamilton's last service to the nation was to reaffirm its committment to Freedom of the Press through the pleading about four months before his shooting.