Cite as: 514 U. S. 334 (1995)
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
Livingston wrote several articles attacking the legislature's failure to lower taxes, and he accused a state officer of stealing or losing state funds during the British invasion of New Jersey. Id., at 107-109; Scipio, Letter to the Printer, Feb. 24, 1784, The New-Jersey Gazette. Responding to the allegations, the officer called upon Scipio "to avow your publication, give up your real name." S. Tucker, To Scipio, Mar. 2, 1784, The New-Jersey Gazette. Livingston replied with a four-part series defending "the Liberty of the Press." Although Livingston at first defended anonymity because it encouraged authors to discuss politics without fear of reprisal, he ultimately invoked the liberty of the press as the guardian for anonymous political writing. "I hope [Tucker] is not seriously bent upon a total subversion of our political system," Scipio wrote. "And pray may not a man, in a free country, convey thro' the press his sentiments on publick grievances . . . without being obliged to send a certified copy of the baptismal register to prove his name." Scipio, On the Liberty of the Press IV, Apr. 26, 1784, The New-Jersey Gazette.
To be sure, there was some controversy among newspaper editors over publishing anonymous articles and pamphlets. But this controversy was resolved in a manner that indicates that the freedom of the press protected an author's anonymity. The tempest began when a Federalist, writing anonymously himself, expressed fear that "emissaries" of "foreign enemies" would attempt to scuttle the Constitution by "fill-[ing] the press with objections" against the proposal. Boston Independent Chronicle, Oct. 4, 1787, in 13 Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution 315 (J. Kaminski & G. Saladino eds. 1981) (hereinafter Documentary History). He called upon printers to refrain from publishing when the author "chooses to remain concealed." Ibid. Benjamin Russell, the editor of the prominent Federalist newspaper the Massachusetts Centinel, immediately adopted a policy of refusing to publish Anti-Federalist pieces unless the
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