(Colonial Williamsburg Foundation)During his time as U.S. minister to France, Thomas Jefferson penned a letter to a statesman from Virginia, waxing poetic about the importance of a free press. “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right,” Jefferson wrote to Edward Carrington in 1787. [Trump says ‘I inherited a mess,’ blasts media and detractors at combative news conference]“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper,” Jefferson said then. (They exempted Vice President Jefferson from this protection against abuse.) But once Jefferson was in office, he tried to censor the critical press.

Source: Washington Post February 17, 2017 20:00 UTC