Biography
Benjamin Moye was a co-editor of the Harrisburger Morgenrothe, also recorded as Benjamin Moyer or Benjamin Mayer.
The defendant generally appears in Sedition Act records as Benjamin Mayer (the German spelling Bayer/Mayer was sometimes anglicized as Moye/Moyer in court documents). He was the co-editor, with Conrad Fahnestock, of the Harrisburger Morgenrothe, the Democratic-Republican German-language weekly newspaper that played a significant role in turning Pennsylvania's German-speaking communities against the Federalist Adams administration in the 1800 election.
Mayer and Fahnestock were indicted under the Sedition Act in 1799 by U.S. Attorney William Rawle in Philadelphia over Morgenrothe articles attacking President Adams and Federalist policy. Like Fahnestock's case, Mayer's prosecution was still pending when Thomas Jefferson took office on March 4, 1801. With the Sedition Act expiring on the same day, the indictments against him were dropped without trial.
The two editors were indicted at the October 1799 session of the U.S. Circuit Court for the Pennsylvania district under the Sedition Act of 1798, accused of intending to “vilify and defame the government of the United States and the administration of justice” over an article of May 21, 1799. The charges were ultimately dismissed — making them part of the minority of Sedition Act defendants who escaped conviction and punishment.
