Eine ausführliche Beschreibung des Vorfalls findet sich in Freneaus Some account of the capture of the ship “Aurora”. Veröffentlicht bei M. F. Mansfield & A. Wessels, New York 1899. archive.org
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His paper has saved our constitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, & has been checked by no one means so powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known, that it has been that paper which has checked the career of the monocrats, & the President, not sensible of the designs of the party, has not with his usual good sense and sang froid, looked on the efforts and effects of this free press and seen that, though some bad things have passed through it to the public, yet the good have preponderated immensely. In: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. H. W. Darbey, New York 1859. Bd. IX, S. 145. Google Book Search
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Jefferson behandelt den „Pressekrieg“ um Freneau und Fenno in einem langen Brief an Washington, datiert auf den 9. September 1792: loc.gov der Thomas Jefferson Papers der Library of Congress
Vernon Louis Parrington: Main Currents in American Thought. Bd. 1. (1927) Kap. III: virginia.edu: In his republicanism Freneau had gone far in advance of the Federalists. He was a democrat while they remained aristocrats. He had rid himself of a host of outworn prejudices, the heritage of an obsolete past, which held them in bondage. He had read more clearly the meaning of the great movement of decentralization that was shaping a new psychology, and must lead eventually to democratic individualism. He had no wish to stay or thwart that development; he accepted it wholly with all its implications. He had freed his mind from the thralldom of caste; he was impelled by no egoistic desire to impose his will upon others; […] In championing the cause of democracy, he championed a score of lesser causes: Unitarianism, deism, antislavery, Americanism in education: thereby bringing down on his head the resentment of all the conservatisms, religious, political, economic, social, then prospering in America. Nevertheless he went his way through a sordid world of politicians and speculators, feeding upon whatever shreds of beauty he met with, a dreamer and an idealist sneered at by exploiters, a spirit touched to finer issues than his generation cared for.
