[mseebach]

Read that page of quotations, the whole one. All the answers are there.

Particularly:

"Since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press confined to truth needs no other legal restraint. The public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions on a full hearing of all parties, and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:381

[sp332]

That quote is from 1805, the second one I posted is from 1814, after he'd had 9 years more experience with a free press. Three years after that he wrote:

"From forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1816. ME 14:430

In your quote he requires "the press confined to truth". But in the above, he also claims that the press is not confined to truth. Maybe they should have, at least, that much restriction.

[mseebach]

Read the speech for context - http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres17.html - paragraphs 11-13.

Yes, there exists "laws provided by the States against false and defamatory publications", but even when not enforced, the citizens saw through it, "consolatory to the friend of man who believes that he may be trusted with the control of his own affairs".