Fronted by 32-foot (9.5m) fluted marble Doric columns, this imposing 1842 neoclassical temple is most famous for what happened here while the site was occupied by the 18th-century City Hall, later called Federal Hall and the seat of New York's colonial government. Peter Zenger, publisher of the outspoken Weekly Journal, stood trial in 1735 for "seditious libel" against Royal Governor William Cosby. Defended brilliantly by Alexander Hamilton, Zenger was eventually acquitted, based on the grounds that anything you printed that was true, even if it wasn't very nice, couldn't be construed as libel. The case set the precedent for freedom of the press, later guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, which was drafted and signed inside this building. New York's first major rebellion against British authority also occurred here, when the Stamp Act Congress met in 1765 to protest King George III's policy of "taxation without representation." J.Q.A. Ward's 1883 statue of George Washington on the steps commemorates the spot of the first presidential inauguration, in 1789. Congress met here after the revolution, when New York was briefly the nation's capital.

Exhibits within elucidate these events and other aspects of American history. Call ahead if you'd like to hook up with one of the 20- to 30-minute guided tours (I recommend it), which usually take place between 12:30 and 3:30pm.