Question: How did the Founders view Freedom of Press?

Federalist congressman John Marshall, although doubtful that the Sedition Act was wise, nonetheless argued that the free press guarantee meant only “liberty to publish, free from previous restraint” - free of requirements that printers be licensed, or that their material be approved before publication. Under this view, which echoed the British law as expounded by Sir William Blackstone, criminal punishment after publication was constitutional. Others, such as James Madison, the principal drafter of the Bill of Rights, argued the opposite. “This idea of the freedom of the press can never be admitted to be the American idea of it, since a law inflicting penalties on printed publications would have a similar effect with a law authorizing a previous restraint on them.”
(Eugene Volokh, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, pg 312)