free men
No longer enslaved
Free men are males not held in bondage or servitude—the opposite of slaves or serfs.
Historically, the distinction carried legal weight: free men could own property, vote, and move freely, while enslaved or indentured people could not.
The phrase appears in founding documents and political rhetoric: All free men are created equal.
Today it often carries a libertarian or defiant tone, asserting independence from governmental or social control: We are free men, not subjects of the state.
- libertyAbsence of unjust constraint
- emancipationRelease from legal bondage
- citizensMembers of a nation
- bondageInvoluntary subjugation to another
- abolitionFormal discontinuation of practice
independence · sovereignty · landowners · suffrage · rights · franchise · yeomen · common man · self-made man · liberation · chains · manumission · enfranchised · self-determination · autonomous · unfettered · citizenship · civil rights