1. Occasionally = REPUBLIC. Now rare.
1646. Fuller, Wounded Consc. (1841), 330. As all countries are not monarchies governed by kings, but some by free-states, where many together have equal power.
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., Free State.
1850. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), I. ii. 54. The Asinii and Annii, the Cælii and Calpurnii, the Junii and Pomponii, the Marcii and Domitii, were names conspicuous in the municipal annals of the free state.
2. U.S. Before the Civil War of 1861–5, a state of the Union in which slavery did not exist.
1861. Lowell, E Pluribus Unum, Prose Wks. 1890, V. 47. If Mr. Buchanan, instead of admitting the right of secession, had declared it to be, as it plainly is, rebellion, he would not only have received the unanimous support of the Free States, but would have given confidence to the loyal, reclaimed the wavering, and disconcerted the plotters of treason in the South.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., II. III. liii. 334. New States had been admitted substantially in pairs, a slave State balancing a free State.
