A phrase which came into use in connection with the annexation of Texas.

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1845.  Is our aid invoked to relieve [Texas] from a condition of servitude, and extend “the area of freedom”? Why, sir, in the same breath in which we are called upon to extend “the area of freedom,” we are assured that Texas achieved her independence in the battle of San Jacinto.—Mr. Smith of Indiana, in the House of Representatives, Jan. 8: Cong. Globe, p. 79, Appendix.

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1845.  Mr. Barnard of New York read the preamble to the constitution, in which, he said, there was nothing about “enlarging the area of freedom.”—The same, Jan. 25: id., p. 188.

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1845.  Mr. McIlvaine of Pennsylvania noticed the proposed extension of the “area of freedom.”—Id., p. 190.

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1848.  

        The mass ough’ to labor an’ we lay on soffies,
Thet’s the reason I want to spread Freedom’s aree.
Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ No. 5.    

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