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ote. Election by universal suffrage, as modified by the Constitution, is the one crowning franchise of the American people. W. H. Seward.

Release; deliverance; freedom. Spenser.

To make free; to enfranchise. Johnson.

The act of making free; enfranchisement. [R.]

See Disfranchise, Disfranchisement.

To disfranchise; to deprive of the rights of a citizen. -- Dis`en*fran"chise*ment, n.

To deprive of a franchise or chartered right; to dispossess of the rights of a citizen, or of a particular privilege, as of voting, holding office, etc. Sir William Fitzwilliam was disfranchised. Fabyan (1509). He was partially disfranchised so as to be made incapable of taking part in public affairs. Thirlwall.…

The act of disfranchising, or the state disfranchised; deprivation of privileges of citizenship or of chartered immunities. Sentenced first to dismission from the court, and then to disfranchisement and expulsion from the colony. Palfrey.

To enfranchise.

To endow with a franchise; to incorporate into a body politic and thus to invest with civil and political privileges; to admit to the privileges of a freeman.

dom of a corporation or body politic; investiture with the privileges of free citizens. Enfranchisement of copyhold (Eng. Law), the conversion of a copyhold estate into a freehold. Mozley & W.

One who enfranchises.

See Enfranchise.

llow (one) to enter on an office or to enjoy a privilege; to recognize as qualified for a franchise; as, to admit an attorney to practice law; the prisoner was admitted to bail.

A man slave, or one bound to service without wages. "To enfranchise bondmen." Macaulay.

rized by elevated humanity and morality. It presents release from existence (a beatific enfranchisement, Nirvâna) as the greatest good. Buddhists believe in transmigration of souls through all phases and forms of life. Their number was estimated in 1881 at 470,000,000.

, from the sovereign power of a state or country, executed in due form, bestowing rights, franchises, or privileges. The king [John, a.d. 1215], with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed the charter which was required of him. This famous deed, commonly called the "Great Charter," either granted or secured…

city; a freeman of a city, as distinguished from a foreigner, or one not entitled to its franchises. That large body of the working men who were not counted as citizens and had not so much as a vote to serve as an anodyne to their stomachs. G. Eliot.

d peaceable enjoyment of his right; the interruption of a right; as, the disturbance of a franchise, of common, of ways, and the like. Blackstone.

isting in, choice, or right of choosing; electoral. The independent use of their elective franchise. Bancroft.