T?lis B?auns
haha, sober second thought. My deleted comment from skype conversation last night: The case law on the freeman movement originated in 12th-century Europe and was common as an English or American Colonial expression in Puritan times. In Colonial times, a man had to be elected to this privilege by the General Court. Being a freeman carried with it the right to vote. By the mid 17th century, you needed to take an oath to be recognized freeman. With the abolition of slavery the term became irrelevant BUT the law society, the free mason societies, and guilds continued the practice of taking this oath to their society, which gave these members special rights by society at large; this attracted people who aspired to be in high places, which was exploited by the free masons especially, because so many people in high places were masons and they declared themselves to be the defacto elite, by being called 'private individuals' in order to distinguish/ privilege themselves as not just being an ordinary citizen. https://www.scribd.com/doc/245121839/On-Freedom-of-Expression-and-freeman-rights