The Collaborative International Dictionary
Franchise \Fran"chise\ (? or ?; 277), n. [F., fr. franc, fem. franche, free. See Frank, a.]
Exemption from constraint or oppression; freedom; liberty. [Obs.]
--Spenser.-
(LAw) A particular privilege conferred by grant from a sovereign or a government, and vested in individuals; an immunity or exemption from ordinary jurisdiction; a constitutional or statutory right or privilege, esp. the right to vote.
Election by universal suffrage, as modified by the Constitution, is the one crowning franchise of the American people.
--W. H. Seward. -
The district or jurisdiction to which a particular privilege extends; the limits of an immunity; hence, an asylum or sanctuary.
Churches and mobasteries in Spain are franchises for criminals.
--London Encyc. -
Magnanimity; generosity; liberality; frankness; nobility. ``Franchise in woman.'' [Obs.]
--Chaucer.Elective franchise, the privilege or right of voting in an election of public officers.
Usage examples of "elective franchise".
Give the negro the elective franchise, and you at once destroy the purely sectional policy, and wheel the Southern States into line with national interests and national objects.
Statesmen of the South will tell you that the negro is too ignorant and stupid properly to exercise the elective franchise, and yet his greatest offense is that he acts with the only party intelligent enough in the eyes of the nation to legislate for the country.
The question was answered by hundreds of determined holders of the elective franchise as if by one: To City Hall!