free country

free country (plural free countries)

1. A country that protects the civil liberties of its citizens; a country whose government is not despotic.
   • 1840, Condy Raguet, The Principles of Free Trade:

     Now we should like to know whether, in a free country like this, and under a government instituted for no earthly object but to establish equality of rights and equality of protection — we should like to know, we say, whether a poor man has not a vested interest in a cheap coat, and whether his vested interest does not as much entitle him to the care and consideration of the government, as the vested interest of the manufacturer?

   • 2003, Kenneth Ira Kersch, Freedom of Speech: Rights and Liberties Under the Law, →ISBN, page 1:

     Such pride is expressed today in the praises to “the land of the free” sung before every baseball game, or the sometimes prickly, sometimes resigned commonplace that one can do or say whatever one wants because, after all, “It's a free country."

   • 2009, Richard Schmitt, An Introduction to Social and Political Philosophy, →ISBN:

     You might think that in a free country a public building would allow citizens to take shelter from inclement weather, but not our post office.

   • 2010, Paul Butler, Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice, →ISBN, page 26:

     To live in a free country is to tolerate a minimum level of risk. The framers thought that freedom was worth this cost.

2. A sovereign or independent country.
   • 1978, Clarence J. Munford, Production Relations, Class and Black Liberation, →ISBN:

     The collapse of the imperialist colonial system has complicated the problem of marketing for capitalists in two ways. Positively from the angle of international monopoly capital, the struggle of the newly free countries for economic independence and their first steps towards the creation of a modern diversified economy are increasing the demand for certain modern consumer goods, and for equipment and other production commodities from the industiralized capitalist countries.

   • 1998, N. Shyam Bhat, South Kanara, 1799-1860: A Study in Colonial Administration and Regional Response, →ISBN:

     In doing so it has evoked conflicting sentiments: Kalyanaswamy is either portrayed as a wicked freebooter, spreading destruction wherever he went or as a noble 'freedom fighter' who had visions of a free country, purged of its colonial oppressions.

   • 2013, Norman Angel, The Great Illusion, →ISBN:

     The first was that it obliged the Colonies to receive free of duty goods coming from France, while it taxed colonial goods coming into France. Now, it is impossible to imagine a treaty of that kind being passed between two free countries, and if it was passed with the Colonies, it was because these Colonies were weak, and not in the position to defend themselves vis-a\-vis the Mother Country.

• it's a free country