c.1290, from O.Fr. franchise "freedom," from variant stem of franc "free" (see frank). Sense narrowed 18c. to "particular legal privilege," then "right to vote" (1790). Meaning "authorization by a company to sell its products or services" is from 1959.
In politics, the right to vote. The Constitution left the determination of the qualifications of voters to the states. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, states usually restricted the franchise to white men who owned specified amounts of property. Gradually, poll taxes were substituted for property requirements. Before the Civil War, the voting rights of blacks were severely restricted, but the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, declared ratified in 1870, prohibited states from abridging the right to vote on the basis of race. Nevertheless, southern states used a variety of legal ploys to restrict black voting until passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Women were not guaranteed the right to vote in federal elections until ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. In 1971 the Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen. (Seesuffrageandsuffragette.)
Note: Losing the right to vote, called disfranchisement, is most commonly caused by failing to reregister, a procedure that is required every time a person changes residence.
In business, a relationship between a manufacturer and a retailer in which the manufacturer provides the product, sales techniques, and other kinds of managerial assistance, and the retailer promises to market the manufacturer's product rather than that of competitors. For example, most automobile dealerships are franchises. The vast majority of fast food chains are also run on the franchise principle, with the retailer paying to use the brand name.
Fran"chise\ (? or ?; 277), n. [F., fr. franc, fem. franche, free. See Frank, a.]1. Exemption from constraint or oppression; freedom; liberty. [Obs.] --Spenser. 2. (LAw) A particular privilege conferred by grant from a sovereign or a government, and vested in individuals; an imunity 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. 3. 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. 4. Magnanimity; generosity; liberality; frankness; nobility. "Franchise in woman." [Obs.] --Chaucer. Elective franchise, the privilege or right of voting in an election of public officers.
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