Free Negroes. According

to the census of 1790, there were 59,481 free colored persons in the United States. Of these 28,558 were in the Southern States, as against about 647,000 slaves, 17,852 in the Middle States, as against about 45,000 slaves, and 13,07 in New England, as against about 3,800 slaves. As aversion to slavery decreased in the South, emancipation was made le easy, and free negroes were put under certain disabilities. The view that they were a dangerous element in the population strengthened the movement for colonization of them in Africa. In 1857 the Supreme Court by what is known as the Dred Scott decision declared that free negroes were not citizens of the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment made all negroes free. ‘¢ Pree Ships, Free Goods.’? A popular summary of the doctrine that, in time of war, all goods, whether belonging to neutrals or to members of the belligerent States, are, if carried in neutral ve els, thereby exempted from capture, unle they are by nature contraband of war. This doctrine was generally held by neutrals. It was maintained by the United States during the wars between England and France, 1793-1815. England, on the other hand, had always maintained that the determining characteristic was the ownership of the property, whatever the ownership of the ve el. This was one of the differences from which arose the War of 1812. The Treaty of Ghent did not settle the question. By the Declaration of Paris (1856) it was agreed by the signatory pow. ers that free ships should make free goods, and indeed that both enemy’s goods in neutral ships and neutral goods in enemy’s ships should be exempt from capture. While the United States did not accede to the Declaration as a whole, they naturally welcomed this part of it. Free-Soil Party, a short-lived party of anti-slavery men, which sprang into existence in 1848. Immediately after Taylor's nomination 8 plan was laid for a great anti-slavery meeting at Buffalo in August. You sands attended the meeting, chiefly of two elements; the members of the Liberty party, though in October, 1847, they had nominated John P. Hale as candidate for President, and the ‘‘ Barn burners,”’ or di atisfied anti-administration Oemocrats of New York, followers of Van Buren, desirous of avenging him for the nomination of Polk in 1844. These last had in June nominated Van Buren by convention held at Utica. The Buffalo Convention, composed of these two partly incongruous elements, nominated Van Buren and C. F. Adams. Its resolutions declared that Congre had no more power to make a slave than to make a king, and ought to keep slavery out of the Territories. The * Free-Soilers " polled 291,263 votes in 1848. They were strongest in New Vork, Ma achusetts and Ohio. They also won fourteen Congre men, and in the next House had seventeen. In 1852 the Van Buren faction was reunited with the regular Democracy. The Free-Soilers met in convention at Pittsburg in August, and nominated John P. Hale and George W. Julian, but polled only 155,825 votes. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill called into existence the Republican party, and the Free-Soil party was absorbed in it. Freedmen’s Bureau, a Bureau of the War Department of the United States Government, established by Act of March 3, 1865, to have general charge of the interests of the enfranchised negroes of the Southern States. Its title was ‘‘ bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands,’’ and it was authorized to a ign to the freedmen allotments of confiscated or abandoned lands given over to it by the President for such purposes. It was to continue one year. A bill continuing it for two years more was vetoed ty President Johnson in 1866, but was pa ed over the veto. Its general work continued till 1869, its educational work till 1870. It expended in its work over $15,000,000, Freeman’s Farm, N. Y., an indecisive battle, September 19, 1777, between the British army, under Burgoyne, and Gates, commanding the Continental troops. The latter was worsted at first, but Benedict Arnold attacked Burgoyne’s center and saved the Americans, Freewill Baptiste. This denomination originated in 1780, in a church founded at New Durham, N. H., by Benjamin Randall, and profe ing the doctrines of free salvation and open communion. Their general conference originated in 1827. In rg00 they numbered 1,586 churches and about 88,000 members. 273