Free State Project
Logo of the Free State Project
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| Motto | "Liberty in Our Lifetime" |
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| Formation | September 1, 2001 |
| Headquarters | 373 South Willow St #161, Manchester, New Hampshire, United States |
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President
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Matt Philips |
| Website | freestateproject |
| Remarks | 20,000 people have pledged (February 3, 2016) |
The Free State Project (FSP) is a proposed political migration, founded in 2001, to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire, selected in 2003) in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas. The project seeks to overcome the historical ineffectiveness of limited-government activism which they believe was caused by the small number and diffuse population of libertarian activists across the 50 United States and around the world.
Participants sign a statement of intent declaring that they intend to move to New Hampshire within five years of the drive reaching 20,000 participants. This statement of intent is intended to function as a form of assurance contract. As of February 3, 2016[update], 20,000 people have signed this statement of intent—completing the original goal—and 1,909 people are listed as "early movers" to New Hampshire on the FSP website, saying they had made their move prior to the 20,000-participant trigger.
Approximately a dozen Free Staters were elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in the 2012 election, and about 18 in the 2014 election.
The Free State Project is a social movement generally based upon decentralized decision making. The group hosts various events, but most of FSP's activities depend upon volunteers, and no formal plan dictates to participants or movers what their actions should be in New Hampshire.
The FSP mission statement, adopted in 2005, states:
The Free State Project is an agreement among 20,000 pro-liberty activists to move to New Hampshire, where they will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property. The success of the Project would likely entail reductions in taxation and regulation, reforms at all levels of government to expand individual rights and free markets, and a restoration of constitutional federalism, demonstrating the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and the world.
"Life, liberty, and property" are rights that were enumerated in the October 1774 Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress and in Article 12 of the New Hampshire state constitution.
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