Alfred Alexander Freeman (February 7, 1838 – March 27, 1926) was an American politician, judge and diplomat, active during the latter half of the 19th century.
[6] He joined the legislature's Conservative faction, which generally supported the policies of President Andrew Johnson and opposed the Radical Republican agenda of Governor William G. Brownlow.
In March 1866, Freeman was among the legislators who broke quorum in an attempt to prevent the passage of a controversial franchise bill that would have given Brownlow unprecedented power over state elections.
[4] In December 1871, Freeman was involved in a contentious debate on the House floor over a resolution introduced by Democrats which suggested the Ku Klux Klan no longer existed as an organization requiring the state's attention.
[11] He spent September and October of that year campaigning and debating the Democratic Party incumbent, former Confederate general John C. Brown.
[13] In May 1873, President Grant appointed Freeman United States Consul to Prague, which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
[16] In a later interview, Freeman stated he had suffered from extreme loneliness and isolation in Prague, due in large part to the language barrier.
[17] In 1874, Freeman again sought election to Haywood's seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives, but was narrowly defeated by Lewis Bond, 2,008 votes to 1,831.
[22] In April 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Freeman United States Assistant Attorney General for the Post Office Department, a position which oversaw the Postal Service's legal affairs.
[26][27] He also argued the federal government's case in Dauphin v. Key, which involved fraudulent mail schemes (and stemmed in part from the lottery ruling),[28][29] and advised against the formation of controversial star routes.
[31] In March 1882, Freeman delivered a speech before the National Republican League opposing a pardon for William Mason, a guard who had attempted to kill Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President James Garfield.
[32] After his term as Assistant Attorney General had ended in 1885, Freeman formed a Washington-based law partnership with ex-Congressman Hernando Money.
Freeman reversed the decision, however, and blasted the district court ruling in such mocking fashion that President Harrison was rumored to have considered removing him from the bench.
[2] During the 1890s, Freeman and deputy U.S. marshal Dee Harkey used the 1882 Edmunds Act (which outlawed polygamy) to end prostitution in the town of Eddy (modern Carlsbad).
This brought death threats from a local crime syndicate, but by the Summer of 1895, most of the town's prostitutes and saloon owners had moved to the Arizona Territory.
[2] In late 1907, Freeman and his family moved to British Columbia, where he and his son-in-law, James O. Cameron, established a lumber company.