Several hundred people attended the New Hampshire Liberty Forum in Nashua, N.H., last weekend and were able to watch speeches, buy liberty related merchandise using silver, participate in civil disobedience and more.

Organizer Chris Lawless said that 352 people had registered in advance. The number does not count people who purchased tickets at the door; the final count was not available at press time.

The Liberty Forum is one of two annual events organized by the Free State Project, a movement to find 20,000 people willing to move to the same geographic area — New Hampshire — and work toward increasing freedom and reducing the power of the state.

Participants agree to move within five years after the project finds 20,000 people willing to “exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of civil government is the protection of life, liberty, and property.” Many think that five years is too long to wait, and over 800 of them have already come to New Hampshire.

Once participants move, their involvement with the project officially ends; they choose their own course of activism. Four have become state representatives; dozens more have been elected to various local government offices. Many others engage in a variety of activities ranging from testifying at the State House to opening businesses to civil disobedience.

“The Free State Project has no political platform or membership dues”, said Jason Sorens, political science professor at the University at Buffalo, who conceived the project in 2001. “We have participants who identify as conservative, classical liberal, libertarian, anarchist, voluntaryist, you name it. The things we care about are: Do you want more liberty and less government? Are you willing to work toward it? Are you going to be a good, neighborly person in your community? If so, the Free State Project may be just what you’re looking for.”

On March 15 the project had signed up its 10,000th participant. “We are increasing our advertising, starting direct telephone outreach, and increasing our presence at pro-liberty events across the country,” said project president Varrin Swearingen. Because the need for work often holds people back, the project now has resources on its web site to help people find jobs in New Hampshire. “Thankfully New Hampshire has the best economy in the northeast,” he said.

At this year’s Liberty Forum, the theme was “Liberty in Action.” Many of the speeches and breakout sessions focused on the need for concrete action, and I will be publishing the full video of many of these over the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately this will not include the Friday night keynote speech from Judge Andrew Napolitano, where audio and video recording was prohibited. (I will still cover this speech.)

For now, we’ll start with the opening ceremony from Friday morning, with organizer Chris Lawless speaking, and brief statements from co-organizer Seth Cohn and Rich Tomasso from the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. The next speech to be posted will be from Catherine Bleish, and it along with the rest of the speeches will be linked below.