"Usurpation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great share in them. In particular, that discipline, which is one of the greatest of those blessings, never can, and, indeed, never ought to be restored, till the Church resumes its lawful authority, and puts an end to the usurpation of its powers by the clergy. There is a feeling now awakened amongst the lay members of our Church, which, if it can but be rightly directed, may, by God's blessing, really arrive at something truer and deeper ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... positive condition that "every power not granted was retained," and that they had read the document in vain to find the right given to assume the debts of the States. Here, within two years after the adoption of the Constitution, was a State Legislature protesting against the usurpation of power under it. It was the first of many ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... patient generation!—the "orderly mob" which assembled in the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws,—but illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea-tax and stamp-act laws! Our fathers resisted, not the king's prerogative, but the king's usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. Our State archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament unconstitutional, beyond its power. It was not till this was made out ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... reading the papers referred to, that he was inspired; that he was God, King, Emperor, and that he ought to rule; so, puffed up with pride and insatiable ambition, he began raising an army; and aimed at nothing less than the usurpation of the "Dragon Throne." Some thought him mad; but he gathered about him some 20,000 men whom he had influenced to believe in him as the "Second Celestial Brother," and gave out he was a seer of visions, ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... the business has of recent years had to contend is the unscrupulous methods of some of its "managers." Knowing no such thing as professional honor, these men are ever ready to benefit themselves, regardless of the cost to an associate club. The reserve rule itself is a usurpation of the players' rights, but it is, perhaps, made necessary by the peculiar nature of the base-ball business, and the player is indirectly compensated by the improved standing of the game. I quote in this ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... This honor is, however, more properly attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming of Christ; his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his implacable hostility to the Jews; his pollution of the Holy of Holies; and his miserable death at Taba, after ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of the People, deliberate in peace," pithily says Changarnier, after proving to his own satisfaction that the army will not level their arms against the Assembly in support of a Napoleonic usurpation. So the friends of Republican France throughout the world may give thanks and take courage. The darkness is dispersing; the skies of the future are red with the coming day. Time is on the popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic. It cannot be legally ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... the valley as he had been up on the heights during his vision—of a world made better by his hand. In his darker moments he saw nothing but enmity and disloyalty about him—even, a little later, "usurpation" in the case of the timorous and circumspect ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... queen of Britain has not a more loyal subject in her realm—perhaps not one who would kneel before her throne with such reverential love—as this old grandsire whose head has whitened beneath the mild sway of the republic which still in his mellower moments he terms a usurpation. Yet prejudices so obstinate have not made him an ungentle or impracticable companion. If the truth must be told, the life of the aged loyalist has been of such a scrambling and unsettled character—he has had so little choice of friends ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rectory of Shilton in Berks, in the place of one Thomas Lawrence, ejected on account of his being non compos mentis. For which act he was much blamed and censured by his ancient friends the clergy, who adhered to the King, and who rather chose to live in poverty during the usurpation, than by a mean compliance with the times, betray the interest of the church, and the cause of their ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... of the single duty that his years had left him, and resentful of its frequent usurpation by Falconer's servant, always stayed up to attend the door till the last of the family had retired. We now heard him shuffling through the hall, heard the movement of the lock, and then instantly a heavy tread that covered the sound of Noah's. The parlour door ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... developments suggested by the traditional account of the Pseudo-Smerdis. In recent times several authorities have expressed the opinion that all that is told us of the murder of Smerdis and about the Pseudo-Smerdis is merely a legend, invented by Darius or those about him in order to justify his usurpation in the eyes of the people: the Pseudo-Smerdis would be Smerdis himself, who revolted against Cambyses, and was then, after he had reigned a few months, assassinated by Darius. Winckler acknowledges "that certainty is impossible in such a case;" and, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... legislative, executive, and judicial powers, which they already exercise, in the most arbitrary manner, over the persons and properties of their fellow subjects: and although many of these unhappy people may still retain their loyalty, and may be too wise not to see the fatal consequence of this usurpation and wish to resist it, yet the torrent of violence has been strong enough to compel their acquiescence, till a sufficient force shall appear to support them. The authors and promoters of this desperate conspiracy have, in the ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... Rooms. At least he had the strange, bare outline now. He was in some way the owner of the world, and great political parties were fighting to possess him. On the one hand was the Council, with its red police, set resolutely, it seemed, on the usurpation of his property and perhaps his murder; on the other, the revolution that had liberated him, with this unseen "Ostrog" as its leader. And the whole of this gigantic city was convulsed by their struggle. Frantic development of his world! "I do not understand," he cried. ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... the stamp act, which was passed in 1764, he styles it "An usurpation of the Americans' most precious and sacred rights." Consequently he here admits the most energetic of all causes, that is, an usurpation of their most precious and sacred rights, to have existed in America twelve years before the declaration of independence, and ten years before the breaking out of hostilities. The time, therefore, in which the paragraph is true, must be antecedent ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... our respect for him as a man. * * * * * * * * * * * "As the vindicator of American rights, during the period of colonial subordination, as the acknowledged leader, in Massachusetts, of the constitutional opposition to ministerial influence and parliamentary usurpation, the services of Mr. Otis cannot be too highly appreciated. * * * * * * * * * * * "He was not permitted to witness the grand result of his labors. He did not live to enjoy the final triumph; he can hardly be said to have survived till the opening of the struggle. ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... Gauls when they made their night attack upon the Capitol, and who for that reason had been named Capitolinus. This man, affecting the first place in the commonwealth, and not able by noble ways to outdo Camillus's reputation, took that ordinary course toward usurpation of absolute power, namely, to gain the multitude, those of them especially that were in debt; defending some by pleading their causes against their creditors, rescuing others by force, and not suffering the law to proceed against them; insomuch that in a short time he got great numbers of indigent ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... offered all they could desire for the security of their Trade, and legal employment, and far beyond whatsoever any Corporation of Apothecaries in all, or in any forreign part enjoy, yet nothing would ever content them, but an unlawful, unreasonable, dangerous, and destructive Usurpation of liberty to some pretended practice, that thereby they might gain ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... of the Osmia, often her neighbour under the same stone, the gum-worker builds her nest at the same period as the mud-worker; but there is no fear of mutual encroachments, for the two Bees, working next door to each other, watch their respective properties with a jealous eye. If attempts at usurpation were to be made, the owner of the Snail-shell would know how to enforce her rights as ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... some seventy years back, invested the then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to this present day still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days, will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was to them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a new proclamation. This is Charing Cross; ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... on, their first institution;[9]—that innovations are always attended with difficulties and inconveniences, and innovations in the revenue with a suspension of the collections;[10]—that the continual variations in the mode of collecting the revenue, and the continual usurpation on the rights of the people, have fixed in the minds of the ryots a rooted distrust of the ordinances of government."[11] That the Court of Directors have repeatedly declared their apprehensions "that a sudden transition from one mode to another, in ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fact a contention that the will of Parliament could override the claims of blood in the succession to the throne. With all this the civil war dealt roughly and decisively. The Parliamentary line was driven from the throne. The Parliamentary title was set aside as usurpation. The House of York based its claim to the throne on the incapacity of Parliament to set aside pretensions which were based on sheer nearness of blood. The fall of the House of Lancaster, the accession of the Yorkist kings, must have seemed to the men who had witnessed ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... clear from this statement that Erthai was the lawful lord of the Mordei. He had been deprived of his dominions for a time, probably through the usurpation of the "steel-clad commander," but at length succeeded in recovering them. Who Erthai was we know not; Llywarch Hen had a son, whose name bore some resemblance to the word: he is mentioned in the ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... which he kept concealed in a large drawer, under the stock of heads and religious images. It is probable that he felt some slight qualms at the free-and-easy manner in which he had taken possession of the post office, and recognised the desirability of getting his usurpation confirmed as far as possible. At all events, he had thought it well to call upon Rougon, who was fast ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... invitation to reckless and lawless men to enlist under the banner of any adventurer to rob, plunder, and murder the unoffending citizens of neighboring states, who have never done them harm. It is a usurpation of the war-making power, which belongs alone to Congress; and the Government itself, at least in the estimation of the world, becomes an accomplice in the commission of this crime unless it adopts all the means necessary to prevent and to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... intervention. At Coblentz a regency was openly spoken of, and bestowed on the Comte de Provence, the brother of Louis XVI.; and this regency, that had devolved on a prince of the blood by emigration, whilst the king maintained a struggle at Paris, greatly humiliated Louis XVI. and the queen. This usurpation of their rights, although clothed in the dress of devotion and tenderness, was even more bitter to them than the outrages of the Assembly and the people. We always dread most that which is nearest ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... is made to assist in liberating from a faithless, imbecile government, your paternal soil. Spaniards, Frenchmen, Italians, and British; whether settled, or residing for a time in Louisiana, on you also, I call to aid me in this just cause. The American usurpation in this country must be abolished, and the lawful owners of the soil put in possession. I am at the head of a large body of Indians, well armed, disciplined, and commanded by British officers, a good train of artillery with every requisite, seconded ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... waited on the Colonel in his apartment the very next morning, and set before him the state of the borough; Barnes Newcome's tyranny, under which it groaned; and the yearning of all honest men to be free from that usurpation. Thomas Newcome received the deputation with great solemnity and politeness, crossed his legs, folded his arms, smoked his cheroot, and listened moat decorously, as now Potts, now Tucker, expounded to him; Bayham giving the benefit of his emphatic "hear, hear," ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... by producing a collection of news-papers in the time of the Usurpation, from which it appeared that all sorts of crimes were very frequent during that horrible anarchy. By the side of the high road to Glasgow, at some distance from his house, he had erected a pillar to the memory of his ingenious ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... Parliaments of Scotland," vol. vii. p. 367.) Wodrow has collected various particulars regarding the life, character, and subsequent sufferings, for conscience' sake, of this pious and useful minister. ("Hist. of the Suff. of the Ch. of Scot.", vol. i. pp. 197-200.) As he was persecuted, during the Usurpation, for persisting in praying publicly for the king, he had thus the singular misfortune of being punished both for his loyalty and his supposed disloyalty. Mr. Moncrieff has had a niche assigned to him by Howie among the Scots Worthies. (pp. 411-415. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... had lived at the court of king Arthur, and whose great qualities are celebrated by the pens of Lhowarch-Hen, (his cousin-german,) Taliessin, and the author of the Triades. In the beginning of the usurpation of Morcant Mawr, St. Kentigern was obliged to fly into Wales, where he stayed some time with St. David, at Menevia, {139} till Cathwallain, (uncle to king Maelgun Gwynedh,[2]) a religious prince of part of Denbighshire, bestowed on him the land at the meeting ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... distracted minds, or of preventing the subversion of liberty and the establishment of despotism, unless by calling the collected wisdom and virtue of the community into counsel by the election of a free Parliament; and therefore, considering that, through the usurpation of borough factions and other causes, the people have been put even out of a condition to consent to taxes; and considering also that, until their sacred right of election shall be restored, no free Parliament can have existence, it is necessary that the House shall, without delay, pass a law for ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... distinguished it, and in virtue, we suppose, of that undefined tenth point of the law which is not involved in the word possession, appointed a Vicar Apostolic of Mongolia. The pope might, with equal impunity, have divided it into bishoprics—no meetings would have been hold to protest against the usurpation; and the mandarins of Pekin would certainly have proposed no law to prevent the Lamas of the western world from assuming what titles they pleased. But even in that case, the interests of the church would not have been much forwarded. The ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... retired to her own room, he followed, and then and there fully opened his heart to her. He told her all, from the first moment when Barbara began to monopolize his thoughts, and confessed his struggles against her usurpation of the place ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... in fact a casting off of an unjustifiable usurpation in temporal as well as in spiritual things, and a violent reaction against that course of events which, from the eighth century downwards, had been tending to reduce the different sovereigns of Western Christendom to the rank of vassals of ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... them by a large figure of Thothmes III., the fifth King of the eighteenth dynasty. In the row to the left of the entrance are thirty-one names, and in that to the right are thirty, all of them predecessors of Thothmes. The Theban Kings who ruled in Upper Egypt during the usurpation of the Hyksos invaders are also exhibited among the lists. Over the head of each King is his ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... to know that something has been done at last to redress the injuries to our people and check the perilous tendency of the reckless waste of the national domain. That over 80,000,000 acres have been arrested from illegal usurpation, improvident grants, and fraudulent entries and claims, to be taken for the homesteads of honest industry—although less than the greater areas thus unjustly lost—must afford a profound gratification to right-feeling citizens, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... of Germany a party was organized to remonstrate against, and even resist, the papal usurpation. It protested against "a man being placed on the throne of God," against a vice-God of any kind, nor would it yield its scientific convictions to ecclesiastical authority. Some did not hesitate to accuse the pope himself of being a heretic. Against these insubordinates excommunications began ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... case no concert of action, no resources behind the insurrection, and no military leadership. General Canrobert, Commandant of the Guards, soon put down the revolt in blood. Order was speedily restored throughout Paris, and the victory of the President was complete. It only remained to submit his usurpation to the judgment of the people, and the decision in that case could, under existing conditions, hardly be a matter ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... of their usurpation is established upon this method of arguing. We do not make laws. No; we do not contend for this power. We only declare law; and, as we are a tribunal both competent and supreme, what we declare to be law becomes law, although ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... government, of which he was chosen chief: restored the authority of the laws; established a university; and took such measures, both for repressing abuses and moulding the rising generation, that, if France had not interfered, upon its wicked and detestable principle of usurpation, Corsica might at this day have been as free, and flourishing and happy a commonwealth as any of the Grecian states in the days of their prosperity. The Genoese were at this time driven out of their fortified towns, and must ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... when he returned to his own country, entered a convent, but not to waste his time in idleness and the corruptions of his order. In fact, he began at once to preach against these, and against the usurpation of temporal power by all the great and little dignitaries of the Church. He thus identified himself with the democratic side in politics, which was then locally arrayed against the bishop aspiring to rule ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... in every direction by strange and unexpected pockets, was none other than the Honourable George Lawless! The turn-out was drawn by a pair 116of thorough-breds, driven tandem, which were now (their irascible tempers being disturbed by the delay which my usurpation of the road had occasioned) relieving their feelings by executing a kind of hornpipe upon their hindlegs. The equipage was completed by a tiger, so small, that beyond a vague sensation of top-boots and a livery hat, one's senses ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... taken. This is said to have happened 'last year' (B.C. 406), and therefore the assumed date of the dialogue has been fixed at 405 B.C., when Socrates would already have been an old man. The date is clearly marked, but is scarcely reconcilable with another indication of time, viz. the 'recent' usurpation of Archelaus, which occurred in the year 413; and still less with the 'recent' death of Pericles, who really died twenty-four years previously (429 B.C.) and is afterwards reckoned among the statesmen of a past age; or ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... superinduced depravity. The schemes of mere human wisdom had indeed tacitly confessed, that this was a task beyond their strength. Of the two most celebrated systems of philosophy, the one expressly confirmed the usurpation of the passions, while the other, despairing of being able to regulate, saw nothing left but to extinguish them. The former acted like a weak government, which gives independence to a rebellious province, which it cannot reduce. The latter formed its boasted scheme merely ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... political privilege only, and not a natural right. It is regulated by the constitution and laws of a State, I grant, but it needs no argument to show that a constitution and laws adopted and enacted by a fragment only of the whole body of the people, but binding alike on all, are a usurpation of the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... follows without doubt or question, then, that the most desirable position possible is that of a prince. And I think it also follows that the so-called usurpations with which history is littered are the most excusable misdemeanors which men have committed. To usurp a usurpation—that is all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... when ecclesiastical usurpation was beginning to produce some of its bitter fruits, and when religion was rapidly degenerating from its primitive purity. [372:2] His works, which treat of a great variety of topics interesting to the Christian student, throw immense light on the state ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... you never touched the form or the vital substance of free government in that kingdom. You deposed kings; you restored them; you altered the succession to theirs, as well as to your own crown; but you never altered their Constitution, the principle of which was respected by usurpation, restored with the restoration of monarchy, and established, I trust, forever by the glorious Revolution. This has made Ireland the great and flourishing kingdom that it is, and, from a disgrace and a burden intolerable to this nation, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... been contending all winter against any action which should lead to a possibility of strengthening the federal government, failed to see how important a step they had taken to that very end; if any, who were fearful of federal usurpation and tenacious of state rights, were blind to the fact that the resolution had pushed aside the Potomac question and put the Union question in its place, Mr. Madison, we may be sure, was not one of that number. He had gained ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... common-place. Avoid all towns and cities of white clapboard palaces and Grecian temples, studded with "Academics," "Seminaries," and "Institutes," which glisten along our bays and rivers; these are the strong-holds of Yankee usurpation; but if haply you light upon some rough, rambling road, winding between stone fences, gray with moss, and overgrown with elder, poke-berry, mullein, and sweet-briar, with here and there a low, red-roofed, whitewashed ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... less proportion will be yet found betwixt them; and if we bate the popularity, perhaps none at all. If we consider them in reference to their parties, the one was manifestly the leader; the other, at the worst, is but misled. The designs of the one tended openly to usurpation; those of the other may yet be interpreted more fairly; and I hope, from the natural candour and probity of his temper, that it will come to a perfect submission and reconcilement at last. But that which perfectly ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Majesty's Government, be unworthy of its past and of the traditions of which it is the custodian and trustee if it allowed another day to pass without making it clear that it does not mean to brook the greatest indignity and the most arrogant usurpation to which for more than two centuries it has been asked to submit. We have advised the Crown to dissolve Parliament ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... other Union here or elsewhere," it thundered "has any right to a sympathetic strike to help the metal workers. This city is not going to be throttled by a thug minority, who want to exercise governing power as a revolutionary usurpation ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... them all—that is the power that is undermining this government. It's against the Constitution. Old Chief Justice Marshall in his verdict (which ushered in the reign of corporations, in this country) distinctly said that it was based on usurpation, dating back to the Stuarts or the Georges; and the hint in that was, that it was ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... part of that duchy, although Rouen, the capital, was preserved principally by the exertions of the Earl of Essex, lately one of Richard's companions in the Holy Land. In England, also, John met with a general opposition to his usurpation of the regal authority, which soon compelled him to conclude an armistice with a council of regency that had been appointed by the prelates and barons. This was the position of affairs when Longchamp, having discovered Richard's place of confinement, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... could see clearly through the maze, and explain the origin and meaning of the movement of the great, southern clans and daimios against the Tycoon. It was in reality the assertion of the Mikado's imperial and historic claims to complete supremacy against the Shogun's or lieutenant's long usurpation. It was an expression of nationality against sections. The civil war meant "unite or die." Carleton naturally shared in the general wrong impressions and darkness that prevailed, and neither his letters ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... usurpation unparalleled in the history of the world.... If these be the principles to which the Emperor of Russia has inviolably attached himself ... deeply does His Majesty [George III.] lament a determination by which the sufferings of Europe must be aggravated and prolonged. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... of authority, on the part of those states, has been effected gradually, and the usurpation on the part of Christian powers has only been perfected and secured by treaty in our own day. Great Britain, in her treaty with the emperor of Morocco (1760), agreed that 'if there shall happen any quarrel or dispute between an Englishman and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... the farmer-general, whose conduct was not criminally attacked, but appeared as one of the grounds of a public inquiry, is turned into a culprit before a court of justice, against whom everything is to be juridically made out or not admitted; and the members of an executive board, by usurpation and fraud, erect themselves into judges bound to proceed by strict ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... importance is necessarily a sharp thorn to the reaction. She is looked upon as a danger to the continued existence of authoritarian usurpation. No wonder, then, that the enemy resorts to any and all means to make her impossible. A systematic attempt to suppress her activities was organized a year ago by the united police force of the country. But like all previous similar attempts, it failed in a most brilliant ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... substance. The old spirit of freedom and the collective purpose which overthrew and subdued priestcrafts and kingcrafts, has done so, it seems, only to make way for these obscure political conspiracies. Instead of liberal institutions, mankind has invented a new sort of usurpation. And it is not unnatural that many of us should be in a phase ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... nearly always in the power of a party politician to distort and misrepresent the act {17} of an opponent, however just or blameless that act may be. Brougham made a great pother about the rights of freemen, usurpation, dictatorship. As a lawyer he raised the legal point, that Durham could not banish offenders from Canada to a colony over which he had no jurisdiction. He enlisted other lawyers on his side to attack the composition of Durham's council. The ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... assuring the Governor against his neat venture. It hurled him, once more, through the fabric of the British constitution, a road to which he had grown familiar. What should he do but raise two regiments on his own mandate, a usurpation of the sovereign rights. It occurred in this fashion. Bombay had not taken the distemper, rife in such a large area of India. However, Lord Elphinstone learned that a Bombay rising had been arranged for a certain religious festival. He had not forces ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... a notion of the wisdom of governments as of their power. He speaks with the greatest disgust of the respect now paid to public opinion. That opinion is, according to him, to be distrusted and dreaded; its usurpation ought to be vigorously resisted; and the practice of yielding to it is likely to ruin the country. To maintain police is, according to him, only one of the ends of government. The duties of a ruler are patriarchal ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of ours. That generation was a frugal and honest generation in the main, and they would have visited with the swiftest condemnation and punishment, every breach of public trust, whether through dishonesty or usurpation. But they did not send to England for Benedict Arnold. They did not restore the Tories to power. They did not go down on their knees to George III. and ask him to take them back into favor. They believed that if the Constitution could not be administered honestly by a majority of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... principle, and laid it as the foundation of their Constitution. That nation having for many ages groaned under the exercise of the pretended right claimed by their Kings and Nobles, until their very feelings as men were become torpid, at length suddenly awoke, from their long slumber, abolished the usurpation, and placed every man upon the footing of equal rights. "All men are born free and equal in rights," if I mistake not, is ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... constitutions, would have been the extreme of rashness. The jealousy with which the oligarchy of Venice and the States of Holland regarded their generals and armies induced them perpetually to interfere in matters of which they were incompetent to judge. This policy secured them against military usurpation, but placed them, under great disadvantages in war. The uncontrolled power which the King of France exercised over his troops enabled him to conquer his enemies, but enabled him also to oppress his people. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Council. The Presbyterians, having more liberty in the way of speech, had certainly not been silent. What indignation among them, what outcries, during the last seven weeks, over the suppression of all legal authority, and the monstrous usurpation of power by the Army-Grandees and their heretical adherents! Among the Presbyterian multitudes of London there had been no protester in this sense more brave than Prynne. Whatever could be done with pen and ink, or by vehement verbal messages, in ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... make the whisper that He delays, a hope; while, on the other hand, the hope that He delays helps to open the sluices, and let sin flood the life. So an outburst of cruel masterfulness and of riotous sensuality is the consequence of the dimmed expectation. There would have been no usurpation of authority over Christ's heritage by priest or pope, or any other, if that hope had not become faint. If professing Christians lived with the great white throne and the heavens and earth fleeing away before Him that sits on it, ever burning before ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... not to imagine, from the language of the bailiff, that Vaud stood on the eve of any great political commotion, but, as the Government was in itself an usurpation, and founded on the false principle of exclusion, it was quite as usual then, as now, to cry out against the moral throes of violated right, since the same eagerness to possess, the same selfishness in grasping, however unjustly obtained, and the same audacity of assertion with a view ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... And with her, hand in hand, firm-footed Peace, 160 Her countenance twice lighted up with glory, As if I had charmed a goddess down from Heaven? But these will flee abhorrent from the throne Of usurpation! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... In the first place, there is some deep-rooted disquiet lying at the bottom of his soul, which makes him very bitter against all kinds of usurpation over the right of private judgment. Over this seems to lie a certain tenderness for humanity in general, bred out of life-long trial, I should say, but sharply streaked with fiery lines of wrath at various individual acts of wrong, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... had been Oliver's Latin Secretary from first to last, and penned for him his despatches on the Piedmontese massacre and all his greatest besides? The likelihood, therefore, is that "the short but scandalous night of interruption" in Milton's mind was the fortnight or so of Wallingford-House usurpation which broke up Richard's Parliament and Protectorate, and from the continuance of which, with all the inconveniences of a mere military despotism, the restoration of the Rump had seemed a happy rescue. But, though this single phrase may ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... privileged to oppress and to despoil them. The Third Estate was equal to the three Estates together, for the others had no right to be represented. As power exercised otherwise than by consent, power that does not emanate from those for whose use it exists, is a usurpation, the two first orders must be regarded as wrongdoers. They ought to be repressed, and the means of doing harm ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... honors. We do not pretend that the State has no rights in matters of education. But its interference should be consistent with the prior and more fundamental rights of the individual and the family and not become a usurpation or abrogation of them. Otherwise it would be the wrong way ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... that, to resist the usurpation of the French, the queen was rallying about her person all the foreigners she could. Her partiality for the English and Americans was well known; and this was an additional ground for our anticipating a favourable reception. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Agamemnon, so there were good people in the little village of Wrentham before Mrs. Steffe appeared upon the scene. The Brewsters, who were an ancient family, which seems to have culminated under the glorious usurpation of Oliver Cromwell, were eminently good people in Dr. Doddridge's acceptation of the term, and I fancy did much as lords of the manor—and as inhabitants of Wrentham Hall, a building which had ceased to exist long ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... of his voyages, it may have been owing to anticipated opposition on the part of his readers. There has always been a wide divergence of opinion respecting the merits of Amerigo Vespucci, and the world has never reconciled itself to his so-called usurpation of the ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... with the pruning-knife and the plough. But in practice these bounds were effectually narrowed, when the college of cardinals tacitly restricted the choice to the members of their own body,—and still more effectually, when, by the same silent usurpation, they resolved that Adrian of Utrecht should be the last of foreign pontiffs. For three hundred and forty years none but Italians have been called to the chair of St. Peter's, thus, by an inevitable result of the unnatural alliance of ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... or different treatment than their fellow prisoners of war; though the distance is immense between the crime of plotting against the lawful Government of the Princes of the House of Brunswick, and the attempt to disturb the usurpation of an upstart of the House of Bonaparte. But, even during the last war, how many of our ships of the line, frigates, and cutters, did you not take, which had landed rebels in Ireland, emissaries in Scotland, and malefactors in Wales; and yet your generosity prevented you from retaliating, even ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... power of the latter advanced, that of the Culdees was enfeebled. It was not, however, till the thirteenth century that the communities of the Culdees were suppressed and the members dispersed. They still continued to labor as individuals, and resisted the inroads of Papa usurpation as they best might till the light of the Reformation dawned ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... because the Archbishop had been guilty of any crime or heresy, or was obviously unfitted for his post, but because his conscientious judgment on a point of Church discipline and liberty differed from hers; and this state of things was made possible not by an usurpation of power, but by the deliberately ordered system of the Church of England. Anthony had at least sufficient penetration to see that this, as a fundamental principle of religion, however obscured it might be by subsequent ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... of Henry IV., Henry V., the three parts of Henry VI., and Richard III. This series may be divided into two, each forming a tetralogy, or group of four plays. In the first the subject is the rise of the house of Lancaster. But the power of the Red Rose was founded in usurpation. In the second group, accordingly, comes the Nemesis, in the civil wars of the Roses, reaching their catastrophe in the downfall of both Lancaster and York, and the tyranny of Gloucester. The happy conclusion ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... must have been common enough. Kings who died leaving helpless heirs to the guardianship of ambitious and wicked nobles were not rare in the early days of Britain, Wales, or Denmark; the murder of the heir and the usurpation of the kingdom by the cruel regent were no unusual occurrences. The opportunity of localising the early legend seems to have come with the growing fame of Anlaf, or Olaf, Sihtricson, who was known to the Welsh as Abloec or Habloc. His adventurous ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the wars occasioned by the usurpation of Stephen, Lisieux once more obtained an unfortunate celebrity. The town was attacked in 1136, by the forces of Anjou, under the command of Geoffrey Plantagenet, husband of the Empress Maud, joined by those of William, Duke of Poitiers; ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... authorize a criminal prosecution has been laid before the president of the Chamber. This petition states an extremely serious fact, namely: that Monsieur de Sallenauve has usurped the name he bears; and this usurpation, being made by means of an official document, assumes the character of forgery committed by substitution of person. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... that here, at least, Nature might be permitted to reign unmolested, but the solitary watch-fires of the recent settlers gave proof that though his tenure was yet but frail, man! rapacious and indefatigable man! was fast establishing usurpation." This was written many years ago. What would be the astonishment of the writer, if he could revisit the scene. Would he think it improvement or desecration? On the islands cottages are built, and well kept lawns, sloping down to the water, are brightened by the bright dresses of women and ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... sagacious, and energetic, was rallying around him all the Protestant influences of Europe, to sustain, in that event, his undeniable claim to the throne. The Duke of Guise, impetuous and fearless, hoped, in successful usurpation, to grasp the rich prize by rallying around his banner all the fanatic energies of ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... not tell you, who have adorned a public character, is not only an usurpation of the Divine prerogative; but it is an insult upon magistracy and good government. 'Tis an impious act. 'Tis an attempt to take away a life that ought not to depend upon a private sword; an act, the ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... it in the wealthier kingdom of Sweden. Here the clergy and part of the nobility were favourable to the Union; but the vast majority of the people hated it as a foreign usurpation. Matters were still further complicated by the continual interference of the Hanseatic League; and Christian I. (1448-1481) and Hans (1481-1513), whose chief merit it is to have founded the Danish fleet, were, during the greater part of their reigns, only nominally kings ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... popular opinion for stern action against the Coercive Acts was unequivocal. From Spotsylvania, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Prince William, Frederick, Dunmore (now Shenandoah), Westmoreland, Prince George, Essex, Middlesex—in all, 31 towns and counties, came outspoken resolutions against parliamentary usurpation of Virginia rights. Liberally sprinkled throughout the resolves were sentiments like, "it is the fixed Intention of the Said Ministry to reduce the Colonies to a State of Slavery", "we owe no Obedience to any Act of the British Parliament", "we will oppose any such Acts with our Lives ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... Davis, Pickens, Stephens, and Floyd? what do you say provoked you to the point where forbearance ceased to be a virtue? What had we of the North usurped that belonged to you? I inquire not now of what some among us may have said. I challenge any act of usurpation by the non-slaveholding States against your rights as members of the confederacy. Facts are incontrovertible. What had we done? What provision of the Federal Constitution had we violated? For once lay aside your declamation and abuse, and soberly ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... first of the Moghuls to reside in the Mahomedan atmosphere of Delhi throughout his long reign. But, begun in usurpation at the cost of his own father, it ended in misery and gloom. His sons had revolted against him, his sombre fanaticism had estranged from him the Rajput princes of whom Akbar had made the pillars of the Moghul throne, ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... insane. Every man is equivalent to every other man. Destroy the equivalent, and what is left? "So God created man in his own image—male and female created he them." This is a death-blow to all claims of superiority, to all charges of inferiority, to all usurpation, to all oppressive dominion. ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... Orleans for home this evening. Want of respect for Governor Wells personally, alone represses the expression of indignation felt by all honest and sensible men at the unwarranted usurpation of General Sheridan in removing the civil officers of Louisiana. It is believed here that you will reinstate Wells. He is a bad man, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... the great troubles of life is that Reason has taken charge of the administration of Justice, and by mere identification it has achieved the crown and sceptre of its master. But the imperceptible usurpation was recorded, and discriminating minds understand the chasm which still divides the pretender Law from the exiled King. In a like manner, and with feigned humility, the Cold Demon advanced to serve Religion, and by guile and violence ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... on the other hand: "Whatever is valid in a smaller matter ought to be valid also in a greater one. One may convert the preceding example." Also, "That which is valid in a parallel case ought to be valid in this which is a parallel case." As, "Since the usurpation of a farm depends on a term of two years, the law with respect to houses ought to be the same." But in the law houses are not mentioned, and so they are supposed to come under the same class as all other things, the property in which is determined by one year's ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... peace with all the world. It was universally admitted that Napoleon was the great pacificator. He was the idol of France. The masses of the people in Europe, every where regarded him as their advocate and friend, the enemy of aristocratic usurpation, and the great champion of equality. The people of France no longer demanded liberty . Weary years of woe had taught them gladly to relinquish the boon. They only desired a ruler who would take care of them, ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... as though this had been the cause of the tyranny afterwards established there. For these authors allege that the first tyrant of Rome governed it with the title of Dictator, and that, but for the existence of the office, Caesar could never have cloaked his usurpation under a constitutional name. He who first took up this opinion had not well considered the matter, and his conclusion has been accepted without good ground. For it was not the name nor office of Dictator which brought Rome to servitude, but the influence which certain ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... authorizing kings of England, on arriving at the age of twenty-four, to repeal any act of Parliament made during their minority, and in 1539 the "Act that Proclamations made by the King shall be obeyed"—the high-water mark of executive usurpation in modern times. Proclamations made by the king and council were to have the force of acts of Parliament, yet not to prejudice estates, offices, liberties, goods or lives, or repeal existing laws; the cardinal constitutional rights were ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... House proposing an Impeachment, but each was prevented by some parliamentary obstruction. At a later hour of the same day Mr. James M. Ashley of Ohio rose to a question of privilege and formally impeached the President of high crimes and misdemeanors. "I charge him," said Mr. Ashley, "with an usurpation of power and violation of the law: in that he has corruptly used the appointing power; in that he has corruptly used the pardoning power; in that he had corruptly used the veto power; in that he has corruptly interfered in elections ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the descendants of the two tribes which had owned the mining valley of Caravaya descended on the white inhabitants in revenge for a usurpation of their lands which had taken place more than two centuries before. They settled the question of ownership by burning the city and killing all the inhabitants with arrows and clubs. When news of this was received by the viceroy, Don Antonio Amat, he swore on a piece of the ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... implication of its sub-title, the fiction is much less "Gothic" than its model, and its modernness of sentiment and manners is hardly covered with even the faintest wash of mediaevalism. As in Walpole's book, there are a murder and a usurpation, a rightful heir defrauded of his inheritance and reared as a peasant. There are a haunted chamber, unearthly midnight groans, a ghost in armor, and a secret closet with its skeleton. The tale is infinitely tiresome, and is full of that edifying morality, fine sentiment and stilted dialogue—that ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... more, is a sufficient reason for our refusing them. "To the precepts of God (saith Balduine) nothing is to be added,(53) Deut. xii. Now God hath commanded these things which are necessary. The rites of the church are not necessary, wherefore, if the abrogation or usurpation of any rite be urged as necessary, then is an addition made to the commandment of God, which is forbidden in the word, and, by consequence, it cannot oblige me, neither should anything herein be yielded unto." Who can purge these ceremonies ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... me the loss of my liberty, the ruin of my mean estate, and the hazard of my life. When the late king did wrong I withstood him, to the extent of my poor capacity; but I was not for seeing the crown and lords of the ancient realm of England subverted or submerged by the flood of usurpation let in by some members of the Lower House. My speech ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... that Louis-Philippe was already at this time thinking of dethroning his benefactor, his relative, and his King? We think not. He profited by the errors of Charles X.; but if Charles X. had not committed them, the idea of usurpation would not have occurred to the mind of the chief of the younger branch. Men are not so profoundly good or so profoundly wicked. They let themselves be carried further than they wish, and if the acts they are to commit some ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... thought possible,' I said, 'that in the event of the Jerome dynasty being overset by a military revolution, it might be followed by a military usurpation; that Nero might be succeeded ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... with double tenacity from not being able to comprehend any thing beyond. Thus Lucy, in desert England, in a dead world, wished to fulfil the usual ceremonies of the dead, such as were customary to the English country people, when death was a rare visitant, and gave us time to receive his dreaded usurpation with pomp and circumstance—going forth in procession to deliver the keys of the tomb into his conquering hand. She had already, alone as she was, accomplished some of these, and the work on which I found her employed, was her mother's shroud. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... liberty. Sforza—whose peasant father threw his axe into a tree, resolving, if it fell, to join, as a common soldier, the roving band which had just invited him; if it adhered to the wood, to remain at home a laboring hind—becomes Duke of Milan, and is encouraged in his usurpation by Cosmo Vecchio, who still gives himself the airs of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... girls are trained too delicately to allow the mind to expand.' Illuminated and expanded by 'philosophy' and 'social progress' she and Madame Dudevant long ago literally abjured stays, and glory in the usurpation of vests, pantaloons, coats, and short hair. Be pleased to fancy my Regina, my blue-eyed snowbird, shorn ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... man really believed he had a natural right to prevent people from crossing that strip of wood where his pheasants were sitting. His ancestors had assumed it from time immemorial, and by dint of never being questioned had come to regard the absurd usurpation as quite fair and proper. He placed himself straight across the narrow path, blocking it up with his short and stumpy figure. "Now look here, young man," he said, with all the insolence of his caste: "if you try to go on, I'll stand here in your way; and if you ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... occasional errors or defects, will be able to record no great failure in the ends and objects of government. Still less will he be able to record any series of lawless and despotic acts, or any successful usurpation. His page will contain no exhibition of provinces depopulated, of civil authority habitually trampled down by military power, or of a community crushed by the burden of taxation. He will speak, rather, of public liberty protected, and public happiness ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... terres sur lesquelles le poste a ete etabli leur appartiennent et ce n'est qu'avec leur consentement que les anglois s'y sont places. Si en faisant regarder a ces sauvages un pareil etablissement comme contraire a leur liberte et comme une usurpation dont les anglois pretendent faire usage pour acquerir la propriete de leur terre on pourrait les determiner a entreprendre de les detruire, une pareille operation ne seroit pas a negliger; mais M. le Marquis ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... abdication of its beneficent supremacy. Bereft of its dignity and independence, from that time forth it ceased to be the defender of national unity against baronial anarchy, of popular rights against monarchical usurpation, and became a formidable instrument of despotism and oppression. Through the vicissitudes of the great schism in the fourteenth century, and the refractory councils in the fifteenth, its position became rapidly more and more retrograde and ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... lover of the arts, a keen discriminator of men and times, a legislator, and a statesman. He remodelled and reformed the whole criminal law of the Romans. His constitutional measures were not permanent, but it may truly be said that he prepared the way for the temporary usurpation of Caesar and the permanent establishment of the Roman State under Augustus. I propose to treat of the Legislation of Sulla in an Appendix to a ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... insurgents were disclosed in a proclamation which referred to the administration in Ireland as a "long usurpation by a foreign people and government." It declared that the Irish Republican Brotherhood—the same organisation that planned and carried out the Phoenix Park murders in 1882—had now seized the right moment ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... anywhere, as may often happen to a man, all the elements which are now forced into union with him will come and take refuge with you. {42} For though you are not yourselves naturally adapted for aggrandizement or the usurpation of empire, you have the art of preventing any other from seizing power and of taking it from him when he has it; and in every respect you are ready to give trouble to those who are ambitious of dominion, and to lead all men forth into liberty. ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... this part of the conversation, "we invited the usurpation of a tyrant by the docility with which we submitted to his minion. Had we rejected Baliol, we had never been ridden by Edward. But the rowel has gored the flanks of us all! and who amongst us will not lay himself and fortune at the foot of him who ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit these—the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation—to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task, gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, all imperatively require us faithfully ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... times. He had no children, and no hope of having any. The question, therefore, of the succession to his vast empire began now to agitate every European Court. The King of England (William III.), who since his usurpation had much augmented his credit by the grand alliance he had formed against France, and of which he had been the soul and the chief up to the Peace of Ryswick, undertook to arrange this question in a manner that should prevent ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... almost at the first dash, on the proposal of M. de Lafayette. Each of the articles was an infringement of the constitution, and an usurpation of sovereign authority. The Emperor at once foresaw all the consequences. "I was right in thinking," said he with vexation, "that I ought to dismiss those fellows, before I departed. It is all over; they are on the point of ruining France." He broke ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... the unconstitutional laws which Congress has extended over her, she has kept steadily in view the preservation of the Union, by the only means by which she believes it can be long preserved—a firm, manly, and steady resistance against usurpation. . . . Sir, if, acting on these high motives,—if, animated by that ardent love of liberty, which has always been the most prominent trait in the Southern character, we should be hurried beyond the bounds of a cold and calculating prudence; who is ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... thought indeed, that Sargon, instead of cloaking his usurpation under some decent plea of right, took a pride in boldly avowing it. The name Sargon has been supposed to be one which he adopted as his royal title at the time of his establishment upon the throne, intending by the adoption to make it generally known that he had ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... which goes to make void the learning of past ages. There will always be some who can discern the difference between originality of style, and innovation in doctrine,—between a due regard to the opinions of others, and an actual usurpation of their text; and it is incredible that these should ever be satisfied with any mere compilation of grammar, or with any such authorship as either confesses or betrays the writer's own incompetence. For it is not true, that, "an English grammar must necessarily be," ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... period of more than five years, this peninsula remained unnoticed by the Spaniards. Then Cortez left Mexico, which he had already subjugated, for a journey of discovery to Honduras, and for the purpose of calling to account, for insubordination and usurpation of authority, Cristoval de Olid, whom he had previously sent to that region from Vera Cruz. He received from the princes of Xicalanco and Tobasco maps and charts, giving the natural features of the country, and the limits of the various States. His ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... deposition of this prince, and the cruel and abominable tyranny that has been exercised over him? Consider, too, my Lords, for what object all this was done. Was Mr. Hastings endeavoring, by his arbitrary interference and the use of his superior power, to screen a people from the usurpation and power of a tyrant,—from any strong and violent acts against property, against dignity, against nobility, against the freedom of his people? No: you see here a monarch deposed, in effect, by persons pretending to be his allies, and assigning ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... woful countenance— The sentimental Muse!—Her emblems view, The Pilgrim's Progress, and a sprig of rue! View her—too chaste to look like flesh and blood— Primly portray'd on emblematic wood! There, fix'd in usurpation, should she stand, She'll snatch the dagger from her sister's hand: And having made her votaries weep a flood, Good heaven! she'll end her comedies in blood— Bid Harry Woodward break poor Dunstal's crown! Imprison Quick, and knock ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... to raise up for that oppressed child an avenger, or a supporter, or vindicator, if you prefer it. It happened that the reigning king, the usurper—you are quite of my opinion, I believe, that it is an act of usurpation quietly to enjoy, and selfishly to assume the right over, an inheritance to which a man has only half ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... controlling the sources of water supply."—"Unauthorized Fencing of Public Lands," U. S. Senate Docs., First Session, Forty-eighth Congress, 1883-84, Vol. vi, Doc. No. 127:2.] Murder after murder was committed. In this usurpation the august Supreme Court of the United States upheld them. And the grounds of ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... blew her fell alarm On Gallia's blood-stain'd ground; When usurpation's giant arm Enslav'd the nations round: The thunders of avenging heaven To Nelson's chosen hand were given; By Nelson's chosen hand were hurl'd To rescue the ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... can obtain a legal title to intrude themselves into that trust, and to exercise those special functions in their place. I therefore consider the intermeddling of ministers in this affair as a downright usurpation. But if the strained construction by which they have forced themselves into a suspicious office (which every man delicate with regard to character would rather have sought constructions to avoid) were perfectly sound and perfectly legal, of this I am certain, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... he was buried at the public expense. After his death, his brother Richard seized all his papers and usurped the title. The real heir then seems to have been stirred out of his slavish life, and declaimed loudly against this usurpation of his rights, but his complaints were unavailing, and, although they provoked a certain clamour, did little to restore him to his honours. However, they reached his uncle, who resolved to put him out of the way. The first attempt to seize ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... justified on the ground of a claim to the territory, asserted to be valid; and occasion for it was found in the danger of a foreign interference, resulting from the subversion of Spanish authority by a revolutionary movement. By Great Britain it was regarded as a usurpation, to effect which advantage had been taken of the embarrassment of the Spaniards when struggling against Napoleon for national existence. On May 14, 1812, being then on the verge of war with Great Britain, the ally of Spain, an Act of Congress declared the whole country annexed, and extended ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... witches were hanged and burned, or burned, without the previous strangling, "alive and quick." During the whole of James's reign, amid the civil wars of his successor, the sway of the Long Parliament, the usurpation of Cromwell, and the reign of Charles II., there was no abatement of the persecution. If at any time it raged with less virulence, it was when Cromwell and the Independents were masters. Dr. Zachary Grey, the editor of an edition of "Hudibras," informs us, in a note ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... the nation, may not be protected by primary legislation upon the part of Congress. Justice Harlan pointed out that it is for Congress not the judiciary, to say that legislation is appropriate, for that would be sheer usurpation of the functions of a coordinate department. Why should these rules of interpretation be abandoned in the case of maintaining the rights of the Negro guaranteed ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... Earl (Grey) has stated, that the late government was the cause of the usurpation of Don Miguel. Now that is a mistake in point of time; for it will be found that Don Miguel was brought to Portugal, when the noble Viscount opposite, (Viscount Goderich) was at the head of the government. It ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... repudiating Governor and Legislature of 1842, of course a mere executive parasite, or legislative minion, placed on the bench to repudiate the bonds. Fortunately, such an appointment was forbidden expressly by the Constitution, and would have been disregarded by the court; so this attempted usurpation failed. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various |
