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Independence   Listen
noun
Independence  n.  
1.
The state or quality of being independent; freedom from dependence; exemption from reliance on, or control by, others; self-subsistence or maintenance; direction of one's own affairs without interference. "Let fortune do her worst,... as long as she never makes us lose our honesty and our independence."
2.
Sufficient means for a comfortable livelihood.
Declaration of Independence (Amer. Hist.), the declaration of the Congress of the Thirteen United States of America, on the 4th of July, 1776, by which they formally declared that these colonies were free and independent States, not subject to the government of Great Britain.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Independence" Quotes from Famous Books



... if you can undress yourself," said the housekeeper. Jewel's deft fingers flew over the buttons in her eagerness to prove her independence. When at last she stood in her little white nightgown, so neat and fine in its small decorations, Mrs. Forbes said, "Do you want me to hear you ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... Greeks, we may write n[)o]t and n[o]t, the sign serving for a fresh letter. Herein the expression of the nature of the sound is natural, because the natural use of (-) and (U) is to express length or shortness, dependence or independence. Now, supposing the broad sound of o to be already represented, it is very evident that, of the other two sounds of o, the one must be long (independent), and the other short (dependent); and as it is only necessary to express one of these ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham

... within them, and then ask yourselves whether they have been changed. Whether 'you are holy as God is holy,' whether you are real or only nominal Christians. You are voyaging together to a country where you expect to prosper—to secure an independence, and to enjoy happiness and contentment for the remainder of your lives; but, my friends, would you not act wisely to look beyond all this? As our voyage in this ship must come to an end, so must our voyage through life, and what then? Again I repeat, ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston

... suggestion, Ericsson, with characteristic modesty, remarked,—"All the remuneration I desire for the Monitor I get out of the construction of it. It is all-sufficient." Nevertheless we think the suggestion well worthy of consideration. In the same spirit of manly independence, he discountenanced the movement set on foot among the merchants of New York for the subscription of a sum of money to be presented to him. He asks nothing but fair remuneration for services rendered,—and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... successive glaciations, so each frontier leaves its traces behind it, and when it becomes a settled area the region still partakes of the frontier characteristics. Thus the advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the influence of Europe, a steady growth of independence on American lines. And to study this advance, the men who grew up under these conditions, and the political, economic, and social results of it, is to study the really American part ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... grumbled Carl kindly, "why fuss so? Diane's equipped with nerve and grit and independence enough to look ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... General Sherman, at Washington. October 20. President called extra session of Congress to consider a commercial treaty with Cuba. November 3. Panama proclaimed independent of Colombia. November 6. The United States government formally recognized the independence of the state of Panama. November 10. Opening of extra session of Congress called by President to consider commercial treaty with Cuba. November 18. A new canal treaty was formally signed at Washington by Secretary Hay, of the United States, and M. Bunau-Varilla, ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer

... receipt of the news. "The war will now be ended, and peace and independence and happiness ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... assemblies show the babyhood of civilization which still votes for flashing eyes, thumping fists, hollering patriotism, and smooth phrases. The surprising feature of elective assemblies is that here and there Messrs. Self-Control, Ability, Dignity, and Independence find seats at all. The members are paid, since 1906, a salary of 3,000 marks, with a deduction of 20 marks for each day's absence. They have free passes over German railways during the session. The Reichstag is ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... they formed the confederation, neither asking nor receiving any right to interfere in their domestic relations: with them, they made the Declaration of Independence." ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... have the courage and independence to be themselves, and to demand an investigation. If one strives to live honorably, and considers the greatest good to the greatest number, it is not a crime nor a disgrace to be an invert. I do not need the law to defend me, neither ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... of paintings that would have immortalized a man under the patronage of Leo. X. This task he was years in accomplishing, living all the while on little better than bread and water, and that procured by robbing his nights of the hours of rest; for his pride, which he calls independence, is as great as his ambition, which he dignifies with the title of a love of fame. But the most prominent trait in ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... impossible to walk on and on under Barmby's protection, listening to his atrocious commonplaces, his enthusiasms of the Young Men's Debating Society. The glow of midsummer had entered into her blood; she resolved to taste independence, to mingle with the limitless crowd as one of its units, borne in whatever direction. That song of the streets pleased her, made sympathetic appeal to her; she would have liked ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... that. You're all right, only you don't understand. You don't understand the sort of person I am. I am twenty-four years old, I have worked for my own living up here in London since I was twelve. I was a man, so far as work and independence went, at fifteen. Since then I have had my shoulder to the wheel; I have lived on nothing; I have made a little money where it didn't seem possible. I have worried my way into posts which it seemed that no one could think ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... authority in South Africa, and of setting up an administration over all South Africa independent of Her Majesty's Government, we consider it our duty to solemnly declare that this war was undertaken solely as a defensive measure to safeguard the threatened independence of the South African Republic, and is only continued in order to secure and safeguard the incontestable independence of both Republics as sovereign international States, and to obtain the assurance that those of Her ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the note in an envelope, she left it on her table and went down to the library, where Buckland was sitting alone in gloomy reverie. Mrs. Warricombe had told him of Sidwell's incredible purpose. Recognising his sister's independence, and feeling sure that if she saw Peak it could only be to take final leave of him, he had decided to say no more. To London he must perforce return this afternoon, but he had done his duty satisfactorily, and just ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... Germans gave them an Emanuel Kant, the greatest thinker of modern times, Beethoven, their greatest exponent of music, and Goethe, their greatest poet. But the imperial Germany which came after the victory of 1870 had limited the spirit of independence even in the manifestations of literature and art. There still existed in Germany the most widely known men of science, the best universities, the most up-to-date schools; but the clumsy mechanism tended to crush rather than to encourage all personal initiative. Great manifestations ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... capital at his death, which happened after the coming of age of my cousin Henry, to whom I had become violently attached. Indeed, it was my first love, and had all the devotion and ardour of that passion. He had a small independence, and we lived together for two years after my ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... this sarcastic conclusion obviously was intended to be that girls must not show independence and refuse a man, though he be a reckless gambler, so poor that he has to eat pebbles, and so ugly that he needs to have a new head put on him. Another story, the moral of which was "to teach girls the danger of coquetry," is told by Schoolcraft (Oneota, 381-84). There ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... appreciate the worth of personal independence as an element of happiness, should consider the value he himself puts upon it as an ingredient of his own. There is no subject on which there is a greater habitual difference of judgment between a man judging for himself, and the same man judging for other people. When he ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... a long discussion about the probable movements of the belligerent parties in America; what might be expected from different generals; how long the conflict was likely to last, and how its certain issue, the discomfiture of the North and the independence of the South, would be attained. Mingled with this discussion were laudations of Jefferson Davis, scornful reviling of President Lincoln, and sneers at the North generally; at their men, their ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... spoke gruffly and without geniality. But that is the beauty of these old retainers. They make a point of deliberately trying to deceive strangers as to the goldenness of their hearts by adopting a forbidding manner. And "Good morning!" Not "Good morning, sir!" Sturdy independence, you observe, as befits a free man. George closed the door carefully. He glanced into the kitchen. Mrs. Platt was not there. ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... it the greatest, the only joys of my childhood! It was to gain solitude that, later, I set myself to win my independence, knowing that, if I did not meet with the love I wished, I should yet be happier ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... correct versification. He paid a visit to Enfield, and by his influence hastened a conclusion at which my grandfather was just arriving, to wit, that he would no longer persist in the fruitless effort of converting a poet into a merchant, and that content with the independence he had realised, he would abandon his dreams of founding a dynasty of financiers. From this moment all disquietude ceased beneath this always well-meaning, though often perplexed, roof, while my father, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... whom even the English Chronicler admits to have been "kind masters," and to whom, in spite of their kings, the after liberties of England were so largely indebted. But this work closes on the Field of Hastings; and in that noble struggle for national independence, the sympathies of every true son of the land, even if tracing his lineage back to the Norman victor, must be on the side of the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... long supported by interest, family connection, or the loyalty of colleagues, are weighed down at last by their own incapacity and sink into peerages. Now and again a man cannot bear the bondage of office, and flies into rebellion and independence which would have been more respectable had it not been the result of discontent. Then the gaps must be filled. Whether on this side or on that, the candidates are first looked for among the sons of Earls ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... drawing to a close. What changes it had seen from the War of American Independence to Waterloo! What woeful personal contrasts since the honest, kindly, comely lad, in his simple kingliness, rode out in the summer sunshine past Holland House, where lady Sarah Lennox was making hay ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... "But the old municipal independence seems to have been passing away. The record of the battle in the chronicle of the conquerors connects the three cities (Bath, Gloucester, and Cirencester) with three Kings; and from the Celtic names of these Kings, Conmael, Condidan, or Kyndylan, and Farinmael, we ...
— The Excavations of Roman Baths at Bath • Charles E. Davis

... highly sociable spirits; speaking much of old days and old acquaintances. He spoke with much regret of Scott's careless views about money, and said that he had often spoken to him of the duty of economy, as a means to insure literary independence. Scott's reply always was, 'Oh, I can make as much as I please by writing.' 'This,' said Mr. W., 'was marvellous to me, who had never written a line with a view to profit.' Speaking of his own prose writing, he said, that but for Coleridge's irregularity of purpose ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... The Laird. For thirty-odd years she had lived with this strange soul; yet she had not known until now how fierce was his desire for independence, how dear to him was his passion for self-respect. Even now, she found it difficult to understand why, even if he had been able to subdue his pride to the point of asking Nan Brent to preserve life in that which was dearer to him than his own life, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... Parker more conspicuously before the public, and undoubtedly contributed justly and largely to give him a wide and established reputation for vigor, independence, learning, and capacity, was his controversy with 14 Mr. Justice Story of the Supreme Court of the United States in regard to the proper construction of a clause—it might even be said the meaning of a word [lien]—in the Bankrupt Law of 1841; a controversy ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... Girard came over, but with him was another visitor—William Snow. No sun could brown that baby-fair skin of William's, but he had an indefinably large and Western air; the very way in which he wore his clothes showed his independence. Dosia did not notice his swift, covert, shamefaced glance at her when she came into the room where he was talking to Lois—his avoidance of her the year before had dropped clear out of her mind; but his expression changed ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... sturdy British independence," said the Colonel, sternly. "I'm sorry, but he is not a man to have about the place. He is dangerous; and when it comes to covert threats of what he would do if not engaged, one feels that help is out of the question. Be ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... Age men had thrown caution to the winds and lived with their whole bodies, not just with their minds alone. Perhaps that was why, even in the year 3689, defiant names still cropped up. Names like Independence Forest ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long

... wondered at, as to how they could feel not to be going upon a mountain journey. It is queer to think, on a last Thursday in November, or on a Fourth of July, of States where there may not be a Thanksgiving, or of far-off lands that have no Independence day. It was just as strange, somehow, to imagine how this day, that was to them the culminating point of so much happy anticipation, the beginning of so much certain joy, could be otherwise, and yet be anything to the supernumerary ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... years, totally incapable of providing sustenance for himself; of guarding against the attacks of the field, or sheltering himself from the inclemencies of the weather. It might have pleased the great Creator of heaven and earth to have made man independent of all other beings, but as independence is one of the strongest bonds of society, mankind were made dependent on each other for protection and security, as they thereby enjoy better opportunities of fulfilling the duties of reciprocal love and friendship. ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan

... speech, both within the walls of parliament and out of them, was prodigious. It gave Lord Thurlow an ascendancy in the house which no chancellor had ever possessed: it invested him, in public opinion, with a character of independence and honour; and this, though he was ever on the unpopular side in politics, made him ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various

... sullenness, which Lady Alice felt that she could but dimly understand. "I suppose I'm the sort of man to be helped; and yet I can't help fancying there's a—Past—a Past behind me—a life in which I once was proud of my independence. But it strikes me that this was ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... eunuchs, concubines, and astrologers, and their Mogul army, dissolved and dispersed in a vast and populous country, forgot the discipline and bravery of their ancestors. The secondary Mogul sovereigns of the west, assumed entire independence; and the great khan was satisfied with the empire of China and eastern Mongalia, In 1367, one hundred and forty years after the death of Zingis, roused to rebellion by a dreadful famine, in which thirteen millions of the inhabitants of China perished, the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... rulers of that country were being drawn into the quarrel between the spiritual and the would-be temporal head of the Church; the "Investiture Strife" gave Vratislav, son of B[vr]etislav I, an opportunity of strengthening his independence and increasing the importance of his country. He took sides with Emperor Henry IV against one of the strongest of the Popes, Gregory VII. The Emperor's Bohemian allies took part in many of that monarch's battles, chiefly against the Saxons, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker

... elections ought never to be lost sight of in a question concerning their frequency; because the grand object you seek is independence. Independence of mind will ever be more or less influenced by independence of fortune; and if every three years the exhausting sluices of entertainments, drinkings, open houses, to say nothing of bribery, are to be periodically drawn up and renewed,—if government favors, for which now, in some ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog into his satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting and became man's plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; and except the few whom we ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... order also? Does a good memory indicate a high order of attention, of association, of imagination, of learning capacity? Experiments show that mental characteristics have at least some degree of independence. But the rule is that they generally go together, a high order of ability in one mental function indicating a high order of ability in at least some others, and a low order of ability in one function indicating a low order in ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle

... sum of money for his personal expenses from the Norwegian colony of the River Plate, and we were invited to their dinner on Independence Day, May 17. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... dignity in them, too, for all they are so free and easy—the dignity of independence, the native spirit of one who takes for granted that his mode of living has a right to make its own forms of speech. I admire a man who does not hesitate to salute the world in the dialect of ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... merely because they were naturally pothouse pugilists; they fought because they had something to fight about. It is easy enough to be refined about things that do not matter; but men kicked and plunged a little in that portentous wrestle in which swung to and fro, alike dizzy with danger, the independence of England, the independence of Ireland, the independence of France. If we wish for a proof of this fact that the lack of refinement did not come from mere brutality, the proof is easy. The proof is that in that struggle no personalities were more brutal ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... influence, is a crime punished with no lighter penalty than forfeiture of employment, as appears, my lords, from the late dismission of a gentleman, against whom nothing can be alleged but an obstinate independence and open ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson

... outlaws,—"circumstances,"—had changed him from a very respectable soldier of fortune into a genuine buccaneer. He asserted that my uncle had been his schoolmate and professional companion in the old world. When the war of South American independence demanded the aid of certain Dugald Dalgettys to help its fortune, Don Rafael and my uncle had lent the revolutionists of Mexico their swords, for which they were repaid in the coin that "patriots" commonly receive for such amiable self-sacrifice. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... desired to hold on to Khartoum and the Souakim-Berber route. But without the courage and resolution to discharge it, the Government saw the obligation that lay on them to provide for the security and good government of Egypt, and that if they shirked responsibility in the Soudan, the independence of Egypt might be accomplished by its own effort and success. They perceived the objections to giving Egypt a free hand, but they none the less abstained from taking the other course of definite and ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... Christian ecclesiastical building from the first century to the fifteenth: but the moral habits to which England in this age owes the kind of greatness which she has—the habits of philosophical investigation, of accurate thought, of domestic seclusion and independence, of stern self- reliance, and sincere upright searching into religious truth—were only traceable in the features which were the distinctive creations of the Gothic schools, in the varied foliage and thorny fretwork, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... adopted the reasoning of Spain; and showed the fallacy of their pretensions. He exhorted every body to support the King's government, "which I," said he, "ill-used as I have been, wish and mean to support-not that of ministers, when I see the laws and independence of Parliament struck at in the most profligate manner." You may guess how deeply this wounded. Grenville took it to himself, and asserted that his own life and character were as pure, uniform, and little profligate as your ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... 1768, when it was rumored that troops had been ordered from Halifax, in an attempt of England to quell the spirit of independence rife among her colonists, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, John Adams, and James Otis waited upon the Governor to ask if the report were true, and to request him to call a special meeting of the Assembly. ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... should say that we have seldom seen here any indications of these Melanesians expecting money or presents; but we want to destroy the idea in their minds of their being fags by nature, and to help them to have some proper self-respect and independence of character. We see very little in them to make us apprehensive of their being covetous or stingy, and indisposed to ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the interspersed houses of its gentry, and the comfortable cottages of its yeomanry—the finest yeomanry in Ireland—men living in comparative comfort, and having in their figures and bearing that elevation of character which a sense of loyalty and independence confers. I had at length, after traveling about three miles, arrived where the road was discontinued, and by the direction of my guide, ascended a mountain-path that brought me through a wretched village, and led to the top of a hill. Here my boy left me, and went to look for ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... of the system destroyed in time that healthy dread of pauperism which, as an economic factor, is of the highest national importance. The receipt of poor relief lost the stigma assigned to it with rough justice by Anglo-Saxon independence, and in 1863, out of a total public expenditure of L90,000, the astounding proportion of L30,000 was expended upon ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

... in this instance, Philip, you would have forfeited my good opinion for ever, and would have deserved to have been kicked by Sir Alexander's lackeys for your meanness. Don't look so cast down, boy. I honour you for your self-respect and independence. You have other friends besides Sir Alexander Moncton, who will not forsake you for taking your own part like a man. You shall go to school yet—ay, and become the head scholar in Dr. Trimmer's head class, and finish your education at Oxford, or my ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... N. freedom, liberty, independence; license &c (permission) 760; facility &c 705. scope, range, latitude, play; free play, full play, free scope, full scope; free stage and no favor; swing, full swing, elbowroom, margin, rope, wide berth; Liberty Hall. franchise, denization^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... D. Black, of Independence, Ia., is to represent the Northeast Iowa Society. Mr. Black has been with us before and he will find many who recall his presence here in previous years. He is to give us on the program his later experience in connection with the growing of the gladioli, a work to which he has given ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various

... its glory and its affection. FATHER-LAND is congenial with the language in which we find that other fine expression MOTHER-TONGUE. The patriotic neologism originated with me in Holland, when, in early life, it was my daily pursuit to turn over the glorious history of its independence under the title of Vaderlandsche ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... Indian and the Roman father of today do very little fighting, working, or hunting, but in their several ways they still claim much of the same slavish obedience as in old times. One is inclined to wonder whether nowadays the independence of women is not due to the fall in value of men, since it is no longer necessary to pursue wild beasts for food, since fighting is reduced to a science, taught in three months, and seldom needed for a long time, and since work has become so largely the monopoly of the nimble typewriter. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... does begin to yield. I know of nothing that makes one feel more complacent, in these July days, than to have his vegetables from his own garden. What an effect it has on the market-man and the butcher! It is a kind of declaration of independence. The market-man shows me his peas and beets and tomatoes, and supposes he shall send me out some with the meat. "No, I thank you," I say carelessly: "I am raising my own this year." Whereas I have been wont to remark, "Your vegetables ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various

... to the conclusion, that the spirit of truth spoke in those records, but that the recorders of those truths had intermingled with them ideas and suppositions of their own. This is one among the many proofs of her energy and independence of character. ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth

... self-existence of matter, the essential relation of movement to it, and the possibility of deriving everything from it or some mode of it. Castillon concludes after five hundred pages of reasoning that matter is contingent, movement not inherent in it, and that purely spiritual beings exist in independence of it. Hence the Systme de la Nature is a "long and wicked error." Holland's is a still more serious work, which the Sorbonne recommended strongly as an antidote against Holbach's Systme which it qualified as "une malheureuse production que notre ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing

... Ormsby's translation reads: "Who was he that did not know that knights-errant are independent of all jurisdictions, that their law is their sword, their charter their prowess, and their edicts their will?" This Spanish declaration of independence was frequently used as a slogan by the Romanticists. Espronceda is here making the quotation apply more particularly ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... British constitution, for the last hundred and fifty years at least, has made a fixed and not uncertain provision for supporting the dignity of the crown, for meeting the expenses attendant on the administration of the civil government, and most particularly for the independence of the judges of the land. But is that the state of things in Lower Canada? No. I maintain that the act of 1831 did not establish the British constitution in the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, but something ...
— 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

... like this: everything is got ready, and at the appointed moment I, as the official head of the nation, publicly and solemnly proclaim its independence, and absolve it from allegiance to any ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... much better than the history I studied before it. The reason I like it is because it tells the news of the world. I enjoy reading it so much, I am glad to see another come. I hear so much about Cuba and Spain, and other matters. Do you think there is any prospect of the Cubans gaining independence? ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... obligations, and her army would offer to the invader the most vigorous resistance. The treaties of 1839, confirmed by the treaties of 1870, commit to the guarantee of the powers and notably to the Government of his Majesty the King of Prussia the independence and neutrality of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... the richest man of all the men packed in Billy Evans' office. He could afford to talk bravely for he had no need to curry any man's favor. And he could demand respectful attention for his opinions. There were those present who resented this independence. ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... lean, raw-boned, steel-muscled, tall, solemn-faced men, their eyes set deep in skin wrinkled from the scorch of sun on the white sands of the desert. And their eyes beneath the black brows were like falcon's, predatory like those of birds of prey. And the air of freedom, of self-reliance, of independence was in every look, in the firm swinging stride, and erect set of the shoulders. They were men to swear by or to fear; verily men. And somehow one sharp look of appraisement, and one and all would have sworn by Allah that the Sahib in the garb of an ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser

... company, too. Then, too, he does not get to messing into the affairs of the family. He's not the Lord Almighty and Supreme Court Judge all the time. Besides that, the wife and children get a kind of independence. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... Mexico. By 1843 this trade reached an annual value of $500,000. After the occupation of the territory by the United States troops it became much larger, reaching a total value in 1860 of $3,800,000. The chief shipping points were Independence and Kansas City, Missouri. Transportation was supplied by regular freighters who employed a large number of men to conduct the white-topped prairie schooners across the unsettled plains between the Missouri ...
— Outline of the development of the internal commerce of the United States - 1789-1900 • T.W. van Mettre

... wide-branching, dreamy gum-trees spreading their limbs above him, the warmth of summer in the scented air Already the instincts of the Bushman were developing in him. He began to feel a friendship for the towering gums in their flaunting independence; their proud individuality pleased him. To his mind they reflected the spirit of the people—it must be the spirit of the land. Nowhere in their feathery elegance did he find a law of conformity; each tree was a law ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... control long after the States where slavery existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend the runaway slave of a Southern man. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... business for many years, carrying on his affairs prosperously enough to realize a handsome independence for a person in his position. Unfortunately for himself, he endeavoured to increase the amount ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various

... a dollar one of the good deeds rewarded in this life and the life to come. She and her husband were in complete harmony on this vital point. Yet not a miserly trait entered into their humble thrift. It was a necessity entailed by their meager resources; it was inspired by the wish for an honest independence in their old age. ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... really didn't mind having their daughter a party to the experiment of cooperative parenthood. It appealed to them as a very interesting try-out of modern educational theory, and their own theories of the independence of the individual modified their criticism of Margaret's secrecy in the matter, which was the only criticism they had to make since Margaret had an income of her own accruing from the estate of the aunt for whom she had ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... which he disgraced him ought assuredly to have preserved him from that fate, since only by a scrupulous regard to his instructions had he refrained, after such valuable discoveries, from pursuing that line of conduct by which he was most likely to have established his fortune and independence. But Velasquez, like many other men of excellent abilities, often preferred the opinions of others to his own, thereby losing the opportunities which his superior talents afforded. Yet it is highly probable that this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... the Patroon of Kinderhook and of Alderman Van Beverout was expected, and the schipper had taken his departure at the precise moment of the turn in the current, in order to show, with a sort of pretending independence which has a peculiar charm for men in his situation, that 'time and tide wait for no man.' Still there were limits to his decision; for, while he put the boat in motion, especial care was taken ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... was not intended to be all pleasure, was an idea that never yet troubled Adela Branston's mind. She had been petted and spoiled by everyone about her from the beginning of her brief life, and had passed from the frivolous career of a school-girl to a position of wealth and independence as Michael Branston's wife; fully believing that, in making the sacrifice involved in marrying a man forty years her senior, she earned the right to take her own pleasure, and to gratify every caprice of her infantile mind, for the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... the Shadengo Valley. Why, asked Mauville, lying there and putting the pieces of the tale together, did not Saint-Prosper remain with his new-found friends, the enemies of his country? Because, came the answer, Abd-el-Kader, the patriot of Algerian independence, had been captured and the subjection of the country had followed. Since Algeria had become a French colony, where could Saint-Prosper have found a safer asylum than in America? Where more secure from "that chosen curse" for the man who owes his weal to his ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... places of refuge and sanctuary, which often indeed protected the lawless, but which also saved the weak and oppressed. It was during these reigns that the Papacy was beginning the great struggle for temporal power, and freedom from the influence of the Empire, which resulted in the increased independence and power of the clergy. The religious fervour which had begun with the century led to the foundation of many monasteries, and to much grand church architecture. In the reign of Philip I., William, Duke of Normandy, obtained ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge

... her sort, after all," he mused to himself that night over his coffee. "He hadn't much mind. I'm afraid I banked too much on his good looks, and too little upon what I might call her independence; for of all the heroines I ever had, she is the most sufficient unto herself. Had she gone along I'm half afraid I couldn't have got rid of Balderstone so easily either, for he's a determined devil ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs

... this courageous patriot, leaving a remembrance which will be immortal in the hearts of his countrymen. This steady champion of independence having been removed, and a bloody example held out to all who should venture to tread in his footsteps, Edward proceeded to form a species of constitution for the country, which, at the cost of so much labor, policy, and bloodshed, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... sun-flecked stream was set for the traveller, the older friend was at once startled and reassured. Reassured—because, after these six months, Nelly could laugh once more, and her step was once more firm and normal; and startled, by the new and lonely independence she perceived in her frail visitor. Nelly was in black again, with a small black hat from which her widow's veil fell back over her shoulders. The veil, the lawn collar and cuffs, together with her childish slightness, and the curls on her temples ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... he professed to have inherited in a direct line from the celebrated navigator to the East Indies, was in many respects a good specimen of his countrymen. He was wholly uneducated, as they mostly are; and, next to his ancestry, that in which he took the greatest pride was the independence of Brazil. This feeling, which is general among all classes, enlists each individual personally in support of the existing government, and is its ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... Coomassee and Benin, life in Guinea was wholly on a village basis, each community dwelling in its own clearing and having very slight intercourse with its neighbors. Politically each village was governed by its chief and its elders, oftentimes in complete independence. In occasional instances, however, considerable states of loose organization were under the rule of central authorities. Such states were likely to be the creation of invaders from the eastward, the ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... without comment, the fact that, according to the doctrines of idealistic monism and psycho-physical parallelism, this independence is virtually allowed, by the very nature of the doctrine; and shall point out merely that, if consciousness could be proved to exist independent of brain functioning, philosophic theories would have to be remodelled ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... War II the era of colonialism has been on the wane. Many nations have proclaimed, won, or wrested their independence during that period. Others appear to be on the verge of doing so. At any rate, it is clear that in the decades ahead the world is going to see the rise of even more independent nations with ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics

... up by this advice, and if anything more came of the incident he determined to see it through with some of Anderson's good American bluff and independence. ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry

... is here by my care to bid you farewell.—Listen and understand.—You are going to die, and leave your sister in poverty amidst the perils of the Republic.—What would you be willing to do to provide her with an independence? ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy • Steele Mackaye

... sympathy of the episcopate, which, with Rome, detested the Protestant alliance, and demanded the restoration of that of Spain. The eager concurrence of the aristocracy could not be doubted for a moment; which ever regretted its old and turbulent independence, and whose most illustrious representatives, the Vendomes, the Guises, the Bouillons, and the La Rochefoucaulds were strenously opposed to the domination of a foreign favourite, without fortune, of no birth, and as yet without fame. The princes of the blood resigned themselves to Mazarin ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... had its origin in economic causes. The demands of nutrition have overridden those of reproduction; sexual selection has, to a large extent, given place to natural selection, a process clearly not for the advantage of the race. The changing status of women, in bestowing economic independence, will certainly tend to restore to sexual selection its due weight ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... of the early champions of American independence, taken prisoner in a raid into Canada; wrote a defence of deism and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... that is transmuting the world. The child is for ever planning what it will do when it is older, and dreams of an irresponsible choice of food and an unrestrained use of money; the girl schemes to escape from the constraints of home by independence or marriage; the professional man plans to make a fortune and retire; the mother dreams ambitious dreams for her children; the politician craves for power; the writer hopes to gain the ear of the world—these are only a few casual instances of the desire that is always at work within us, projecting ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... report of the Commissioners, which I transmit herewith, gives so lucid and comprehensive a history of the present insurrectionary movement that the story need not be here repeated. It is enough to say that the claim of the rebel leader that he was promised independence by an officer of the United States in return for his assistance has no foundation in fact and is categorically denied by the very witnesses who were called to prove it. The most the insurgent leader ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... right of American citizens to travel on armed belligerent vessels rather than upon unarmed vessels is essential neither to their life, liberty, or safety; nor to the independence, dignity, or securing ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... and Commander in Chief, have caused the Great Seal of the State to be hereunto affixed, and signed the same at the city of Raleigh, on the 26th day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, and in the sixty-sixth year of the Independence of ...
— The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N.C. • Lunsford Lane

... compelled to return to India the next year, they took up the sorrow common to Anglo-Indian lives, in leaving their children "at home," in charge of friends at Southsea, near Portsmouth. It was a hard and sad experience for the boy. The originality of his nature and the independence of his spirit had already become clearly manifest, and were likely to render him unintelligible and perplexing to whosoever might have charge of him unless they were gifted with unusual perceptions and quick sympathies. ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling

... more thickly settled to-day than it was then. Mt. Defiance, south of the Lake George outlet on the west side of Champlain was a heavily wooded eminence. Behind the scouts' camp a rugged shoulder of ground, later called Mount Independence, raised its bulk out of the surrounding forest. The formidable promontory on which the French had built Ticonderoga twenty years before, commanded a great sweep of the lake. For mere foot-soldiers, without artillery or explosives, to attack ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... of grimness in him, and he could be merciless when the occasion seemed to demand it. "Stark man he was, and great awe men had of him," but this awe had its roots in a very genuine respect for his absolutely just dealing and his masterful independence of character. ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns

... feudatories, each inferior vassal of the crown assumed as much independence as his distance from the sovereign power, the extent of his fief, or the strength of his chateau enabled him to maintain; and these petty tyrants, no longer amenable to the exercise of the law, perpetrated with impunity the wildest ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... Indiscriminate erudition, not independent thought, was all the Jewish leaders, connected in one way or another with the Synagogue, were able to achieve. It was far safer to cling to the innocuous past than it was to strike out boldly into the future. Any independence of thought that was likely to prove socially dangerous as well as schismatic was promptly suppressed. The humiliation and excommunication (circa 1640) of the indecisive martyr Uriel da Costa when ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... is an interesting subject of study; whether we regard its aptitude for expressing personal independence, recklessness, and jollity; its antiquity—having begun no doubt with Adam—or its modes of production; as, when created grandly by the whistling gale, or exasperatingly by the locomotive, or gushingly by the lark, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... treaty guaranteed to Gulab Singh, in consequence of his services to the Lahore State, its recognition of his independence in such territories as might afterwards be agreed upon; and on the 16th March, 1846, the British Government, by special treaty, made over for ever, in independent possession to Maharajah Gulab Singh and the heirs male of his body, the greater part ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... an enemy who had become England's slave by conquest, who was her rival in manufactures of various kinds, who might undersell her in foreign markets, and, in fact, who might grow rich and powerful enough to assert her independence. ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... intrigues and concealed his faults! And yet I have made him general-in-chief, marshal, duke, prince, and finally king! But see how all these favours and the pardon of so many injuries, are thrown away on a man like this! If Sweden, half devoured by Russia, for a century past, has retained her independence, she owes it to the support of France. But it matters not; Bernadotte requires the baptism of the ancient aristocracy! a baptism of blood, and of French blood! and you will soon see, that to satisfy his envy and ambition, he will betray both ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... equality. Agesilaus, perceiving all the other Greeks to give much attention to this discourse, and to be pleased with it, presently asked him, whether he thought it a part of this justice and equality that the Boeotian towns should enjoy their independence. Epaminondas instantly and without wavering asked him in return, whether he thought it just and equal that the Laconian towns should enjoy theirs. Agesilaus started from his seat and bade him once for all speak ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough



Words linked to "Independence" :   liberty, Texas Independence Day, victory, War of American Independence, urban center, metropolis, city, freedom, Declaration of Independence, independency, War of Greek Independence, autarky, self-direction, triumph, independent



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