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Misgovernment   Listen
noun
Misgovernment  n.  Bad government; want of government.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Misgovernment" Quotes from Famous Books



... from the hands of his noble father in a state of the very highest prosperity. In thirty years, by shameful misgovernment, he had carried it to the brink of ruin. Rhodolph's third brother, Matthias, was now forty-nine years of age. He had been educated by the illustrious Busbequias, whose mind had been liberalized by study in the most celebrated universities of Flanders, France and Italy. His teacher had ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... bottoms of the Himalayas to the Indian ocean on one side, and from the Burmese boundary to wherever British rule extended on the other, there spread out the same sickly prospect. There, resigned, stood outlined the same apathy of spirit, the same result of misgovernment—the same soul-degrading influences; the same rebuking spectacle; the result of the same wealth-dredging principles practiced by a few. Cotton, corn, and sugar, would have repaid the hand of the husbandman tenfold, nature having given it germ for that purpose; but jungle grew in their stead, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... on, it is the system and not any individual person who acts in it that is truly dangerous." But it is an inveterate habit of public opinion to mistake results for causes and to vent its resentment upon persons when misgovernment occurs. That disposition was bitterly intense at this period. "Turn the rascals out" was the ordinary campaign slogan of an opposition party, and calumny formed the staple of its argument. Of course no ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... They had disregarded the pledges given both to Englishmen and to natives in the Transvaal. They had done all this for a race of men who had been uniformly harsh and unjust to the Kafirs, who had brought their own Republic to bankruptcy and chaos by misgovernment, who were and would remain foes of the British empire, who were incapable of appreciating magnanimity, and would construe forbearance as cowardice. They had destroyed the prestige of British power in Africa among whites and blacks, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... activity, and patriotism of its people. No foreign rights, conventional or otherwise, were assailed or disregarded, when it passed under the Sardinian sceptre. When go much of the Pope's temporal possessions were taken from him by the people themselves, who had become weary of the worst system of misgovernment known to the west of Bokhara, no doubt many pious Catholics were shocked; but, if they knew anything of the history of the Papal temporal rule and power, they could not complain at what was done, on the score of illegality; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... yachting trip is all a 'blind', and is in reality neither more nor less than a gun-running expedition in aid of the Cuban revolutionaries. And the yacht is really not mine, but belongs to a certain very wealthy Cuban gentleman who, being, like most Cubans, utterly sick of the Spanish misgovernment of the island, has thrown in his lot with the patriots, and has had the craft specially built for their service. But, recognising that to declare his ownership of her would at once arouse the suspicion of the Spaniards, and attract a tremendous amount of ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... distinguished himself in the trial of the Bishops and who was destined to play a great part in later history, drew up a Declaration of Rights which after some alterations was adopted by the two Houses. The Declaration recited the misgovernment of James, his abdication, and the resolve of the Lords and Commons to assert the ancient rights and liberties of English subjects. It condemned as illegal his establishment of an ecclesiastical commission, and ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... fathers only apprehended, but which we have actually sustained? Or is the cause of the unfortunate Stuart family become less just, because their title has devolved upon an heir who is innocent of the charges of misgovernment brought against his father? Do you remember the lines of ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... censure of Villani. Matarazzo, for example, whose sympathy with the house of Baglioni is so striking, and who exults in the distinction they conferred upon Perugia, writes no less bitterly concerning the pernicious effects of their misgovernment.[1] It is to be noticed that Villani and Matarazzo agree about the special evils brought upon the populations by their tyrants. Lust and violence take the first place. Next comes extortion; then the protection of the lawless and the criminal against the better ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... the arrival of one hundred Dyak boats at Sarawak, to request permission from the rajah to ascend the river and attack a tribe toward Sambas. What a tale of misgovernment, tyranny, and weakness, does this request tell! These Dyaks were chiefly from Sakarran, mixed with the Sarebus, and with them three boats of the Malo tribe, whose residence is toward the Pontiana river. The Sakarrans are the most powerful, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... compelled to conclude the principle of Parliament to be totally corrupted, and therefore its ends entirely defeated, when I see two symptoms: first, a rule of indiscriminate support to all Ministers; because this destroys the very end of Parliament as a control, and is a general previous sanction to misgovernment; and secondly, the setting up any claims adverse to the right of free election; for this tends to subvert the legal authority by which the House ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... endured the ever-growing oppression and misgovernment. The duque de Lerma, minister to Philip III., or II. of Portugal, and still more the Conde duque de Olivares under Philip IV., treated Portugal as if it ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... Rectorial address in the University of Glasgow, and when, after giving such pictures as he alone could paint, of the character of the four centuries that had closed since the university had been founded—each epoch presenting a scene of bloodshed and misgovernment—he sketched the possible future of the college, and anticipated the time when coming generations would tell how certain contemplated changes had been accomplished during the reign of "the Good Queen Victoria." ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... his head. "Some day—but not now." The old flash was in his eyes and he was seeing the fight ahead of him again—the fight to do his bit in striking the shackles of misgovernment from Alaska and rousing the world to an understanding of the menace which hung over her like a smoldering cloud. "But you're right about the danger," he said. "It won't come from Japan to California. It will pour like a flood through Siberia and jump to Alaska in ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... we are able to reconstruct in detail that first of Carrier's drownings on a grand scale, conceived as an expeditious means of ridding the city of useless mouths, of easing the straitened circumstances resulting from misgovernment. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... for though the most sagacious author that ever deduced maxims of policy from the experience of former ages has said that the misgovernment of States, and the evils consequent thereon, have arisen more from the neglect of that experience—that is, from historical ignorance—than from any other cause, the sum and substance of historical knowledge for practical purposes ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey

... suffered at the hands of the British Government during a period of several centuries. The persons engaged in it were chiefly natives of that country, some of whom had, while others had not, become citizens of the United States under our general laws of naturalization. Complaints of misgovernment in Ireland continually engage the attention of the British nation, and so great an agitation is now prevailing in Ireland that the British Government have deemed it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in that country. These circumstances must necessarily modify the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson

... whatever our private feelings; and that it is an established custom to accept a brief in such a case. But then it is a somewhat more established custom to obey an Act of Parliament and to keep the peace. It may be argued that extreme misgovernment justifies men in Ulster or elsewhere in refusing to obey the law. But then it would justify them even more in refusing to appear professionally in a law court. Etiquette cannot be at once so unimportant that ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... thirteen years of misgovernment, during which John had enraged the barons and excited general discontent by endless impositions, matters were brought to a climax by his submission to the pope, it was in the city of London that the first steps were taken by his subjects to ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... richest civilization that will ever flower will sigh as men sigh now. When the problem of poverty is mastered, when disease is extirpated, when a period is put to all disorganization of industry and misgovernment, social and political, it will be found by the emancipated and enriched community what is now found by opulent individuals and privileged classes, that the secret of our discontent is internal and mysterious, that it springs from the ungodliness, the egotism, the sensuality, which theology calls ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... director hastened to pacify the burghers and urge them to go on with the fortifications. "Complaints and curses" were uttered on all sides against the company's misgovernment; resistance was declared to be idle; "The letter! the letter!" was the general cry. To avoid a mutiny Stuyvesant yielded, and a copy, made out from the collected fragments, was handed to the burgomasters. In answer, however, to Nicolls' summons he submitted a long justification ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... attributes the fact that "The teeming treasures of the deep were almost left untouched," that is, off the Irish coast, and that this is "a disgrace and a dishonour to the people through whose misrule and misgovernment the unhappy result was brought about." Father O'Mahony is a Corker, and should know that he is talking nonsense. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... find words to express their horror of the cruelties of the King of Dahomey because he sacrificed 2,000 human beings yearly, but why don't those persons who pretend such virtuous indignation at the misgovernment of other countries look at home, and see if greater crimes than those they charge against other governments are not committed by themselves or by their sanction. Let them look at London, and see the thousands that want bread ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown

... becoming a misery to those who love her. Is no plot going on? Couldn't one start a conspiracy against that infamous misgovernment?" ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... Hoo, not one whit abashed, instead of fleeing, came before the elders and openly reproached them with misgovernment, cowardice, and the concealment or loss of certain ancient prophecies, which foretold the future power of the wood-pigeons, and which he accused them of holding back out of jealousy, lest they should lose the miserable petty authority they enjoyed on account of their age. Now, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies

... people had not changed for the better since patriarchal times, and one could still have a good idea of a famine such as sent the brothers of Joseph down into Egypt. Turkish misgovernment furnished him with a much clearer idea of the publicans, and the hatred they aroused in the minds of the people, than he had ever hoped to obtain. In fact, one could hardly appreciate the term "publicans ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers

... 13), and Pliny (lib. 10, cap. 10), and which for sumptuousness of fare, long sitting, and curiosity shewed in the same, exceeded all other men's feasting; which fondness is not yet left with us, notwithstanding that it proveth very beneficial for the physicians, who most abound where most excess and misgovernment of our bodies do appear, although it be a great expense of time, and worthy of reprehension. For the nobility, gentlemen, and merchantmen, especially at great meetings, do sit commonly till two or three of the clock at afternoon, so that with many it is a hard matter to rise from the ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed

... "that the affrays occasioned by your misgovernment, may sometimes have startled you in the midst of a masque or galliard; or it may be that such may have interrupted the idolatry of the mass, or the jesuitical counsels of some French ambassador. But the longest and severest journey which your Grace has taken in my memory, was from Hawick to Hermitage ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... and paltry? Dr. Kane thinks we are so from want of industrial education. He is partly right. The remote causes were repeated foreign invasion, forfeiture, and tyrannous laws. Ignorance, disunion, self-distrust, quick credulity, and caprice were the weaknesses engendered in us by misfortune and misgovernment; and they were then the allies of oppression; for, had we been willing, we had long ago been rich and free. Knowledge is now within our reach if we work steadily; and strength of character will grow upon us by ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... important of these are the Coventry Papers at Longleat, the residence of the Marquess of Bath. Many of the letters deal with Bacon's Rebellion, and include the correspondence between Berkeley and Bacon, accounts of the Indian war, complaints of the misgovernment of Berkeley, the account of the evacuation of Jamestown written by Berkeley, accounts of Bacon's death and the collapse of ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... "mindful of the past," in its stead. We say this in charity, as well as in truth. We come of English blood, and if we claim to share in all the ancient renown of that warlike and enlightened people, we are equally bound to share in the reproaches that original misgovernment has inflicted on thee. In this latter sense, then, thou hast a right to our sympathies, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... nor was he ever blind to the mingled folly and treachery of the Neapolitan ministers, and the complication in iniquities under which the country groaned; but he insensibly, under the influence of Lady Hamilton, formed an affection for the court, to whose misgovernment the miserable condition of the country was so greatly to be imputed. By the kindness of her nature, as well as by her attractions, she had won his heart. Earl St. Vincent, writing to her at this time, says, "Pray do not let your fascinating Neapolitan dames approach too near ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... date can only be by comparative reasoning. At Kirkdale, on the other hand, we know that Tosti, Harold's brother, became Earl of Northumbria in 1055, we know also that the Northumbrians rose against Tosti's misgovernment and his many crimes, among which must be placed the murder of the Gamal mentioned in the inscription, and that in 1065 Tosti was outlawed, his house-carles killed, and his treasures seized. After this we also know that Tosti was defeated by the Earls Edwin and Morcar, and having fled to Scotland, ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... four years he was absorbed in private studies, and in the courts of law, at the end of which he became aedile, the year that Verres was impeached for misgovernment in Sicily. This was the most celebrated State trial for impeachment on record, with the exception, perhaps, of that of Warren Hastings. But Cicero, who was the public accuser and prosecutor, was more fortunate than Burke. He collected such an overwhelming mass of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... English officers. The old monopoly of trade with Brazil had been broken down in favour of the English, to the ruin of not a few Portuguese merchants. These grievances, the continued absence of the Court in Brazil, and the general misgovernment of the country, had caused widespread discontent. Matters became critical after the outbreak of the Spanish revolution in January 1820. In the spring of that year Beresford went out to Brazil to lay the state of affairs before the king, and to try to induce him to return to Portugal. ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in every ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... countries. The former has suffered greatly from misgovernment and the waste of its resources. Wine-cask stock and cattle are sold to Austria, which has five-sixths of its trade. Belgrade is its metropolis. Tobacco and live-stock are exported from Montenegro ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... intelligent and patriotic administration. In Persia and Mesopotamia we find poverty, ignorance, desert, where once flourished mighty empires: bad government is the cause. Greece and Italy and Egypt are struggling to recover from centuries of misgovernment. In this country government has been far wiser and more responsive to the community's needs; and yet the apathy of the intelligent public and the intrusion of private greed have distorted and obstructed legislation until social reformers throw ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... some important respects, all strictly political, his advocacy of extended action by the State fell in with the Liberal movement of his time. The hideous misgovernment of Ireland he had always deplored. It touched him long before it touched the great majority of Englishmen. With a view to informing people on the Irish question, he compiled a book of Burke's most telling utterances on Ireland and her ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell

... of favoritism and misgovernment. He called on God to witness that he knew of nothing in which he had not distributed equal justice to all men. His friends rallied to his support. "The whole are sensible of his great integrity, constant care, and diligence," the Council wrote to the ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... of the past history of Scotland the insurgents could present a case which possessed sufficient plausibility. It had been the exception for the reign of a Scottish king to pass without some more or less serious revolt on the ground of his alleged misgovernment. Even during the reign with which we are dealing, there had been a fair precedent for the late proceedings of the Congregation. At the outset of the reign, the Earl of Arran was giving away the country to England and to heresy; Beaton and the French party had taken up arms against him, and undone ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... look at them haul Dunnan's body away on a lifter-skid; he watched the fifty-odd leaders of the overthrown misgovernment of Marduk shamble away to freedom, guarded by Paytrik Morland's riflemen. Now there was something to reproach himself for; he'd committed a separate and distinct crime against Marduk by letting each one of them live. Unless recognized and killed by somebody ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper

... created the Christian Social Union found, in the same year, an unexpected outlet in the secular sphere. In the Session of 1888, the Conservative Ministry, noting the general disgust which had been aroused by the corrupt misgovernment of Greater London, passed the "Local Government Act," which, among other provisions, made London into a County, gave it a "County Council," and endowed that Council with far-reaching powers. To social reformers this was a tremendous ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... misgovernment have destroyed much of Liberia's economy, especially the infrastructure in and around Monrovia. Many businessmen have fled the country, taking capital and expertise with them. Some have returned, many will not. Richly endowed with water, mineral ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... risen on the ruins of the Western Empire kept up some intercourse with those eastern provinces where the ancient civilisation, though slowly fading away under the influence of misgovernment, might still astonish and instruct barbarians, where the court still exhibited the splendour of Diocletian and Constantine, where the public buildings were still adorned with the sculptures of Polycletus and the paintings ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... proxies of peers in the hands of his creatures, and thus to sway the Upper House to his will; the trade of the kingdom had been destroyed; and the 'graces' of 1628 had been denied to the nation, or clogged by provisoes which rendered them a mockery. And yet, in the face of such evidence of misery and misgovernment, the Archbishop of Dublin asserted in a charge to his clergy, that 'all contemporary writers agree in describing the flourishing condition of the island, and its rapid advance in civilisation and wealth, when ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... work to turn the popular movement to their own benefit, and by their intrigues overthrew the National Congress, and established a new government with the elder of them as its head. So much dissatisfaction was caused by the corruption and misgovernment of the Carreras, that the Spaniards endeavoured to ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... just as she had thought and read and listened to. On every side she saw a kindly people borne down by the weight of poverty. Lives ruined by sickness and the lack of nourishment. A splendid race perishing through misgovernment and intolerant ignorance. ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... receive and adjudicate upon the complaints of all who are oppressed. A comparatively late expedient, and the first part of the Carolingian system to disappear, these tours of inspection were the one safeguard against local misgovernment and the feudalising of official power. When they ceased, the Carolingian county too often became a hereditary fief exploited for the lord's ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... follow its own bent and develop good or evil accordingly? If He allows good men to be put upon, and evil men to be a source of fear, is not this to admit that God has His likes and dislikes? From of old until now, times of misgovernment have always exceeded times of right government; and when men of principle have contended with the ignoble, the latter have usually won. Where then is God's love of good and ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles

... proposals from her old friend, Kudara, and the latter, taking astute advantage of this mood, secured her endorsement of territorial transfers which brought to the Yamato Court nothing but the enmity of Kudara's rivals. By these errors of statesmanship and by the misgovernment of officials like Keno, conditions were created which, as will be seen hereafter, proved ultimately fatal to Japan's sway in the peninsula. Meanwhile, every student of Japanese ancient annals cannot but be struck by the large space devoted to recording her relations ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... Company tenfold more than he could pay, and all his revenues were sequestered for that debt. He was a person of the last degree of indolence with the last degree of rapacity,—a man of whom Mr. Hastings declared, that he had wasted and destroyed by his misgovernment the fairest provinces upon earth, that not a person in his dominions was secure from his violence, and that even his own father could not enjoy his life and honor in safety under him. This avaricious bankrupt tyrant, who had beggared and destroyed his own subjects, and could not pay his debts to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... heavy curse instead of a blessing. Since she gained America, she has gradually declined in wealth, intelligence, and power; and if I mistake not the signs of the times, these beautiful provinces will soon be wrested from her, though, alas, the seeds of misgovernment and bigotry which she planted, will take ages ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... the main sources of the Anglo-Irish difficulty has been mutual misunderstanding, generating mutual mistrust and hatred. But the root of the difficulty goes deeper. It is to be sought in the system of misgovernment and oppression which successive generations of British rulers have imposed upon what, with cruel irony, British historians and statesmen have been wont to call "the sister country." This is the real "open secret" of Ireland, ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... the hardest winter the colony had known. The dearth of news was most trying, and the fear of the English descent upon them racked the brave heart of the Commandant, who saw his dream of a great city vanishing. Jealousy had done some cruel work, and the misgovernment of the mother country ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... world when the Arabian Empire passed under the control of rude Asiatic peoples. The Turks accepted Islam, but they did little to preserve and extend Arabian civilization. The stagnant, non-progressive condition of the East at the present time is largely due to the misgovernment of its ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... of a strong and honest Government; what a blow we have aimed at absenteeism, in a particular provision of our income-tax! Nil desperandum, gentlemen, give us a little time to unravel your long tissue of misgovernment; and, in the mean time, make haste, and go about in quest of a grievance, if you can find one, against the ensuing session. Depend upon it, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... pointed the finger of scorn at the notorious misgovernment of American cities, at the manner in which foreigners were herded to the polls by party bosses to vote as they were paid. The cases of a Louisiana judge impeached for issuing bogus certificates of citizenship to four ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... after this we begin to approach happier times. The university of Bologna, which, as a school of literature and law, was already celebrated in the 12th century, became, in the course of the following one, not less distinguished for its medical teachers. Though the misgovernment of the municipal rulers of Bologna had disgusted both teachers and students, and given rise to the foundation of similar institutions in Padua and Naples,—and though the school of Salerno, in the territory of the latter, was still in high repute,—it appears, from the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... on Roman ground, they were left to the mercy of officials whose only thought was to make the famished barbarians a prey to their own rapacity and lust. Before long the Goths broke loose and spread over the country, destroying whatever cultivation had survived the desolating misgovernment of the Empire. Outlaws and deserters were willing guides, and crowds of fresh barbarians came in to share the spoil. The Roman generals found it no easy task to keep ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... Viewed by the light of the Cyprus Convention, Britain's responsibility for assuring a minimum of good government for the Christians of Asiatic Turkey is undeniable. Unfortunately it admits of no denial that the duties which that responsibility involves have not been discharged. The story of the misgovernment and massacre of the Armenian Christians is one that will ever redound to the disgrace of all the signatories of the Treaty of Berlin; it is doubly disgraceful to the Power ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... all his political adventures and writings. In those days the misgovernment of Ireland was terrible, and Swift, although he loved neither Ireland nor the Irish, fought for their rights until, from being hated by them, he became the idol of the people, and those who had thrown ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... in every sense. She was the patron and protector of the abominable Bomba, and her support alone enabled him to defy the sentiment of the civilized world, and to indulge in cruelties such as would have added new infamy to the name of Ezzelino. She upheld the misgovernment of the Papal States, which has made Rome the scandal of Europe. All the nominal rulers of the Italian States, with the honorable exception of the King of Sardinia, were her vassal princes, and were no more free to act without her consent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... wretched misgovernment was not merely destitution bordering on famine, but a wholesale emigration. Whilst the Roman Catholics were leaving the country to avoid the penal laws, the most skilful and industrious of the artizan class,—the very backbone ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... been his poverty! Out upon such justice and such laws, which tolerate such barbarities to one whose misfortunes should be pitied, not visited by the damnable cruelty of the base hirelings of a corrupt misgovernment! ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... incendiaries against our elected magistrates, in order that they may keep ready to hand, and increase, the raw material of a purchasable vote, by the domination and protection of which they keep themselves in power. That is the whole secret of our municipal misgovernment wherever it exists, and also the reason for our barbarous crimes. We have a cowed magistracy seeking re-election from the manipulators ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... one of the worst-governed cities in Christendom. The Jews and the mulattoes divide municipal honors between them, and rival, not unworthily on a small scale, the united talents of Mozart and Tammany for misgovernment and jobbery. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... they are not to be nam'd, my lord, Not to be spoke of; There is not chastity enough in language Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady, I am sorry for thy much misgovernment. ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... state of things that those who were before at the bottom of society, rise to the surface. From causes already considered, they are peculiarly apt to consider their sufferings the result of injustice and misgovernment, and to be rancorous and embittered accordingly. They have every excitement, therefore, of resentful passion, and every temptation which the hope of increased opulence, or power or consideration can hold out, to urge them to innovation and revolt. Supposing ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... Leo X that he thought it a mistake to censure Luther, with whom he agreed as to many of the matters calling for reform. But whilst Luther attributed the prevailing demoralisation to false dogmas and a faulty constitution, Erasmus sought the cause in ignorance and misgovernment. What came from this division of opinion pertains to the next lecture. Erasmus belonged, intellectually, to a later and more scientific or rational age. The work which he had initiated, and which was interrupted by the Reformation troubles, was resumed at a more acceptable time by the ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... wondered at that one who saw these things, even though he was only a boy, should feel it a duty stronger than life itself to reverse the system of misgovernment which was responsible. ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... stand with pistols by the roadside and empty the wallets of people passing by. They make a dishonest use of their high position as members of government, and extort money for which they make no return in the shape of services to the public. History is full of such lamentable instances of misgovernment, and one of the most important uses of the study of history is to teach us how they have occurred, in order that we may learn how to avoid them, as far ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... that a democratic revolution was not to be accomplished in England by a rising of the people, but that forcible resistance even to the point of civil war was necessary to guard liberties already won, or to save the land from gross misgovernment. But always the forcible resistance, when successful, has been made not by revolutionaries but by the strong champions of constitutional government. The fruit of the resistance to John was the Great Charter; of Simon of Montfort's war against Henry III., the beginning of a representative ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... rapidly became—was known as el grito de Dolores—"the call of Dolores." The time was ripe for the assertion of independence. Spain was invaded by Napoleon; the King had abdicated. Who was the authority who should carry on the government—or misgovernment—of the colony? asked the city Council of Mexico as they urged the Viceroy to retain his authority against all comers. Unfortunately, the Spaniards, residents of the capital, precipitated lawlessness by rising and seizing the ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... and placing it on a war footing of one hundred and four thousand men. Senator Proctor made a significant speech in the Senate, on the condition of affairs in Cuba. He announced himself as being opposed to annexation, and declared that the Cubans were "suffering under the worst misgovernment in the world." The public generally accepted his remarks as having been sanctioned by the President, and understood them as indicating that this country should recognise the independence of Cuba on the ground that the people are capable of self-government, and that under no other conditions ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... through our land, headed by the king, and officered by his polluted courtiers; led on with all the pomp and splendour which royalty could display. The king and his ministers well knew that the most formidable enemies to tyranny, oppression, and misgovernment, were the piety and stern morality of the Puritans, Nonconformists, and the small classes of virtuous citizens of other denominations; and therefore every effort was made by allurements and intimidation ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... woe the words conjure up. The late Goldwin Smith, himself an Englishman and a Unionist, in his Irish History and the Irish Question, finds that "of all histories, the history of Ireland is the saddest. For nearly seven centuries it was a course of strife between races, bloodshed, massacre, misgovernment, civil war, ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... out his "rage and resentment" against English misgovernment, may be further read in the "Story of the Injured Lady," and in the "Answer" to that story. The Injured Lady is Ireland, who tells her lover, England, of her attractions, and upbraids him on his conduct towards her. In the "Answer" Swift tells the Lady what she ought to do, and hardly ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... that we have paid seventy dollars a year to bring one visitor, whose absence would have been much more agreeable to us than his presence. Extend this calculation to the number of seven persons, and the other expenses of our misgovernment, and perhaps some other expenditures not mentioned, and see what a sum ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes

... New Netherland," wrote the Amsterdam chamber of the Company to Stuyvesant, "was scarcely ever mentioned before, and now it would seem as if heaven and earth were interested in it." So effective an exposition of the colony's value and of its misgovernment could not fail to awaken consideration and sympathy. Nevertheless, the company, aided by the Answer which Van Tienhoven submitted in November, 1650, were able to ride out the storm, and to temporize until the outbreak of the war of 1652-1654 with England put a new face on colonial ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... place became a complete sink of abomination. Drunkenness, smoking, dicing, card-playing, and every kind of licence were permitted, or connived at; and the stronger prisoners were allowed to plunder the weaker. Such was the state of things in the Fleet Prison at the period of our history, when its misgovernment was greater than it had ever previously been, and the condition of its inmates ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... of the French Revolution I have already glanced at, in a previous lecture. The most obvious of these, doubtless, was the misgovernment which began with Louis XIV. and continued so disgracefully under Louis XV.; which destroyed all reverence for the throne, even loyalty itself, the chief support of the monarchy. The next most powerful influence that created revolution was feudalism, which ground down the people ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... have run a wanton wicked race, Which now hath brought me to this woful wretched case: I am heartily sorry, and with tears do lament My former lewd and vile misgovernment. I find the brittle stay of trustless Fortune's state. My heart now thirsteth after Virtue all too late: Yet, good my lord, of pity condescend To be a mean for him that meaneth to amend. The prince is merciful, of whose great ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... Perceiving that the nation was determined to give monarchy the benefit of a trial, they have—in that reverence for the national will which is the first duty of Republicans—patiently awaited its results, and endured every form of misgovernment rather than afford a pretext to those in power for the non-fulfilment of their declared intention of initiating a war to regain our own territory and true frontier,—a war without which, as they well knew, the permanent security and dignity of Italy were impossible, and which, had it been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... labourers in the same cause, have put forward arguments of strength enough to account for the undoubted conviction of the reasoners. Appeals to trust in the people, to confidence in human nature, to the strength of love as contrasted with the weakness of law, to shame for our past misgovernment of the Irish, to sanguine expectations of terminating a secular feud which has caused wretchedness to Ireland and has lessened the power of England, would appear in the judgment of orators addressing English electors likely to have much more weight with ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... of gods; for, after borrowing all the divinities of the earth they proceeded to deify their Caesars, and vote them altars and holy service. No, the unhappy condition was not from religion, but misgovernment and usurpations and countless tyrannies. The Avernus men had been tumbled into, and were praying to be relieved from, was terribly but essentially political. The supplication—everywhere alike, in Lodinum, Alexandria, Athens, Jerusalem—was for a king to conquer with, not ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... Majesty was engrossed in carpentry, and the Emperor would pretend to know all about the question, and tell Wei to deal with it. Aided by unworthy censors, a body of officials who are supposed to be the "eyes and ears" of the monarch, and privileged to censure him for misgovernment, he gradually drove all loyal men from office, and put his opponents to cruel and ignominious deaths. He persuaded Hsi Tsung to enrol a division of eunuch troops, ten thousand strong, armed with ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... be spared to build up the waste places desolated by war and by long years of misgovernment. We shall not wait for the end of strife to begin the beneficent work. We shall continue, as we have begun, to open the schools and the churches, to set the courts in operation, to foster industry and trade and agriculture, and in every way ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... the names of Tripoli and Tunis. At the end of his year of government he returned to Rome, intending to become a candidate for the consulship. In this he met with a great disappointment. He was indicted for misgovernment in his province, and as the law did not permit any one who had such a charge hanging over him to stand for any public office, he was compelled to retire. But he soon found, or fancied that he had found, an opportunity of revenging himself. The two new consuls were found guilty of ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church

... colonies. They were separated from the mother country by a great ocean, which then seemed many times as wide as it does now. Communication was so infrequent that the authorities in England could not keep track of what was going on in America, and misgovernment could flourish unchecked because unknown. And so far away and so differently circumstanced from the people in England were the people of the colonies that the former could not appreciate the real needs of ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary

... The misgovernment of the sons of Cnut hindered the formation of a lasting Danish dynasty in England. The throne of Cerdic was again filled by a son of Woden; but there can be no doubt that the shock given to the country by the Danish Conquest, especially the way in which the ancient nobility was cut off in the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... United States in London,—one who thought it not incompatible with his high office to publish a treatise on draw-poker, and to appear as bellwether in a mining prospectus. Grant's personal intimates included shifty financiers. Corruption and misgovernment at the South were held against him, though Congress was properly to blame for them. Only in his stand for honest finance, his effort to improve the Indian service, and his conclusion of the disputes with Great Britain, could ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... the same menace to his subject Slavs as his predecessors. Above all, however, he is of necessity a blind tool in the hands of Germany, and he cannot possibly extricate himself from her firm grip. The Habsburgs have had their chance, but they missed it. By systematic and continuous misgovernment they created a gulf between the Slavs and themselves which nothing on earth can remove. Every Habsburg believes he has a "mission" to fulfil. The only mission left for Kaiser Karl is to abdicate and dissolve ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... of progressive disaster during the later historical period, the inevitable effect of neglected silt and flood, it will be gathered that the two great rivers of Mesopotamia present a very strong contrast to the Nile. For during the same period of misgovernment and neglect in Egypt the Nile did not turn its valley and delta into a desert. On the Tigris and Euphrates, during ages when the earliest dwellers on their banks were struggling to make effective their first efforts at control, the waters must often have regained the upper hand. ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King

... speeches in favour of the Coercion Bill convinced me that it would do the slightest good.... It must embitter the Irish against England, for which there is no need. Nothing can be more shocking than the continual outrages and murders in Ireland; but it is the penalty we pay for a long course of misgovernment, and from which nothing but a long course of mild and good government can set us free; certainly not severe indiscriminate measures which mark out Ireland still more as an unhappy conquered province, instead ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... my mind oppressed by so deep and solemn a sense of responsibility as at the present moment. I firmly believe that the country is now in danger of calamities greater than ever threatened it, from domestic misgovernment or from foreign hostility. The danger is no less than this, that there may be a complete alienation of the people from their rulers. To soothe the public mind, to reconcile the people to the delay, the short delay, which must intervene ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... unparalleled in any native state in India." But, unfortunately for himself and his subjects, the Maharajah, in 1811, began to rule, and Purnaiya, the able prime minister, retired, and soon afterwards died. Then followed a long period of misgovernment, which culminated in the insurrection of 1830, to put down which the aid of British troops had to be called in. A formal inquiry was then made by the British Government, and the result of this was that it was determined to transfer the entire administration ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... is most marked in the sphere of politics. At the close of his student days Carlyle was to all intents a Radical, and believed in Democracy; he saw hungry masses around him, and, justly attributing some of their suffering to misgovernment, vented his sympathetic zeal for the oppressed in denunciation ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... "The misgovernment of Charles and James, gross as it had been, had not prevented the common business of life from going steadily ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell



Words linked to "Misgovernment" :   misrule, governance, administration, governing, government activity



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