"Usurpation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Amulius, the younger, seized the kingdom; and Numitor, who was of a peaceful disposition, made no resistance to his brother. Amulius, fearing lest the children of Numitor might not submit so quietly to his usurpation, caused his only son to be murdered, and made his daughter, Rhea Silvia, one of the vestal virgins, who were compelled to live and die unmarried. But the maiden became, by the god Mars, the mother of twins. She was, in consequence, put to death, because she had broken her vow, and her ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... more properly attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming of Christ; his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his implacable hostility to the Jews; his pollution of the Holy of Holies; and his miserable death at ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Bijanagur had been governed for thirty years by the usurpation of three brothers, keeping the lawful king a state prisoner, and ruling according to their own pleasure, shewing the king only once a year to his subjects. They had been principal officers under the father of the king whom they now held ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... Spain taught me how to wear) Made me forget what's due to that illustrious Birth; —Yet thus—I cast aside the Rays of Majesty— [Kneels, and lays the Crown on the Table. And on my Knee do humbly offer up This splendid powerful thing, and ease your Fears Of Usurpation and of Tyranny. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... beauty, for rebellious man? Yes—ye may fill your garners, ye that reap The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good In senseless riot; but ye will not find In feast or in the chase, in song or dance, A liberty like his, who, unimpeached Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, Appropriates nature as his Father's work, And has a richer use of yours, than you. He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth Of no mean city, planned or e'er the hills Were built, the fountains opened, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... questions of a like nature, the Socialist can only give one answer, namely, that there is no such a thing as an "automatic democracy," that eternal vigilance will be the price of liberty under Socialism as it has ever been. There can be no other safeguard against the usurpation of power than the popular will and conscience ever alert upon the watch-towers. With political machinery so responsive to the popular will when it is asserted and an alert and vigilant electorate, political democracy attains its maximum development. ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... the first of the Moghuls to reside in the Mahomedan atmosphere of Delhi throughout his long reign. But, begun in usurpation at the cost of his own father, it ended in misery and gloom. His sons had revolted against him, his sombre fanaticism had estranged from him the Rajput princes of whom Akbar had made the pillars of the Moghul ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... a natural right. It is regulated by the constitution and laws of a State I grant, but it needs no argument, it appears to me, to show that a constitution and laws adopted and enacted by a fragment of the whole body of the people, but binding alike on all, is a usurpation of the powers ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... milked a cow!!! . . . . The herd has rebelled against the usurpation of Miss Fuller's heifer; and, whenever they are turned out of the barn, she is compelled to take refuge under our protection. So much did she impede my labors by keeping close to me, that I found it necessary to give her two or three gentle pats with ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... was her father—mother? Why had the law been allowed by this eccentric lover to violate the humble sanctuary of home, at the desolate Llaneol? What was become of the wicker chair? Was the hated Lewis to be maintained in his usurpation of the chair of Bevan's ancestral post of steward, (for his father had been steward to the father of the squire deceased?) Above all, was Dame Bevan to see that home of her heart's hope, the permanent home of the harsh supplanter ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... Lear into three parts, and each would be a play with the ancients; or take the three AEschylean dramas of Agamemnon, and divide them into, or call them, as many acts, and they together would be one play. The first act would comprise the usurpation of AEgisthus, and the murder of Agamemnon; the second, the revenge of Orestes, and the murder of his mother; and the third, the penance and absolution of Orestes;—occupying ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Patrick Brennan spent the ensuing week in vain endeavour to reconcile himself to a condition of things in which he, the first born of the policeman on the beat, and therefore by right of heredity a person of importance in the realm, should tamely submit to usurpation and insult on the part of this mushroom sprig of moneyed aristocracy, this sissy kid in velvet pants, this long-haired dummy of an Isaac Borrachsohn. Teacher could not have meant to cut him off from all hope of vengeance. If she had—then she must be shown that the honour of the house of Brennan ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to everyone manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us, with restrictions, perhaps, to guard against the fraudulent usurpation of our flag, an abuse which brings so much embarrassment and loss on the genuine citizen and so much danger to the nation of being involved in war that no endeavor should be spared to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... issued a writ for a fresh election. Middlesex answered this insolent claim to limit the free choice of a constituency by again returning Wilkes; and the House was driven by its anger to a fresh and more outrageous usurpation. It again expelled the member for Middlesex; and on his return for the third time by an immense majority it voted that the candidate whom he had defeated, Colonel Luttrell, ought to have been returned, and was the legal representative of Middlesex. The Commons had not only limited at their ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... to guard against the very first approaches of freedom. Against such as these they never elevate their voice. Deserters from principle, listed with fortune, they never see any good in suffering virtue, nor any crime in prosperous usurpation. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... dealings they shrank from no measures, however extreme, which might damage their competitors; they held their weaker neighbors in a condition of helpless dependence in short, they each fancied they could get on by themselves without the assistance of the r est, and thus paved the way for future usurpation. The usurper was forthcoming when long conflicts between the nobility and the people, and between the different factions of the nobility, had awakened the desire for a strong government, and when bands of mercenaries ready and willing to sell their ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... ancient Caledonian form, Firm as the rock, resistless as the storm? Show me that eye which shot immortal hate, Blasting the despot's proudest bearing; Show me that arm which, nerv'd with thundering fate, Crush'd Usurpation's boldest daring!— Dark-quench'd as yonder sinking star, No more that glance lightens afar; That palsied arm no more whirls ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... leadership. General Canrobert, Commandant of the Guards, soon put down the revolt in blood. Order was speedily restored throughout Paris, and the victory of the President was complete. It only remained to submit his usurpation to the judgment of the people, and the decision in that case could, under existing conditions, hardly be ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... not calculated the good or the harm that Madame de Maintenon had done France. He did not weigh in the balance of genealogy Monsieur de Maine and Monsieur d'Orleans. He felt that he must devote his life to those who had raised him from obscurity, and knowing the old king's will, regarded as a usurpation Monsieur d'Orleans' accession to ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... of action. As soon as his sister retired to her own room, he followed, and then and there fully opened his heart to her. He told her all, from the first moment when Barbara began to monopolize his thoughts, and confessed his struggles against her usurpation of the place Margaret ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... treason, by usurping those rights of sovereignty, to which he had no title. In England, where the people do not debate in a collective body but by representation, the exercise of this sovereignty consists in the choice of representatives. The laws have therefore very strictly guarded against usurpation or abuse of this power, by many salutary provisions; which may be reduced to these three points, 1. The qualifications of the electors. 2. The qualifications of the elected. 3. The ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... for tyrants: nor yet by philosophy, which teacheth occidendos esse: but no doubt by skill in history: for that indeed can afford your Cypselus, Periander, Phalaris, Dionysius, and I know not how many more of the same kennel, that speed well enough in their abominable unjustice or usurpation. I conclude therefore that he excelleth history, not only in furnishing the mind with knowledge, but in setting it forward, to that which deserveth to be called and accounted good: which setting forward, and moving to well-doing, indeed setteth the laurel crown upon ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... adequate remedy for the true evil, the usurping of Congress, which (since that body will never construe down its own powers) can be checked, in our opinion, only by the action of States opposed to such usurpation." ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... kings of England, on arriving at the age of twenty-four, to repeal any act of Parliament made during their minority, and in 1539 the "Act that Proclamations made by the King shall be obeyed"—the high-water mark of executive usurpation in modern times. Proclamations made by the king and council were to have the force of acts of Parliament, yet not to prejudice estates, offices, liberties, goods or lives, or repeal existing laws; the cardinal ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... preservation of the Constitution, which is the palladium and safeguard of the Nation. The Southern rebellion has usurped the functions and powers of various State Governments: when it is overthrown, the victims of its usurpation will be restored to their former rights. Their allegiance is still perfect. Nothing but their own act can ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... forfeit the favour of the people, they answered, We cannot tell, meaning, It is inconvenient to express an opinion. As they could not venture to pronounce whether a ministry which had left its impress deep on the whole land, was a human usurpation or a divine mission, they had obviously no right to sit in judgment on the credentials of Jesus. When on this point they were condemned out of their own lips the Lord, rising now more into the stern dignity of judge when his ministry was drawing ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... peace," said the young man. "Is it not the cause of my Master who hath sent me? Is it not a profane and Erastian destroying of his authority, usurpation of his power, denial of his name, to place either King or Parliament in his place as the master and governor of his household, the adulterous husband ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that they had read the document in vain to find the right given to assume the debts of the States. Here, within two years after the adoption of the Constitution, was a State Legislature protesting against the usurpation of power under it. It was the first of many ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... the wars occasioned by the usurpation of Stephen, Lisieux once more obtained an unfortunate celebrity. The town was attacked in 1136, by the forces of Anjou, under the command of Geoffrey Plantagenet, husband of the Empress Maud, joined ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... "orderly mob" which assembled in the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and stamp act laws! Our fathers resisted, not the King's prerogative, but the King's usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. Our state archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament unconstitutional,—beyond its power. It was not till this was made out that ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... all the appearance of a lawless usurpation of some intruder of the kind. He had possessed himself forcibly of the fortress, and consequently of the town. He had issued extravagant licenses injurious to the government, and apparently intended only to make partisans among the people; and had threatened to throw Columbus ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... Campbell leaves New Orleans for home this evening. Want of respect for Governor Wells personally, alone represses the expression of indignation felt by all honest and sensible men at the unwarranted usurpation of General Sheridan in removing the civil officers of Louisiana. It is believed here that you will reinstate Wells. He is a bad man, and has ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... possessed a quasi legitimacy. The house of Jehu, to which he belonged, had opposed the extreme of religious apostasy. It was, to a certain degree, acknowledged, even by the prophets. Jeroboam had obtained the throne, not by usurpation, but by birth. He was the last king by whom the Lord sent deliverance to the people of the ten tribes; compare 2 Kings xiv. 27: "And the Lord would not blot out the name of Israel from under heaven; and ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... could not afford to pay taxes fraught with danger to their commerce, nor to relinquish one jot of privileges dearly bought at successive crises throughout a long period of years. The only doubt in their minds was as to the ultimate success of the burghers to stem the course of Burgundian usurpation. Therefore, they first hedged, and then consented to aid the duke. This course was pursued by the Hollanders and the ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... troubles of life is that Reason has taken charge of the administration of Justice, and by mere identification it has achieved the crown and sceptre of its master. But the imperceptible usurpation was recorded, and discriminating minds understand the chasm which still divides the pretender Law from the exiled King. In a like manner, and with feigned humility, the Cold Demon advanced to serve Religion, and by guile ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich". (2 Corinthians 8:9) He was in the form of God before he became a man. "Who, though being in God's form, yet did not meditate a usurpation to be like God, but divested himself, taking a bondman's form, having been made in the ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... of the poor colonists against becoming tenants, and the usurpation of the land, were clearly brought out by Bellomont in a letter written on Nov. 28, 1700, to the Lords of Trade. He complained that "people are so cramped here for want of land that several families within my own knowledge and observation are remov'd to the ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be, in any particular, wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance, in permanent evil, any partial or transient benefit ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... a noble task, to which numbers of other women asked for nothing better than to be allowed to devote themselves, though it is only fair to add that in those other women's hands the noble task would have seemed to Swann nothing more than an indiscreet and intolerable usurpation of his freedom of action. "If she didn't love me, just a little," he told himself, "she would not wish to have me altered. To alter me, she will have to see me more often." And so he was able to trace, in these faults which she found in him, a proof at least of her interest, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... and to grasp the full compass and grandeur of the issues involved. It was no mere feud between two rival states, but a great national conflict, which was to end in the downfall of a wide-spread usurpation, and the deliverance of a hundred cities from bondage. The whole naval and military forces of Athens lay crippled and helpless within their grasp; they would shatter to pieces the instrument of tyranny, and win an immortal name as the liberators of all Greece. Their ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... Maurice's place at the works now that Beauchene had resumed his dissolute life, and daily intrusted the young man with more and more authority. Blaise's home was prospering too; Charlotte had now given birth to a second child, a boy, and thus fruitfulness was invading the place and usurpation becoming more and more likely, since Constance could never more have an heir to bar the road of conquest. Without penetrating her singular feelings, Mathieu fancied that she perhaps wished to sound him to ascertain if he were not behind Blaise, urging on ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... England, with such rash exuberance of confiding loyalty, that, by intrusting to his careless hand the full possession of unrestrained power, they laid the foundation of future contests and confusion. Such were the prospective evils with which the Oliverian usurpation afflicted the state, while in the department of morals, piety was brought into such contempt by the extravagance of fanatics, and the detected cheats of hypocrites, that atheism and profaneness grew popular, as being more open and candid in their avowed profligacy. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... business in objectionable literature, which he kept concealed in a large drawer, under the stock of heads and religious images. It is probable that he felt some slight qualms at the free-and-easy manner in which he had taken possession of the post office, and recognised the desirability of getting his usurpation confirmed as far as possible. At all events, he had thought it well to call upon Rougon, who was ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... in the humour of Augustus, of granting amnesty to the proscribed. Usurpation granting amnesty to right! treason to honour! cowardice to courage! crime to virtue! He is to that degree embruted by his success that he thinks this ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... upon you as dead for years, and my father had died before the news of your supposed murder reached us." Katherine could hardly steady her voice; she was burning to get away. "I beg you will not resent the fact of my most unconscious usurpation. I would not do anything unjust." She stopped, remembering what she had done. Surely the punishment ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... meanings to his heart's content. Men less astute than Chandler and Wade could not have failed to see where fortune pointed. Their opportunity lay in a combination of the two issues. Abolition and the resistance to executive "usurpation." Their problem was to create an anti-Lincoln party that should also be a war party. Their coalition of aggressive forces must accept the Abolitionists as its backbone, but it must also include all violent elements of whatever ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... fulminations at their true value. While continuing for twelve years to elect to the Presidency Jackson or his nominee, they finally dispossessed the Whigs from the control of Congress; and they were right. The American people have much more to fear from Congressional usurpation than they have from executive usurpation. Both Jackson and Lincoln somewhat strained their powers, but for good purposes, and in essentially a moderate and candid spirit; but when Congress attempts to dominate the executive, its objects are generally bad and its ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... Goldman's importance is necessarily a sharp thorn to the reaction. She is looked upon as a danger to the continued existence of authoritarian usurpation. No wonder, then, that the enemy resorts to any and all means to make her impossible. A systematic attempt to suppress her activities was organized a year ago by the united police force of the country. ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... court, was much less lively than such intelligence deserved. The Emperor Matthias was no longer the resolute spirit that formerly sought out his king and master in the very bosom of his people, and hurled him from three thrones. The confidence and courage which had animated him in an usurpation, deserted him in a legitimate self-defence. The Bohemian rebels had first taken up arms, and the nature of circumstances drove him to join them. But he could not hope to confine such a war to Bohemia. In all the territories under his dominion, the Protestants were united by ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... notwithstanding possession was already fully taken by the building and occupation of Fort Good Hope, and there was no neglect from time to time in warning them, in making known our rights, and in protesting against their usurpation and violence, they have disregarded all these things and have seized and possessed, and still hold, the largest and best part of New Netherland, that is, on the east side of the North River, from Cape Cod, (by our people in 1609 called New Holland, and taken possession of [if we are correctly ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... fortunes of his country, at the period when our doughty knights and nobles—happily but for a season—had been reduced, by the intrigues or intimidation of our powerful enemy, to crouch submissive beneath the throne of his usurpation. And can we doubt that this proud spirit of patriotism still burns as warm in their hearts as then, if no longer, by God's blessing, so fearfully or so desperately called into action; or that when after, as our poet again ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... politically insane. Every man is equivalent to every other man. Destroy the equivalent, and what is left? "So God created man in his own image—male and female created he them." This is a death-blow to all claims of superiority, to all charges of inferiority, to all usurpation, ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... then, indicates an era when the church shall be disquieted, and her peace interrupted by internal dissensions. Such was its history during the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. This period was distinguished for the contentions of the clergy; their usurpation of power not conferred by the apostles; their divisions and sub-divisions into parties; their opposing councils; their collisions and distractions; their love of power; their pride, discord, strife, and tyranny; their ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... fair grounds to straiten proofs, require two witnesses in cases of high treason. So it was understood, without dispute and without distinction, until the argument of a case in the High Court of Justice, during the Usurpation. It was the case of the Presbyterian minister, Love, tried for high treason against the Commonwealth, in an attempt to restore the King. In this trial, it was contended for, and admitted, that one witness to one overt act, and one to another overt act of the same treason, ought ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and supported solely by that power. There could be no constitutional government in this country that was not so maintained. Any other government must be both revolutionary and tyrannical. Any other government was a usurpation; and he would make bold to tell the right honourable gentleman that a Minister in this country who should recommend Her Majesty to trust herself to advisers not supported by a majority of the House of Commons, would plainly be guilty of usurping the powers of the ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... and so at the present day it is the Cabinet which has the largest control not only of patronage (much of it corruptly applied), but of certain penalizing devices by which monetary pressure can be brought upon those who thwart its will. By its practical usurpation of the Crown's right to decree a general election, and by its control of the party funds, from which parliamentary candidates are subsidized and assisted to the poll, it is able to hold over the heads of its supporters a financial ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... bishops. Pope Stephen III. resorted to Pipin for help against these aggressive neighbors; and, in 754, Stephen solemnly repeated, in the cathedral of St. Denis, the ceremony of his coronation. The Carlovingian usurpation was thus hallowed in the eyes of the people by the sanction of the Church. The alliance between the Papacy and the Franks, so essential to both, was cemented. Pipin crossed the Alps in 754, and humbled Aistulf, the Lombard king; but, as Aistulf still kept up his hostility to the Pope, Pipin once ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... beyond. Thus Lucy, in desert England, in a dead world, wished to fulfil the usual ceremonies of the dead, such as were customary to the English country people, when death was a rare visitant, and gave us time to receive his dreaded usurpation with pomp and circumstance—going forth in procession to deliver the keys of the tomb into his conquering hand. She had already, alone as she was, accomplished some of these, and the work on which I found her employed, was her mother's shroud. My heart sickened at such ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... themselves, and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; it is ours only to transmit these—the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation—to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... tells me, that whereas my Lord Fleetwood should have answered to the Parliament to-day, he wrote a letter and desired a little more time, he being a great way out of town. [Charles Fleetwood, Lord Deputy of Ireland during the Usurpation, became Cromwell's son-in-law by his marriage with Ireton's widow, and a member of the Council of State. He seems disposed to have espoused Charles the Second's interests; but had not resolution enough to execute his design. At the Restoration he was excepted out of the Act of Indemnity, and ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... different question, and is, in fact, downright tyranny of the worst, because of the most sordid, kind. What would you think of a law which should tax every person in Devonshire for the pecuniary benefit of every person in Yorkshire? And yet that is a feeble image of the actual usurpation of the New England deputies over the property of the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... came to a question of yielding obedience to the magistrate's order, the Boer said "No." In the words of Pringle, "He boldly declared that he considered this interference between him (a free burgher) and his Hottentot to be a presumptuous innovation upon his rights, and an intolerable usurpation ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... nationall Assemblies, the generall Assembly considering the great defection of this Kirk, and decay of Religion, by the usurpation of the Prelates, and their suppressing of ordinaire judicatories of the Kirk, and clearly preceiving the benefit which will redound to the Religion by the restitution of the said judicatories, remembring also that they stand obliged ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... others cannot partake, is not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but what never fails to excite very keen resentment, an insolent assertion of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened understandings. The pedant is, therefore, not only heard ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... could see clearly through the maze, and explain the origin and meaning of the movement of the great, southern clans and daimios against the Tycoon. It was in reality the assertion of the Mikado's imperial and historic claims to complete supremacy against the Shogun's or lieutenant's long usurpation. It was an expression of nationality against sections. The civil war meant "unite or die." Carleton naturally shared in the general wrong impressions and darkness that prevailed, and neither his letters nor ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... referred to, that he was inspired; that he was God, King, Emperor, and that he ought to rule; so, puffed up with pride and insatiable ambition, he began raising an army; and aimed at nothing less than the usurpation of the "Dragon Throne." Some thought him mad; but he gathered about him some 20,000 men whom he had influenced to believe in him as the "Second Celestial Brother," and gave out he was a seer of visions, a prophet of vengeance and freedom; a champion of the poor and ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... abstract Power, seems to us at times nothing less than devil-worship, he dwarfs, casts into the shadow, nay, in some instances caricatures and distorts, the figures which surround him. To excuse Cromwell in his usurpation, Henry Vane, one of those exalted and noble characters, upon whose features the lights held by historical friends or foes detect no blemish, is dismissed with a sneer and an utterly unfounded imputation of dishonesty. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... banishment to Bermuda offered him against his enemy. It is nearly always in the power of a party politician to distort and misrepresent the act {17} of an opponent, however just or blameless that act may be. Brougham made a great pother about the rights of freemen, usurpation, dictatorship. As a lawyer he raised the legal point, that Durham could not banish offenders from Canada to a colony over which he had no jurisdiction. He enlisted other lawyers on his side to attack ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... into actual sovereignty, in other words, the Lord Protector's usurpation of the crown, was not done by violence: in his first royal procession he was unattended by troops; a fickle, intriguing, ambitious, and warlike nobility approved the change; Buckingham, Catesby, and others, urged it. No doubt he himself saw that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... periods, that time and again destroyed reservoir dams and washed out miles of irrigating canals. This was also the region of great cattle and sheep companies, occupying the public domain with their herds, sometimes by lease from the government, sometimes by mere usurpation. The cattle and sheep companies and their employees waged fierce war upon each other for possession of the range, and both were opposed to the incoming of the settlers, as trespassers upon their preserves. The stock companies often infringed upon the settlers' ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... confess. That puppy, that shame to his birth and caste, who holds all hereditary lordships and privilege to be usurpation, all nobility a tinsel sham, all aristocratic institutions a fraud, all inequalities in rank a legalized crime and an infamy, and no bread honest bread that a man doesn't earn by his own work—work, pah!"—and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... contending all winter against any action which should lead to a possibility of strengthening the federal government, failed to see how important a step they had taken to that very end; if any, who were fearful of federal usurpation and tenacious of state rights, were blind to the fact that the resolution had pushed aside the Potomac question and put the Union question in its place, Mr. Madison, we may be sure, was not one of that ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... to act. In the manner he introduces the matter, it is either government stealing wisdom, or wisdom stealing government. It is without an origin, and its powers without authority. In short, it is usurpation. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... as no power is left but the military, it is allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course. As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued after the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war."[82] Four Justices, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... office; but it was necessary, that, whilst he hold it, he should obey his superiors, and submit to the law. Much more truly was his conduct a virtual resignation of his lawful office, and at the same time an usurpation of a situation which did not belong to him, to hold a subordinate office, and to refuse to act according to its duties. Had his authority been self-originated, it would have been wounded by his submission; but in this case the true nature of his authority ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of the village of Riceys, and so maintained the usurpation. The old assassin, the old renegade, the old Abbe Watteville, ended his career by planting trees and making a fine road over the shoulder of one of the Rouxey hills to join the highroad. The estate belonging to this park and house was extensive, but ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... troubles the British had become embroiled in war with the Afghans. The ostensible purpose was to depose Dost Mohammed Khan from his usurpation of the throne of Afghanistan. In reality this chieftain had aroused the ire of England by entering into negotiations with Russia, after Lord Auckland had declined to call upon Runjit Singh to restore Peshawar to Afghanistan. When it was learned that a Russian mission had been received ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... election returns, there is every reason to suppose that Calhoun would have set up a pro-slavery State Legislature, to choose two pro-slavery senators, whom in its turn the strong Lecompton majority in the United States Senate would have admitted to seats; and thus the whole chain of fraud and usurpation back to the first Border-Ruffian invasion of Kansas would have become complete, legal, and irrevocable, on plea of mere formal ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... the highest pitch the renown of their arms; sullied, however, by superstition and cruelty. An allusion to the inhumanities of the Inquisition terminates this picture. The LAST PART of the Poem opens with the state of Spain previous to the unparalleled treachery of BUONAPARTE, gives a sketch of the usurpation attempted upon that unsuspicious and friendly kingdom, and terminates with the arrival of the British succours. It may be further proper to mention, that the object of the Poem is less to commemorate or detail ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... manner, and with the same bravery, against those invasions of necessity and baseness, which come to nations as well as to men. He should meet them, too, foot to foot, even in the darkness, and protest against the national wrongs and follies; against usurpation and the first inroads of that hydra, Tyranny. There is no more sovereign eloquence than the truth in indignation. It is more difficult for a people to keep than to gain their freedom. The Protests of Truth are always needed. Continually, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... have been gentlemen; for so in all other respects were those plebeian magistrates elected by the people of Rome, being of known descents and of equal virtues, except only that they were excluded from the name by the usurpation of the patricians. Holland, through this defect at home, has borrowed princes for generals, and gentlemen of divers nations for commanders: and the Switzers, if they have any defect in this kind, rather lend their people to the colors of other princes, than make that noble use of ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... need not excite surprise, that they should assume the right of behaving to the weaker sex with all the capriciousness of despotism; and no authority but that of Scripture, which maintains the privileges of all thinking beings, can effectually restrain the wickedness of man's UNMANLY usurpation. ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... were not in session, to issue ordinances of a temporary character, but this was a power susceptible of great abuse. And for the Governor to repeal statutes by proclamation would be fatal to the liberties of the people. That Harvey was guilty of this usurpation seems probable from the fact that a law was enacted declaring it the duty of the people to disregard all proclamations that conflicted with any act ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... the Stage?—In a pamphlet entitled Arbitrary Government displayed to the Life, in the illegal Transactions of the late Times under the tyrannick Usurpation of Oliver Cromwell, ed. 1690, p. 98., we are informed that Hugh Peters, after he had been expelled the University of Cambridge, went to London, and enrolled himself as player in Shakspeare's company, "in which he usually performed the part of Clown." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... used to be a popular one with some of the greatest tyrants, who abused it into a pretext for unlimited usurpation of power. Dion, Caligula, and Domitian were particularly fond of it, and, in an extended form, we find the maxim propounded by Creon in the Antigone of Sophocles. See some important remarks of Heeren, "Ancient ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... manliness, of its subtlety, of its truthfulness. Language is a living organism, and to substitute authority, or even long usage, for its innate genius and wisdom, and the requirements and practices that result from these, were to strike at its life, and to expose it to become subject to upstart usurpation, to deadening despotism. Worcester quotes from the Psalms the phrase, "They go astray as soon as they be born." We ask, Were not the translators of the Bible as liable to err in grammar as De Quincey, or Wordsworth, or Shelley? A writer in the English "National Review" for ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... of this," he said. "I have often told him that it was our duty to protect the inferior princes against the usurpation of this islander; but he answers me ever with cold respects of their relations together as suzerain and vassal, and that it were impolitic in him to make an open breach at ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... utility and common-place. Avoid all towns and cities of white clapboard palaces and Grecian temples, studded with "Academics," "Seminaries," and "Institutes," which glisten along our bays and rivers; these are the strong-holds of Yankee usurpation; but if haply you light upon some rough, rambling road, winding between stone fences, gray with moss, and overgrown with elder, poke-berry, mullein, and sweet-briar, with here and there a low, red-roofed, whitewashed farm-house, cowering ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... importation of African slaves previous to that period. According to the adverse construction, the clause itself, on which so much care and discussion had been employed by the members of the Convention, was an absolute nullity from the beginning, and all that has since been done under it a mere usurpation. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... duration of their loyalty. He knew that he was surrounded by hollow hearts, and that most of the courtiers of the Alhambra were secretly devoted to his uncle. He ascended the throne as the rightful sovereign who had been dispossessed of it by usurpation, and he ordered the heads of four of the principal nobles to be struck off who had been most zealous in support of the (9) usurper. Executions of the kind were matters of course on any change in Moorish government, and Boabdil was lauded for his moderation and humanity ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... previous six months had been prejudicial both to his invested capital and to his income accruing from work. It was difficult to sell fiction advantageously when people were more interested in facts; nor did he care much to continue his efforts under a regime that he looked upon as a usurpation. Until the speedy overthrow which he confidently reckoned upon, he said to himself that he would do better to occupy himself with the question of his marriage. The hope was at present a forlorn one, but it was worth ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... the khalifate to the prejudice of Hakem's son, thought that his usurpation would be sustained if he put himself at the head of the orthodox party. He therefore had the library of Hakem searched, and all works of a scientific or philosophical nature carried into the public places and burnt, or thrown into the cisterns of the ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... doctrine and discipline for all subsequent time. If the Church, in declaring St. Leo to be entrusted by our Lord with the guardianship of the Vine, erred; if she asserted a falsehood, or if she favoured an usurpation, how can she be trusted for any maintenance of doctrine, for any administration of sacraments, for any exercise of authority? This consideration does not touch those who believe in no Church at all. They are in the ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... had been in the Silent Rooms. At least he had the strange, bare outline now. He was in some way the owner of the world, and great political parties were fighting to possess him. On the one hand was the Council, with its red police, set resolutely, it seemed, on the usurpation of his property and perhaps his murder; on the other, the revolution that had liberated him, with this unseen "Ostrog" as its leader. And the whole of this gigantic city was convulsed by their struggle. Frantic development of his world! "I do ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... Executive Committee—to only about a half dozen of its members. The Committee was composed mainly of honorable men, deservedly high in the community, in every walk and relation of life. They doubtless acted from a conscientious sense of duty, and neither intended usurpation of the law, violence to justice, nor any wrong whatever. They believed it incumbent upon them to reform what they regarded as the maladministration of public affairs, and to cleanse the city of the corruption which existed—as it has existed and always will exist in populous communities, agreeably ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... and noiseless and fiercely jealous. If I speak to any other boy he rushes at him and drives him away, and while black Khayr was in the house, he suffered martyrdom and the kitchen was a scene of incessant wrangle about the coffee. Khayr would bring me my coffee and Achmet resented the usurpation of his functions—of course quite hopelessly, as Khayr was a great stout black of eighteen and poor little Achmet not bigger than Rainie. I am really tempted to adopt ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... most able and fortunate Captain, before Your Time, declared he had lived enough both to Nature and to Glory; [2] and Your Grace may make that Reflection with much more Justice. He spoke it after he had arrived at Empire, by an Usurpation upon those whom he had enslaved; but the Prince of Mindleheim may rejoice in a Sovereignty which was the Gift of Him ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... unscrupulous methods of some of its "managers." Knowing no such thing as professional honor, these men are ever ready to benefit themselves, regardless of the cost to an associate club. The reserve rule itself is a usurpation of the players' rights, but it is, perhaps, made necessary by the peculiar nature of the base-ball business, and the player is indirectly compensated by the improved standing of the game. I quote in this connection Mr. A. G. Mills, ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... most distinctly marked by limitations and prohibitions against all which was beyond the expressed grants of power to the General Government. In the foreground, therefore, I take the position that those who resisted violations of the compact were the true friends, and those who maintained the usurpation of undelegated powers were the real enemies of the ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... shall work for you. Leave our pens free; leave free the circulation of ideas in what regards this point, vital for us, of the national unity. Treat the Austrian government, even when it no longer menaces your territory, with the reserve of one who knows that it governs by usurpation in Italy and elsewhere; combat it with words of a just man, wherever it contrives oppressions and violations of the rights of others out of Italy. Require, in the name of the God of Peace, the Jesuits allied with Austria in Switzerland to withdraw from that ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... charm, of her audacity, her cunning, her genius for diplomacy and statecraft, far exceeding Elizabeth's—when we read of all this and think of the blood of the Guises in her veins, and the precepts of Catharine de Medici in her heart, we realize what her usurpation would have meant for England, and feel that she was a menace to the State, and justly incurred her fate. Then again, when we hear of her gentle patience in her long captivity, her prayers and piety, and ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... it in the wealthier kingdom of Sweden. Here the clergy and part of the nobility were favourable to the Union; but the vast majority of the people hated it as a foreign usurpation. Matters were still further complicated by the continual interference of the Hanseatic League; and Christian I. (1448-1481) and Hans (1481-1513), whose chief merit it is to have founded the Danish fleet, were, during the greater ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... 18 Cha. II. 6.3. and 80 Cha. II. ch. 2. against the border moss-troopers; to which we may add the following curious extracts from Mercurius Politicus, a newspaper, published during the usurpation. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... my way of doing, sir," said Robert. "I'd fight the rival chieftain to his death. Perhaps this Burr is not so real a Catiline as you think him. Nobody has a good word for him, but I mean he may not have the courage for so dangerous an act as usurpation." ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the policy of the one and the other are absolutely identical. We have space only to glance at unquestionable facts, and to trace them to their necessary motives. To maintain the supremacy of this usurpation, and the Draconic laws made under it, Mr. Pierce poured in the squadrons of the Republic, to dragoon the rebellious freemen into obedience to what their souls abhorred, and what their reason told them was of no more just binding force upon them than an edict of the Emperor of China. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... Street she went in with Letty and had tea. But it was she who sat in dear Mrs. Allerton's corner of the sofa, and when William brought in the tray she said, "Put it here, William," as one who speaks with authority. Of this usurpation of the right to dispense hospitality Letty did not see the significance, being glad to have it ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... it, obedience to this terrible law is essentially social and conservative. The daughter of James II., who seated herself upon her father's throne, must have caused him many a wound before that usurpation. Judas had certainly given some murderous blow to Jesus before he betrayed him. We have within us an inward power of sight, an eye of the soul which foresees catastrophes; and the repugnance that comes over us against the fateful being is the result of that foresight. Though religion ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... for that purpose. The States General, for their own protection, were therefore obliged to place their militia under the command of a Committee. The Prince filled the courts of London and Berlin with complaints at this usurpation of his prerogatives, and, forgetting that he was but the first servant of a Republic, marched his regular troops against the city of Utrecht, where the States were in session. They were repulsed by the militia. His interests now became marshaled with those of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... appertaining to its own powers and duties, and sovereign upon all subjects which have not been committed exclusively to the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. Any encroachment by the Government of the United States upon the lawful jurisdiction of the several States would be resisted as a usurpation; but the "reserved rights" of the States, ex vi termini, cannot include any of the attributes of power which the people of the whole country have conferred upon the Union. But further,—and this is a point of great ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... Parliament, Henry VIII. and his successors were confirmed in the title of "Supreme Head of the Church in Ireland," with power of reforming and correcting errors in religion. All appeals to Rome were prohibited, and the Pope's authority declared a usurpation. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... influence over one, this would alarm the rest. Were he to subdue a part, that which would still remain free might oppose him with forces independent of those which he had usurped and overpower him before he could be settled in his usurpation. "Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the confederate states the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound. The state may be destroyed on one side, and not on the other; the confederacy may be dissolved, and the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... the same period as the mud-worker; but there is no fear of mutual encroachments, for the two Bees, working next door to each other, watch their respective properties with a jealous eye. If attempts at usurpation were to be made, the owner of the Snail-shell would know how to enforce her rights as the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... I see! You mean that they were so benevolent, so unselfish, so devoted to the public good, that people tolerated their usurpation out of gratitude. The people nowadays would not endure the irresponsible rule even of demigods, but probably it was different ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... of the Viceroyalty of Blasco Nunnez Vela, and renewal of the civil war in Peru by the usurpation of Gonzalo Pizarro. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... would not recommend a resort to such extreme measures; certainly not at this stage of affairs. Yet I really sympathize with the patriotic spirit that has aroused the people of Boston to repel acts of usurpation and tyranny." ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... of Italy was banished by this act of lawlessness. Lorenzo, disapproving of all outbreaks against tyranny, promised to support the widowed Duchess of Milan. The control he exercised during her brief regime came to an end in 1479 with the usurpation of ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... Shogun's minister set forth for Kioto to put another affront upon the rightful sovereign. The circumstance was well fitted to precipitate events. It was a piece of religion to defend the Mikado; it was a plain piece of political righteousness to oppose a tyrannical and bloody usurpation. To Yoshida the moment for action seemed to have arrived. He was himself still confined in Choshu. Nothing was free but his intelligence; but with that he sharpened a sword for the Shogun's minister. A party of his followers were to waylay the tyrant at a village on the Yeddo and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the words of the "Religio Medici," the great body of the medical profession can, without usurpation, assume the name of Christians; for no monk of the desert convents of Asia Minor or religious knight of the middle ages, either in their care of the sick, or giving food and shelter to the weary, or protection of sword and shield to the oppressed pilgrim plodding ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... himself the lord of creation; and, of course, regards woman only as his appendage. How can this lord of creation, being a slave himself, look upon the free development and demand of recognition of his appendage otherwise than as a nonsense, or usurpation of his exclusive rights? And among these lords of creation I heartily dislike that class which not only yield to the influence brought upon them by government, but who also possess an infinite amount of narrowness and vanity, united to as infinite ...
— A Practical Illustration of Woman's Right to Labor - A Letter from Marie E. Zakrzewska, M.D. Late of Berlin, Prussia • Marie E. Zakrzewska
... usurpation for his conduct on that occasion," returned Mr. Sharp, "and wish with all my heart the Arabs had discovered less affection for his curiosities. I should think that they must find themselves embarrassed to ascertain the uses of some of their prizes; such for instance, as the button-hooks, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... original constitution these occupied definite relations of superiority and subordination to one another, the spirit being supreme, the body undermost, and the soul occupying the middle position. But the fall disarranged this order, and all sin consists in the usurpation by the body or the soul of the place of the spirit. In fallen man these two inferior sections of human nature, which together form what Paul calls the Flesh, or that side of human nature which looks toward the world and time, have taken possession of the throne and completely rule the life, while ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... place the guilty on trial. Ito was then Prime Minister and declared that every unworthy son of Japan connected with the crime would be placed on trial. "Not to do so would be to condemn Japan in the eyes of all the world," he declared. "If she does not repudiate this usurpation on the part of the Tai Won Run, she must lose the respect of every civilized government on earth." Miura and his associates were, in due course, brought before a court of enquiry. But the proceedings ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... stand as pretender to any throne but that of Cabool, where, by accident, he had just nine points of the law in his favour. How then could we have supported him? "Because thou art virtuous," we must have said, are we to support future usurpation? Because the Dost is just to pedlars, "shall there be no more ale and cakes" for other Affghan princes? All Asia could not have held him upright on any throne comprehensively Affghan. Whether that could have been accomplished ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... sensuality, rapacity, and cruelty of Henry VIII. The course of affairs is always so dark, the beneficial consequences of public events are so distant and uncertain, that the attempt to do evil in order to produce good is in men a most criminal usurpation. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... march of usurpation the First Consul let slip no opportunity of endeavouring to obtain at the same time the admiration of the multitude and the approbation of judicious men. He was very fond of the arts, and was sensible ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... property, their lives, and sacred honor. No, sir, this would be a central Government, raised on the destruction of all the principles of the Constitution, and the first, the highest obligation of every man who has sworn to support that Constitution would be resistance to such usurpation. ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... determined, man of imperious ways and turbulent instincts, who could be easily led into revolution and sedition from the side of his ambition. He saw before him the traditional cunning, quick-witted merchant of Media, pale-faced and easily frightened; no more capable of a daring stroke of usurpation than a Jewish pedlar of Babylon. He was evidently a mere tool in the hands of the queen; and Darius stamped impatiently upon the floor when he thought that he had perhaps been deceived after all—that the queen had really written to Phraortes simply on account of her ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... this instance of his Sovereign's bounty, concerning which, many and various stories, all equally erroneous, have been propagated: maliciously representing it as a political bribe to Johnson, to desert his avowed principles, and become the tool of a government which he held to be founded in usurpation. I have taken care to have it in my power to refute them from the most authentick information. Lord Bute told me, that Mr. Wedderburne, now Lord Loughborough, was the person who first mentioned this subject to him[1106]. Lord Loughborough told ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... prove a refractory subject, if I undertake to use the sceptre my friend meant to bequeath me, too magisterially. I won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have been in company with gentlemen who preferred listening, I have been guilty of the same kind of usurpation which my friend openly justified. But I maintain, that I, the Professor, am a good listener. If a man can tell me a fact which subtends an appreciable angle in the horizon of thought, I am as receptive as the contribution-box ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... buying liquor, denotes selfish usurpation of property upon which you have no legal claim If you sell it, you will ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... But if at usurpation We needs must strike a blow, Our hardy avocation Shall fit us for the foe; Then let the despot's strength compete Upon the open sea, And on the proudest of his fleet Our flag ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... off the water in the city." Again, on the other hand: "Whatever is valid in a smaller matter ought to be valid also in a greater one. One may convert the preceding example." Also, "That which is valid in a parallel case ought to be valid in this which is a parallel case." As, "Since the usurpation of a farm depends on a term of two years, the law with respect to houses ought to be the same." But in the law houses are not mentioned, and so they are supposed to come under the same class as all other things, the property in which is determined by one year's use. Equity then ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... desires at the expense of the slightest article of virtue pass once its limits and you fall headlong into vice." "Death wounds to cure we fall we rise we reign." "Beware of usurpation God is ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... violation whatever shall be offered to women, children, or private property, to sully the arms of Britons or freemen, employed in the glorious and righteous cause of rescuing and delivering this country from the usurpation of rebellion, and that no cruelty whatever be offered against the laws of humanity, but what resistance shall make necessary; and that whatever provisions and other necessaries be taken for the troops, shall be paid for immediately; and in case any person, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... be becoming to a eunuch from Ethiopia, but not a Christian expounder of Scripture. The contents of the prophecy are decidedly in opposition to this opinion. Even the circumstance that a single prophet should assume the name of Israel, ver. 3, appears an intolerable usurpation. Farther— Like all the other prophets, Isaiah was sent to the Jews, and not to the Gentiles; but at the very outset, the most distant lands and all the distant nations are here called upon to hearken. The Lord says to His ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... articles was so subdued that even stalwart Tories like Walter Scott did not refrain from contributing to its pages. Scott's Marmion was somewhat sharply reviewed by Jeffrey in April, 1808, and in the following October appeared the article by Jeffrey and Brougham upon Don Pedro Cevallos' French Usurpation of Spain. The pronounced Whiggism of that critique led to an open rupture with the Tory contributors. Scott, who was no longer on the best terms with Constable, the publisher of the Edinburgh, declared that henceforth he could neither receive nor read the review. He proposed ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... the year before, the English of New York, still distracted by the political disorders that followed the usurpation of Leisler, had fought only by deputy, and contented themselves with hounding on the Iroquois against the common enemy. These savage allies at length lost patience, and charged their white neighbors ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... treaty. In short, all in whom still persisted the deep-rooted colonial traditions of opposition to strong government and dislike of any but local authorities were {170} summoned to oppose an administration on the familiar ground that it was working against their liberties by corruption, usurpation, financial burdens, and gross partisanship for ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... presence of Faustus and the Devil? It was here determined that Alphonso of Arragon, the husband of Lucretia, should be assassinated, in order that they might give the King of France a proof that they were willing to break entirely with the King of Naples, and to assist the former in his usurpation of the crown of Sicily. Louis the Twelfth had already, with the approbation of Alexander, invaded Italy, and the Borgias thereby saw all their projects ripening. Lucretia intrusted this bloody deed to the management of her brother, and already ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... "orderly mob" which assembled in the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws,—but illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea-tax and stamp-act laws! Our fathers resisted, not the king's prerogative, but the king's usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. Our State archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament unconstitutional, beyond its power. It was not till this was made out that the ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... remembered the saying of King Charles I, that the prisons and the graves of princes lay not far distant from one another; the person of the King was now struck at, as well as his government, and this specious undertaking would now appear to be only a disguised and designed usurpation. These things began to work on great numbers. And the posting of the Dutch guards where the English guards had been, gave a general disgust to the whole English army. They indeed hated the Dutch besides, on account of the good ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... superstitious, when I saw your M.'s book against Vorstius and Arminius, and noted your zeal to deliver the majesty of God from the vain and indign comprehensions of heresy and degenerate philosophy, as you had by your pen formerly endeavoured to deliver kings from the usurpation of Rome, perculsit illico animum that God would set shortly upon you some visible favour, and let me not live if I thought not of the taking away of ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... great advances in this kingdom, superstition loses ground; antient prejudices give way; a spirit of freedom takes the ascendant. All the learned laity of France detest the hierarchy as a plan of despotism, founded on imposture and usurpation. The protestants, who are very numerous in southern parts, abhor it with all the rancour of religious fanaticism. Many of the commons, enriched by commerce and manufacture, grow impatient of those odious distinctions, which exclude them from the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... in the Court to declare statutes unconstitutional has been bitterly assailed, and is still denounced in some quarters, as judicial usurpation originated ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... living men, object to the French Imperial view of his career. Mommsen, whose admiration of Caesar is as ardent as his knowledge of Roman history is great, speaks with well-deserved scorn of the efforts that are made to defend contemporary usurpation by misrepresentation of the history of antiquity. One of his remarks is curious, read in connection with that history which daily appears in our journals. Writing before our civil war began, he declared, that, if ever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... was early relegated to the limbo of neglect. Only a few years after the founding of Manila royal decrees began to issue on the subject of complaints received by the King over the usurpation of lands on the part of the priests. Using the same methods so familiar in the heyday of the institution of monasticism in Europe—pious gifts, deathbed bequests, pilgrims' offerings—the friar orders gradually secured the richest of the arable lands in the more thickly settled ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... represented there. On the government? it suffers itself to be insulted and defied at home, and abroad it has shown itself incapable of maintaining the relations of peace and amity with its allies, so far has it been divested of power by the usurpation of the press. It is at peace with Spain, and it is at peace with Turkey; and although no government was ever more desirous of acting with good faith, its subjects are openly assisting the Greeks with men and money against the one, and the Spanish Americans against the other. Athens, in ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... power, And you shall find them either hot-brained youth, Or needy bankrupts, servile in their greatness, And slaves to some, to lord it o'er the rest. O baseness, to support a tyrant throne, And crush your freeborn brethren of the world! Nay, to become a part of usurpation; To espouse the tyrant's person and her crimes, And, on a tyrant, get a race of tyrants, To be your ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... from the number of his encomiasts, all those who are placed below the flight of fame, and who hear in the valleys of life no voice but that of necessity; all those who imagine themselves too important to regard him, and consider the mention of his name as an usurpation of their time; all who are too much or too little pleased with themselves, to attend to any thing external; all who are attracted by pleasure, or chained down by pain, to unvaried ideas; all who are withheld from attending his triumph by different pursuits; and all who slumber ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... the Confederation might have been mitigated and perhaps averted. In their enthusiasm over the Declaration of Independence the people—by whom is meant the articulate class consisting largely of the governing and commercial elements—would probably have accepted such a usurpation of authority. But with their lack of experience it is not surprising that the delegates to Congress did not appreciate the necessity of such radical action and so were unwilling to take the responsibility for ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... convents. But the hypocrites—for such they are—joined with the other fraternities in accusing their preacher Clement, when, passing from censuring the crimes of the state, he began to display the pride, ignorance, and luxury of the churchmen themselves—their thirst of power, their usurpation over men's consciences, and their desire to augment their ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... twelve answers by non-jurors! A French politician of this stamp recently was suspended from his lectureship for asserting that the possession of the soil was a right; by which principle, any king reigning over a country, whether by treachery, crime, and usurpation, was a legitimate sovereign. For this convenient principle the lecturer was tried, and declared not guilty—by persons who have lately found their advantage in a confusion of words. In treaties between nations, a "confusion of words" has been more particularly studied; and that negotiator ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... corresponding myth that the ancient inhabitants of the island were descended from the Trojan Brute was acceptable to the British race. But amid much of fable there is the undoubted fact that Germanic tribes were gradually possessing themselves of the fairest parts of Britain—a progressive usurpation, far different from a sudden conquest. Amid the wreck of the social institutions left by Rome, when all that remained of a governing power was centred in the towns, it may be readily conceived that the rich districts of the eastern and southern coasts would ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... the laws, had his seat in the capital of the nation, while the priests of his tribe were scattered among the other tribes, and were hereditary. The Hebrew priests simply interpreted the laws; the priests of Egypt made them. Their power was chiefly judicial. They had no means of usurpation, neither from property, nor military command. They were simply the expositors of laws which they did not make, which they could not change, and which they themselves were bound to obey. The income of a Levite was about five times as great as an ordinary man, and this, of course, was ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the express image of the imperial beast of the sea, (ch. xiii. 14;) yet the leaven of the Romish religion pervades all the Christian community, so far as allegiance to the beast or his horns is either enjoined or tolerated. This usurpation of the royal prerogatives of Christ over the churches and nations in the eastern hemisphere by the kings of the earth, and a similar usurpation in the western hemisphere, whether by individual despots or by the body politic, is the great crime which fills the ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... substance of free government in that kingdom. You deposed kings; [Footnote: 47] you restored them; you altered the succession to theirs, as well as to your own Crown; but you never altered their Constitution, the principle of which was respected by usurpation, restored with the restoration of monarchy, and established, I trust, forever, by the glorious Revolution. This has made Ireland the great and flourishing kingdom that it is, and, from a disgrace and a burthen intolerable to this nation, ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... the realities of the question is the no less inveterate conviction in the tenants' mind that the absolute power of the landlord was originally a usurpation effected by the sword. Right or wrong, they believe that the confiscations were the palpable violation of the natural rights of the people whom Providence placed in this country. With bitter emphasis they assert that no set of men has any divine right to ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... itself From the insensate mail, its fellow warrior? And have I brought home with me Victory, And with her, hand in hand, firm-footed Peace, 160 Her countenance twice lighted up with glory, As if I had charmed a goddess down from Heaven? But these will flee abhorrent from the throne Of usurpation! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... mended. He, like Redmond, was a staunch practising Catholic, and later on was the friend and trusted associate of many priests; but he stood for an element in Ireland which refused to allow the least usurpation by ecclesiastical authority in ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... sought to usurp a throne and overwhelmed with ridicule a village imbecile, who was yet supposed because of his mental weakness to be possessed of miraculous prescience, and therefore to have a prevision of what was to follow the usurpation. They saw the incidents of the drama moving past their eyes within a framework of barbaric splendor typical of a wonderful political past, an amazing political present, and possibly prophetic of a still ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... only can reason thus set itself up in isolated usurpation against such other activities as imagination, intuition, will or taste; it can also divide itself against itself and emerge in completely contradictory functions. In the form of mathematical logic, for instance, it can dispose most drastically of ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... this statement that Erthai was the lawful lord of the Mordei. He had been deprived of his dominions for a time, probably through the usurpation of the "steel-clad commander," but at length succeeded in recovering them. Who Erthai was we know not; Llywarch Hen had a son, whose name bore some resemblance to the word: he is mentioned in the ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... kinship with the Emperor, offered support to his plans. Jane therefore was at once proclaimed Queen on Edward's death, and accepted as their sovereign by the Lords of the Council. But the temper of the whole people rebelled against so lawless a usurpation. The eastern counties rose as one man to support Mary; and when Northumberland marched from London with ten thousand at his back to crush the rising, the Londoners, Protestant as they were, showed their ill-will by a stubborn silence. "The people crowd to look upon us," the Duke ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... in narration, affected in style, and feeble in thought, than we have lately found in any large octavo volume of five hundred pages. We begin with four introductory chapters recounting the events which led to the usurpation of Bolingbroke, and the succession of Mr. Towle's hero to the English throne; we go on with two chapters descriptive of the youthful character and career of Henry the Fifth; we end with six chapters devoted to the facts of his reign. Through all this, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... allow it to be read, on the ground that it was not in order. Mr. Adams repeated substantially the same motion in June, 1838, then adding "that any attempt by act of Congress or by treaty to annex the Republic of Texas to this Union would be an usurpation of power which it would be the right and the duty of the free people of the Union to resist and annul." The story of his opposition to this measure is, however, so interwoven with his general antagonism to slavery, that there is little occasion for ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... itself an enemy, it will cast itself into the arms of a convenient servitude. In another place, reduced to despair by a pedantic tutelage, it will be driven into the savage license of the state of nature. Usurpation will invoke the weakness of human nature, and insurrection will invoke its dignity, till at length the great sovereign of all human things, blind force, shall come in and decide, like a vulgar pugilist, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various |
