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Vindicate   /vˈɪndəkeɪt/   Listen
Vindicate

verb
(past & past part. vindicated; pres. part. vindicating)
1.
Show to be right by providing justification or proof.  Synonym: justify.
2.
Maintain, uphold, or defend.
3.
Clear of accusation, blame, suspicion, or doubt with supporting proof.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Vindicate" Quotes from Famous Books



... rugged character and marked determination. Save for a slight contraction of the brow, he gave no evidence of the mental concentration he bestowed upon the matter in hand, which was to lead to the culmination of the struggle and to vindicate the wisdom and boldness ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... besieged with petitions for military protection at a hundred points, and all the elements of a dangerous explosion were gathered together. At this critical time Charles Napier was offered the command of the troops in the northern district, and amply did he vindicate the choice. By the most careful preparation beforehand, by the most consummate coolness in the moment of danger, he rode the storm. He saw the danger of billeting small detachments of troops in isolated positions; ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... pass unpunished, but because I had an opportunity of perceiving its ugliness very early in life. When only seven or eight years old I heard a boy—I still remember his name—tell his mother a shameless lie about some prank in which I had shared. I did not interrupt him to vindicate the truth, but I shrank in horror with the feeling of having ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... enemies worthy only of silent disdain; how often it was perverted to the more noxious purpose of destroying the last solace of earthly misery, and the last restraint on earthly power. Neither can we pause to tell how often it was used to vindicate justice, humanity, and toleration, the principles of sound philosophy, the principles of free government. This is not the place for a ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... girl was old enough to take care of herself. Carry did not put her own case so brutally, but she allowed it to be thus put for her by her latest bosom friend, Mrs. Jack Stepney: Mrs. Stepney, trembling over the narrowness of her only brother's escape, but eager to vindicate Mrs. Fisher, at whose house she could count on the "jolly parties" which had become a necessity to her since marriage had emancipated her from the Van Osburgh point ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... but I sought revenge upon Monsieur de G—, and in seeking that, I planted daggers into the heart of Madame d'Albret; but I did not at the time that I wrote reflect upon this. What I wished to do was to vindicate myself, and that I could not do without exposing Monsieur de G—, and exposing him in his true colours was, of course, awakening Madame d'Albret to her position sooner than she would have been, and filling ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat

... inevitably distorted bias of society; but also, I tell him this second little thing, viz., that upon turning away the glass from that one obvious aspect of Kate's character, her too fiery disposition to vindicate all rights by violence, and viewing her in relation to general religious capacities, she was a thousand times more promisingly endowed than himself. It is impossible to be noble in many things, without having many points of contact with true religion. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... verbis, of date 19th January, in which he declared that he was prepared to suffer the last extremities rather than betray the cause of the church and of justice. He also invited all the bishops to join with him in praying that God would arise and vindicate his cause. ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... convince him of his wrongdoing, and asked if he did not know that but for his protection the soldiers would tear him to pieces in an instant. Vallandigham answered, "Draw your soldiers up in a hollow square to-morrow morning, and announce to them that Vallandigham desires to vindicate himself, and I will guarantee that when they have heard me through they will be more willing to tear Lincoln and yourself to pieces than they will Vallandigham." The general said he had too much regard for his prisoner's life ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... that Mercy had made no confession to him to which it was possible to appeal—he had signed his name without an instant's hesitation: and there he stood now, looking at the woman whose better nature he was determined to vindicate, the only calm person ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins

... unfaithful to the spirit of his undertaking would be as weak a thing as not to fulfill the letter of his oath. His shadowy duty to the girl would not justify himself in evading a crisis demanding his life for the life of another, nor would it vindicate the greater evasion. It was a matter of honor to remain true to that which at the start had justified the whole hazard to him. It was this which restrained him even from learning whether or not Barstow ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... that eminent firm, Messrs. Dashwood and Solomon, with every confidence and without the least perturbation," he said. "Their findings will vindicate my honour beyond any question. I shall ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... inconsistent! should I live in shame, Or stoop to any other means but this T' assert my virtue? no: she who disputes, Admits it possible she might be guilty. While aught but truth could be my inducement to it, While it might look like an excuse to thee, I scorn'd to vindicate my innocence: But now, I let thy rashness know, the wound Which least I feel, is that my ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young

... "naive realism." One may even know the degree to which the modern pragmatism of James and Schiller and others would find the bounds of "true presentments" transgressed—those presentments which we are able to make our own, to vindicate, enforce, ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner

... One more and the battle was won. It was a Sunday in June. I had especially invited Mr. Desmond and his niece to come out to dinner and to spend the afternoon, and had insisted to Fred Marston that he should come with his wife. I wanted to vindicate my right to have what friends I pleased, and then I didn't care overmuch if I never saw him again. Mrs. Pinkerton had gone to church alone as usual. For some weeks Bessie had been unable to accompany her, and I preferred the sanctuary at which the scholarly, but heterodox, Mr. Freeman preached. ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... shoulders of the greatest and the least. He understood, though not clearly, that he and his three comrades had dragged themselves and their race in the mud at the feet of a foreigner, and with that shock of understanding came the desire to vindicate himself and the uncounted millions who ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie

... the central mystery of mysteries—the problem of sin and suffering, the one huge difficulty which the reasoner has to solve in order to vindicate the dealings of God with man. But take our own case as an example. I, for one, am very clear what I have got out of our experience. I say it with all humility, but I have a clearer view of my duties than ever I had before. It has taught me to be less remiss in saying what I think ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... goes to press, the British Empire finds itself forced to vindicate its position in the East: a position purchased at the cost of much blood and treasure during the war, to be jeopardized after the conclusion of peace by the defeat of Greece and the ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... to the perils which have been gathering around our cherished form of Government and menacing its overthrow, has witnessed with lively satisfaction the determination of the President to maintain the Constitution and vindicate the supremacy of Government and law ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various

... be displeased, because Fabius had not consulted them before making the arrangement. Fabius, in order to preserve his own and his country's faith unsullied, sold his farm to raise the money. He did thus most certainly protect and vindicate his own honor, but he can hardly be said to have saved that of ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Jorrocks. He is a man for youth to imitate and revere! Conceive, then, the horror of a man of his delicate sensibility—of his nervous dread of depreciation—being compelled to appear here this day to vindicate his character, nay more, his honour, from one of the foulest attempts at conspiracy that was ever directed against any individual. I say that a grosser attack was never made upon the character of any grocer, and I look confidently to the reversion of this ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... can only invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered us from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear, and putting our trust in Him and in our firm hearts and strong arms we will vindicate the right as ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon

... language permitted the introduction of a new confession of faith. Tennessee remarked: "An opportunity is here given to introduce a new confession of faith. This appears a conclusive proof that the General Synod do not intend to be governed by (the Augsburg Confession of Faith, nor vindicate the Lutheran doctrines contained therein; for if they did, they would not by this clause have given liberty to form other confessions of faith. Perhaps this may be one of the reasons why they have nowhere promised ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente

... how shall I vindicate my innocence? I think I ought to go back openly to this woman's house and get my hat. I was about to do that when I got your note; yet it seems a ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... ride, And to the Capitol his chariot guide, From conquer'd Corinth, rich with Grecian spoils. And yet another, fam'd for warlike toils, On Argos shall impose the Roman laws, And on the Greeks revenge the Trojan cause; Shall drag in chains their Achillean race; Shall vindicate his ancestors' disgrace, And Pallas, for her violated place. Great Cato there, for gravity renown'd, And conqu'ring Cossus goes with laurels crown'd. Who can omit the Gracchi? who declare The Scipios' worth, those thunderbolts of war, The double bane of Carthage? Who can see Without ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... to oppose them and their designs by every means; which designs must, otherwise, inevitably involve the whole country in the most direful calamity, as they will call for the vengeance of offended majesty and the insulted laws to be exerted here, to vindicate ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... a stronger power, if they had passed that Bill, or restored Stanley's in committee, and returned it to the House of Commons, I believe everything might have been retrieved. It has been remarked, and certainly with truth, that Peel has never once endeavoured to excuse the House of Lords or to vindicate the peers from the taunts and reproaches which have repeatedly been thrown out against them. In point of fact, I believe that the Lords either did not consult him, or did not care for his opinion. There is no disguising that the Lords liked ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... Miss Bush or Mr. Johnston feel that they have been misunderstood and wronged in any way I shall be glad to either apologize or vindicate myself in ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various

... adaptability of Christianity to the fortunes and hopes of our race. That ministers avoid the special topics of peculiar destinies, may easily be accounted for otherwise than by supposing that they cannot explain them so as to vindicate God's justice; but if ever there was a case where that difficulty would seem to the eye of mere reason to culminate in impossibility, it is that which I have gleaned from a veritable pulpit lecture. I have the sermon in my possession, but from the want ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various

... eager quest for fullness of life, we find it, I believe, even more truly, though less frequently, characteristic of the circumstances of peace than those of war. It was upon this plain fact that William James sought to vindicate the possibility of what he called, in his famous essay of that title, "a moral equivalent of war." He affirmed that "the war party is assuredly right in affirming and reaffirming that the martial virtues are absolute and permanent human goods." But, he continues, ...
— Heroes in Peace - The 6th William Penn Lecture, May 9, 1920 • John Haynes Holmes

... met with free approach, Although they came not in a coach: Some clergy too she would allow, Nor quarrell'd at their awkward bow; But this was for Cadenus' sake, A gownman of a different make; Whom Pallas once, Vanessa's tutor, Had fix'd on for her coadjutor. But Cupid, full of mischief, longs To vindicate his mother's wrongs. On Pallas all attempts are vain: One way he knows to give her pain; Vows on Vanessa's heart to take Due vengeance, for her patron's sake; Those early seeds by Venus sown, In spite of Pallas now were grown; And Cupid hoped they ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... and capricious, and perhaps almost always, unmeaning; to clear myself from these imputations, by a candid confession of the motives which have governed me, is all that I wished. Once, also—I hope but once,—you thought me impertinent,—there, indeed, I less dare vindicate myself—" ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... and one or two other of her acquaintances, she very thoughtlessly and not exactly in the right spirit, repeated some remarks she had heard about Ellen Gray that reflected upon her rather unfavourably. Mary Lee at once attempted to vindicate her friend, but Flora maintained that the allegations were certainly true, for she had them from an undoubted source. Mary asked that source, but she declined mentioning it, on the ground that she did not wish to violate the confidence reposed ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur

... and torpor of the night still hung over Hollyoake Square. That dreary neighbourhood seemed to vindicate its dreariness by being the last to awaken even to a semblance of activity and life. Nothing was stirring as yet at North Villa. I walked on, beyond the last houses, into the sooty London fields; and tried to think of the course I ought to ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... such commanders of ships or expeditions as might by their discoveries belittle his accomplishments. Hence resulted untold misery to the natives of the New World, consequent upon the crushing despotism he inaugurated in order to gain gold with which to vindicate himself to his sovereigns. Hence came Bodadilla and Ovando, sent out to investigate his doings, one of whom despatched him in fetters to Spain, and the other hastened the extinction of the Indians, already begun ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober

... achievements. In Tuskegee and Its People heads of the several departments have not only given a succinct account of the history, resources, and current labors of the school, but deal most happily with the governing ideals behind the institution, and vindicate its claim to the approval of the world's thinkers and moving forces. Besides treating rather elaborately the structural efficiency of the work of the teachers, the editor has not neglected to emphasize the spiritual ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... be secret, cautious, abide in the shadow, until the hour arrived to emerge therefrom, and, with the aid of God and Wardour Wentworth, defeat his schemes and vindicate the truth! ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... if no word had been written on it; and he wrestled in vain. A century and a half ago, when the Lisbon earthquake destroyed forty thousand Portuguese, Voltaire attempted, with equal unsuccess, to vindicate Providence with the faint hope of the Deist. Modern science, prolonging the sufferings of living things over earlier millions of years, has made that problem one of the great issues of our age, and this dread spectacle of human nature ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe

... having placed him above the temporal power, enabled him to brave the Governor openly. The Bishop's nephew, taking the Governor's kindness for weakness, broke publicly into insulting terms about him. The Governor's brother, Father Hinostrosa, pressed him to vindicate his dignity, but he refused, saying he wanted peace at any price. This policy the Bishop did not understand, for all concessions he set down as weakness, and they encouraged him to ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... whoever they might happen to be. On the other hand, the coachman of the Marquis, conscious of his own dignity and that of his master, and observing the rival charioteer was mending his pace, resolved, like a true brother of the whip, whether ancient or modern, to vindicate his right of precedence. So that, to increase the confusion of the Lord Keeper's understanding, he saw the short time which remained for consideration abridged by the haste of the contending coachmen, who, fixing their eyes sternly on each other, and applying the lash smartly ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... with a pamphlet from Mr Bailey, entitled "A Letter to a Philosopher, in Reply to some Recent Attempts to Vindicate Berkeley's Theory of Vision, and in further Elucidation of its Unsoundness." Our article on Mr Bailey's review of Berkeley's theory, which appeared in Blackwood's Magazine of June 1842, was one of these attempts. Had the author merely attacked or controverted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... consort of a most unhappy monarch is without a flaw. Enmity, hatred, and every evil passion, have done their worst to palliate murder and to blacken innocence, but the ineradicable spot cannot be fixed to the fair fame of this true woman. Faultless she was not. We are under no obligation to vindicate her imprudent, wilful, and fatal interference with public questions in which she had no concern; we say nothing of her ignorance of the high matters of state into which her uninformed zeal conducted her, to the bitter cost of herself and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... hope, they now can take. The greatest and the best of men are above their reach; and, for our meanness, though they assault us like footpads in the dark, their blows have done us little harm: we yet live to justify ourselves in open day, to vindicate our loyalty to the government, and to assure your lordship, with all submission and sincerity, that ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... 1761 he published a poem entitled "Night," addressed to Lloyd, in which, while seeking to vindicate himself from the charges against his morale, he in reality glories in his shame. His sudden celebrity had perhaps acted as a glare of light, revealing faults that might have been overlooked in an obscure person. With his dissipation, too, there mingled some elements of generosity ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... offer, saying that he had been, at the proper time, denied a chance to explain, "at the peril of having my hair pulled or my throat cut." He added that his speech was deliberately prepared, that his sole design was "to vindicate the government of the United States from those feelings of prejudice and that spirit of defection which seemed to pervade the public sentiment," and that he had had no intention to offer insult or disrespect to his audience. This ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... believe me capable of a crime like this? What! Am I actually accused of it? Do you think that I would have made an attack upon her life? I, the mother of a child, before whom I would not wish to be disgraced? Justice will vindicate me—Marguerite, let no one leave the room. Gentlemen, tell me what has taken place since yesterday evening, when I ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac

... master; and I should certainly not attribute his refraining from the tables to any superior strength of mind: indeed, it would be singular if such a characteristic belonged to a man whose own hired advocate could only vindicate his client's heart at the expense of his head. Pope tells us, that to form a just estimate of any one's character, we must study his ruling passion; and by adopting this rule, we shall soon obtain a satisfactory clew both to the exquisite ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... What can lie Nearer the good man's heart than friends and kindred? What dearer duty to a noble soul, Than to protect weak, suffering innocence, And vindicate the rights of the oppress'd? My very soul bleeds for your countrymen. I suffer with them, for I needs must love them; They are so gentle, yet so full of power; They draw my whole heart to them. Every day I ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... more energetic measures, however, in order to vindicate my reputation, I was anxious to offer to Dr. Royce an opportunity of doing me justice in a manner which should be consistent with full vindication, yet should involve the least possible publicity and the least possible mortification to himself. Accordingly, on June 20, I wrote to Mr. Warner ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... a long imprisonment, but very soon released, for every one recognized that he had only fought to vindicate his wounded honor. ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... chief elements of this remarkable interest in the game rather than the prizes of it was his desire to vindicate his guesses or his conclusions. He liked to predict to himself the outcome of his solitary operations, and then to prove that prediction through laborious days. His life was a gigantic game of solitaire. In fact, he mentioned a dozen of his claims many ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... them such representations of facts only as he had judged proper to make to the Ministry during the past year relative to the town, in order that, by knowing precisely what had been alleged against its proceedings or character, the town might have an opportunity to vindicate itself. After characterizing as truly alarming to a free people the array of ships of war around it and the troops within it, the address proceeds,—"Your Excellency can witness for the town that no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... towers,—new feelings, and an altered scale of admiration wait upon its glories. Once more it uplifts its giant height beside the Rhine, repelling in Titan majesty the ambition of France; once more, by its united gifts of natural position and scientific aid, it appears prepared to vindicate its noble appellation of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various

... of the American people with an enthusiasm that always blazed most brightly when a personal interest was at stake. His enthusiasm for American liberty was easily converted into enthusiasm for the liberty of his own class, and to vindicate that, he put Figaro on ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... decided reluctance to take her friend into her confidence with regard to the Farabad episode. There were times when she wondered herself if she were altogether justified in condemning Major Fletcher unheard, in spite of the evidence against him. But she had no intention of giving him an opportunity to vindicate himself if she could possibly avoid ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... invasions of the Turks throughout Eastern Europe. The learning of the Moslem, as well as their commerce, began to pour rapidly into Christendom, both from Spain, Egypt, and Syria; and thus the Crusaders were, indeed, rewarded according to their deeds. They had fancied that they were bound to vindicate the possession of the earth for Him to whom they believed the earth belonged. He showed them—or rather He has shown us, their children—that He can vindicate His own dominion better far than man can do it for Him; and their cruel and unjust aim was utterly foiled. ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley

... feeling of self-respect that comes from profitable employment. To the men themselves the year of jubilee had come. At one great step they had crossed the gulf that separates chattels from men and they now had a chance to vindicate their manhood. A common poster of the day represented a Negro soldier bearing the flag, the shackles of a slave being broken, a young Negro boy reading a newspaper, and several children going into ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... this gentleman as Privy Counsellor, Wych Hazel withdrew her affairs from public notice; however much inclined to vindicate her power of personating what she liked, especially pine trees. She dropped the subject and took up her bread and butter. And so did Dr. Maryland, for a while; but he eat thoughtfully. There was a pause, during which Primrose was affectionately solicitous ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... then heard with general approbation; and they prevailed so far, that, without adjourning the meeting, or waiting for the absence of the Romans, a decree was passed that Antiochus should be invited to vindicate the liberty of Greece, and decide the dispute between the Aetolians and the Romans. To the insolence of this decree, their praetor, Damocritus, added a personal affront: for on Quinctius asking him for a copy of the decree, without any respect to the dignity of the person ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... Vamhidy has instructed me to act for him. What intrigues, what tricks were employed to fasten upon him the suspicion of forgery! Nobody knows that better than you, sir. And let me tell you that although my young client is nothing but a strolling player, I shall spare no pains to thoroughly vindicate his good name and you, with all your wealth and property, will be unable to affect the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... for a pretext to vindicate this unjust robbery—or, rather, so deadened had I become, I felt no need of a pretext; and in order to dissipate every idea of the kind, I hastened on, regardless of the unhappy man, whose fearful lamentations ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various

... him with more vigour than mercy, and in a manner which surprised me, either that he should venture, or that even the miserable objects before us should bear. Had he exerted his hands and his oar in a similar manner either in England or in America, he would have been compelled to vindicate his assumed superiority by his superior manhood. Here every one fled before him, and yielded him as much submission and obedience, as if he had been the ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney

... his secrets—it was so evident that she would not be troublesome, but would wait with shut eyes, as Hammond had said, for a birthday surprise and triumph! O poor little Sissy! O faith which he felt within himself no strength to vindicate! He answered her in carefully weighed sentences, and smiled as he wrote them down because they amused him—a smile sadder than tears. Percival Thorne was dead, and he was some one else, trying to think what Percival would have said, and to hide his death from Sissy, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... sleeveless striplings bear,[27] Whilst Smith and Sutton from the canvass stare.[28] Hear'st thou through all this consecrated ground, The rattling thong's unwonted clangour sound? Awake! arise! though many a danger lour, By one bright deed to vindicate thy power." He ceased; as loud the fatal whip resounds, With throbbing heart the eager Doctor bounds. So when some bear from Russia's clime convey'd, Politer grown, has learnt the dancer's trade, If weary with his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... witness the pledge which thou didst give me, and witness Heaven, which thou thyself didst call to witness the promise thou hadst made me; and if all this fail, thy own conscience will not fail to lift up its silent voice in the midst of all thy gaiety, and vindicate the truth of what I say and mar ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... whom the restoration of the empire was directly due, the new Reich began its organization as a united federation. Among its earliest difficulties was an ecclesiastical contest with the Church of Rome. Known as the Kulturkampf, this struggle was an effort to vindicate the right of the state to interfere in the affairs of all German religious societies. Another difficulty which demanded government interference was the Judenhetze, or persecution of the Jews, which reached a climax in 1881. A further difficulty was encountered in the quick growth of ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... rather defiantly. "In addition to desiring to serve my country, I want to vindicate my manhood from some aspersions which have been ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... such a war, be just or reasonable? Most assuredly: every to his character. What is your meaning? You are a philosopher—Justinian is emperor of the Romans: it would all become the disciple of Plato to shed the blood of thousands in his private quarrel: the successor of Augustus should vindicate his rights, and recover by arms the ancient provinces of his empire." This reasoning might not convince, but it was sufficient to alarm and subdue the weakness of Theodatus; and he soon descended to his last offer, that for the poor equivalent ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... to be respectful in words to his superior, though he may equal him in actions. Neither is it allowable in a Churchman when armed to confess it. There are some things wherein men are willing to be deceived. Actions very often vindicate men's reputations in what they do against the dignity of their profession, but nothing can justify words that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... carrier didn't know what he was doing. His one desire was to vindicate himself in the cold eyes of the man before him. But he told it well and he did ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... last turn taskers, maltsters, costermongers, graziers, sell ale as some have done, or worse. Howsoever in undertaking this task, I hope I shall commit no great error or indecorum, if all be considered aright, I can vindicate myself with Georgius Braunus, and Hieronymus Hemingius, those two learned divines; who (to borrow a line or two of mine [166]elder brother) drawn by a "natural love, the one of pictures and maps, prospectives and chorographical delights, writ that ample theatre of cities; the ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... could well boast of his loyalty to the Spanish crown; and he might well say that, whether he were or were not experienced in government, he had been surrounded by such difficulties in administration as hardly any other man had had to go through. But really, it was hardly necessary that he should vindicate himself. ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale

... him, or carried merely as an apology for sauntering slowly by the banks of some little brooklet—and his success so indifferent, that Meg said the piper of Peebles[I-11] would have caught a creelfu' before Maister Francie made out the half-dozen; so that he was obliged, for peace's sake, to vindicate his character, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... which the natives suffered, it was none the less educational, the author's purpose being to put before his countrymen a minute and accurate description of the New World and its inhabitants that should vindicate the latter's right to equitable treatment at the hands of their conquerors. Misrepresented and defamed, as he maintained the Indians were, by the mendacious reports sent to Spain, Las Casas composed this interesting apology as one part of his scheme of defence. As a ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in thought and in action to the immemorial principles of our people, which I have sought to express in my address to the Senate only two weeks ago—seek merely to vindicate our rights to liberty and justice and an unmolested life. These are the bases of peace, not war. God grant that we may not be challenged to defend them by acts of willful injustice on the part ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... print, which Herder afterwards inserted in his pamphlet, "Von Deutscher Art und Kunst" ("Of German Manner and Art"), much more will be said on this weighty subject. But, before I turn from it this time, I will take the opportunity to vindicate the motto prefixed to the present volume with those who may have entertained some doubt about it. I know indeed very well, that in opposition to this honest, hopeful old German saying, "Of whatever one wishes in youth, he has abundance in old ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... wish to serve no selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in thought and in action to the immemorial principles of our people which I sought to express in my address to the Senate only two weeks ago—seek merely to vindicate our right to liberty and justice and an unmolested life. These are bases of peace, not war. God grant we may not be challenged to defend them by acts of wilful injustice on the part of the Government ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson

... situation in Europe, whether intervention should come from the English aristocracy or from the French emperor. The instincts of the people, everywhere, are on our side; their strong arms may not be slow to vindicate the judgment they pronounce, and to follow the sentiments and sympathies ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... deadly and irreconcilable feud. He was much stouter, taller, and stronger than myself; and, far from conceding to me that respect which I imagined my priority of birth entitled me to claim, he took every opportunity to deride my pretensions, and to vindicate the cause of the superior strength and vigour which constituted his own. It would have done your heart good to have seen us cuff one another, we did it with such zeal. There is nothing in human passion like a good brotherly hatred! My mother said, with ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... landed, and the Chinese positions carried. The forts and barracks were destroyed, and Mr. Stanton released. Then it was said that "China must either bend or break," for the hour of English forbearance had passed away, and unless China could vindicate her policy by force of arms there was no longer any doubt that she would have ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... my dear Charlotte, for I am certain that he had the impudence by that look, of pretending to suspect the reality of mine. But you I am sure will vindicate my character whenever you may hear it so cruelly aspersed, for you can witness how often I have protested against wearing Rouge, and how much I always told you I disliked it. And I assure you that my opinions are still the same.—. Well, not bearing to be so suspected by my Brother, I left ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... if it is retained, guilt is believed to be demonstrated. Their faith is so firm in its discriminating power, that the supposed criminal offers of his own accord to drink it, and even chiefs are not exempted. Chibisa, relying on its efficacy, drank it several times, in order to vindicate his character. When asserting that all his wars had been just, it was hinted that, as every chief had the same tale of innocence to tell, we ought to suspend our judgment. "If you doubt my word," said he, "give me the muave to drink." A chief at the foot of ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... Orleton, the time-serving cowardice of Reynolds, the stupidity of Kent and Norfolk, the party spirit of Stratford and Ayermine, can inspire nothing but disgust. Among the foes of Edward, Henry of Leicester alone behaved as an honourable gentleman, anxious to vindicate a policy, but careful to subordinate his private wrongs to public objects. Though his name and wrongs were ostentatiously put forward by the dominant faction, it is clear from the beginning that he was only a tool in its hands, and that the reversal of the sentence of ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... Death, to vindicate her Wrongs, Gives her Fame which never dies; So the Life that died with Shame, Lives in Death with ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]

... and Eastern periodicals which, during our Civil War, were bitterly opposed to the race and institutions of the South? Those papers have represented you as men who always appeal to the sword and pistol, instead of the law, to vindicate your private grievances. They heaped accusations against you which I will not here repeat. Instead of taking these publications as the basis of my information, it was my duty to come among you; to live with you; to read your life by studying your public and private character. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... pure heroic drama, the ruling sentiments of love and honour are carried to the most passionate extravagance. And, to maintain the legitimacy of this style of composition, our author, ever ready to vindicate with his pen to be right, that which his timid critics murmured at as wrong, threw the gauntlet down before the admirers of the ancient English school, in the Epilogue to the "Second Part of the Conquest of Granada," and in the Defence of ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... "whether he has, or has not, an explicit knowledge of Him;" he cannot but acknowledge an eternal First Cause.[7] And so a whole host of Pantheistic Spiritualists will indignantly disclaim the imputation of Atheism, and even attempt to vindicate Spinoza himself from the odious charge.[8] Nay, some of the grossest Materialists, such as Atkinson and Martineau, while they explicitly deny the existence of a living personal God, will affirm that Pantheism is not Atheism.[9] Now, unquestionably, if by Theism we mean nothing ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... people would exhaust their vocabulary of abuse, and Peter, of course, would apply every word of it to himself and become wild with anger. He would long to answer back; he was waiting for the day when he might vindicate himself and his cause by smashing these Reds ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... "We can't allow them to kill that old man, not even to vindicate poetical justice," he ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... of national affairs when even America seems to doubt and when the selfish motive of fear threatens to palsy the nation's hand, Governor Cox became the man to vindicate the statements and the pledges given before all the world. His introduction to the conscience and intellect of the country was a demand that the ...
— The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox • Charles E. Morris

... These are all unpublished. Of course, I use the contemporary historians and pamphleteers,—Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English,—but the most valuable of my sources are manuscript ones. I have said the little which I have said in order to vindicate the largeness of the subject. The kingdom of Holland is a small power now, but the Eighty Years' War, which secured the civil and religious independence of the Dutch Commonwealth and of Europe, was the great event ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... harm. He says he has known of many riots that have never been reported and of much suffering endured in silence which have "fallen out rather to the furtherance of the gospel,'' and that "if we leave God to vindicate our cause, the issue is sure to ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... points of doctrine. Thus, while sermons in defence of the Roman Catholic religion were preached on every Sunday and holiday within the precincts of the royal palaces, the Church of the state, the Church of the great majority of the nation, was forbidden to explain and vindicate her own principles. The spirit of the whole clerical order rose against this injustice. William Sherlock, a divine of distinguished abilities, who had written with sharpness against Whigs and Dissenters, and had been rewarded by the government with the Mastership of the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... excommunication, addressed to all Christians beloved of God. He followed it by a second letter, also breathing courage and defiance. A conflict ensued. The Arrabbiati sent accusations against the Prior to Rome, while the Seigniory sought to vindicate him, most of the members, newly elected, being his friends. The plague grew so terrible that on some days there were a hundred deaths. In the autumn it abated, and gradually disappeared. Savonarola's energy in fighting the pestilence was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... the linnet pours his throat? Loves of his own and raptures swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously bestride Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain. Thine the full harvest of the golden year? Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer. The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labors of this lord of all. Know, Nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch warm'd a bear. While man exclaims, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... Maul—'I am a servant of the God of heaven; my business is to persuade sinners to repentance; if to prevent this be thy quarrel, let us fall to it as soon as thou wilt,' vol. iii., p. 210. Southey attempts to vindicate the justices in condemning Bunyan, and grossly mis-states the facts; deeming him to be unreasonable and intolerant; that preaching was incompatible with his calling, and that he ought not to have sacrificed his liberty in such a cause! The poet-laureate makes ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... that it was due to Bianca Buonaventuri's persuasion that the Grand Duke took no steps to vindicate his sister's honour or dishonour. The punishment of assassins mostly leads to further assassinations, and the "La cosa di Francesco" had reason to fear for her own life, seeing that her husband and her two dearest friends in Florence had been done brutally ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley

... successful, because he usually gave the highest limit. But in this case he rebelled. He wrote that the book had gone under his commission of L25, that he knew nobody else in the transaction, and that he insisted on having it, or he should at once transfer his orders to some one else. I endeavoured to vindicate my conduct by stating our long-continued practice, with which he was perfectly well acquainted, but without success. He grew more and more peremptory, insisting on having the book solely on the ground that it went under his limit. At length, after some months ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley

... article in the Knickerbocker. To which the Sinologist replied very suavely and apologetically indeed that he was "very sorry," but had never seen the article in the Knickerbocker, &c. But he did not publish the correction, as he should have done. For which reason I now vindicate myself from the insinuated accusation that I borrowed from Bancroft. I had, indeed, almost forgotten this work, "Fusang," when, in 1890, Prince Roland Bonaparte, at a dinner given by him to the Congres des Traditions Populaires, startled me by recurring to it and speaking ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... popedom; and while reason struggled on the one side against the dogmatic system, it struggled on the other to assert the rights of the state against the church, and to put restraints upon the privileges, dominion, and wealth, of the pope and clergy. The social struggle, to vindicate the liberty of the state against the undue power of the church, so far as it is the effect of free thought, appertains to our subject, in the same manner as was the case with the early attempts of a converse character of the Roman emperors to deny due liberty to the ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... my Uncle Morrison was in jail. Well, it is one of the proudest boasts I can make to-day to be able to say that I had an uncle who was in jail. But, ladies and gentlemen, my uncle went to jail to vindicate the rights of ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... my purpose either to deny or to entreat; for as the one can avail me nothing, so I intend the other shall be of little service. I will by no means bespeak your love and tenderness towards me; but shall first, by an open confession, endeavour to vindicate myself, and thus do what the greatness of my soul prompts me to. It is most true that I have loved, and do still love Guiscard; and whilst I live, which will not be long, shall continue to love him; and if such a thing as love be after death, I shall never cease to love him.... It appears ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... pale. She was no longer to have the washing. Then she quite lost her head; she was obliged to sit down on a chair, for her legs were giving way under her. She did not attempt to vindicate herself. All that she would ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... again forced upon John Jay—whether as a writer, jurist, envoy, or legislator—the evidence of his own letters, and especially the testimony of his fellow statesmen, adequately confute such misrepresentations as we have noted. It is a thankless, and, we believe, a superfluous task to vindicate the manliness, sincerity, and patriotism of the authors of the 'Federalist' and their fellow statesmen; indeed, their illustrious opponents in political questions again and again bore witness to the worth, wisdom, and integrity ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... and medicine of Jesus were one,—in the divine oneness of the trinity, Life, Truth, and Love, which healed the sick and cleansed the sinful. This trinity in unity, correcting the individual thought, is the only Mind-healing I vindicate; and on its standard have emblazoned that crystallized ...
— No and Yes • Mary Baker Eddy

... both the psalms, before this refrain, are an answer to the question which my text puts. 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul?' 'My soul' has been talking two whole psalms, to explain why it is cast down. And after all the eloquent torrent of words to vindicate and explain its reasons for sadness—separation from the sanctuary, bitter remembrances of bright days, which the poet tells us are 'a sorrow's crown of sorrow,' taunts of enemies and the like—after all these ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... a Period sunk dead in spirit, and alive only in stomach, can have, turns all on Kaiser Karl, and these his clutchings at shadows. Which makes a very sad, surprising History indeed; more worthy to be called Phenomena of Putrid Fermentation, than Struggles of Human Heroism to vindicate itself in this Planet, which latter alone are worthy of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... however, are scarcely sufficient to vindicate the boasted discernment of Elizabeth from disgrace, in having suffered the most illustrious sage of her reign and country, who was at the same time its brightest wit and most accomplished orator, known to her from his birth, and the son of a wise and faithful servant whose memory she held in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... twice obedient to Elijah's call to consume the military companies sent to arrest him. Cultivated discernment does not now put all Biblical miracles on a common level of credibility, any more than the historical work of Herodotus and that of the late Dr. Gardiner. To defend them all is not to vindicate, but to discredit all alike. The elimination of the indefensible, the setting aside of the legendary, the transference of the supposedly miraculous to the order of natural powers and processes so far as vindicable ground for such critical treatment is ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... denying that he had murdered Smerdis, he fully confessed to the astonished audience that he had really committed that crime; he openly denounced the reigning Smerdis as an impostor, and called upon all who heard him to rise at once, destroy the treacherous usurper, and vindicate the rights of the true Persian line. As he went on, with vehement voice and gestures, in this speech, the utterance of which he knew sealed his own destruction, he became more and more excited and reckless. He ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the twenty-second of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the third of February and on the twenty-sixth of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world against selfish and autocratic power and to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and action as will henceforth insure the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... through steel and bone. It has done great deeds, this little weapon, and each of these blows was a deliverance to the Church. This sword," he said, again sheathing it, "has yet more to do,—to weed out this base and pestilential heresy of Erastianism; to vindicate the true liberty of the Kirk in her purity; to restore the Covenant in its glory,—then let it moulder and rust beside the bones ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Caesalpinus; and his silence I take for a tacit confession. His ambition of glory made him willing to be thought the author of a paradox he had so illustrated, and brought upon the stage, where it lay unregarded, and in all probability buried in oblivion; yet such was his modesty, as not to vindicate it to himself by telling a lie."—STUBBE'S ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... time—the proofs fill this volume—do we find any restriction, of choice of subject or conduct of treatment, to anything like the older limits. But the most unhistorical and the most uncritical form of this contention is the astonishing endeavour to vindicate a "classical" character for Naturalism. Most certainly there is "impropriety" in some of the classics and "impropriety" in all the Naturalists, but other resemblance I can see none. As for the argument that as Naturalism is opposed to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... but has he brought Berg and Julich in his pocket?"—Alas, not a fragment of them; nor of any solid thing whatever, except it be the gold Tobacco-box; and the confirmation of our claims on East-Friesland (cheap liberty to let us vindicate them if we can), if you reckon that a solid thing. These two Imperial gifts, such as they are, he has consciously brought back with him;—and perhaps, though as yet unconsciously, a third gift of much more value, once it is developed ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... green life in the hedges and in the sweet pastures starred with rathe primroses, and in the hidden copses blue with hyacinths, a failure, because the east wind bites shrewdly, and 'the tender ash delays to clothe herself with green'? No! no, we have not failed. Enough has been done to vindicate the enterprise, more than enough to fill our lips with thanksgiving, enough to entitle us to say to all would-be critics—Do you the same with your enchantments. But, on the other hand, we have to confess that the success has been slow and small, chequered ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... having now by the strictest bonds united us to those we once mortally hated, has made it impossible for us not to tremble at the danger and weep at the death of the very men who once used violence to us. You did not come to vindicate our honor, while we were virgins, against our assailants; but do come now to force away wives from their husbands and mothers from their children, a succor more grievous to its wretched objects than the former betrayal and neglect of them. Which shall we call the worst, their love-making ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... has been revealed to me as a great secret. It is a name too high for the stroke of the law, if there be any law left us but the will of a King's mistress! God, however, has left us the law of a gentleman's sword to avenge its master's wrong. The Baron de St. Castin will soon return to vindicate his own honor, and whether or no, I vow to heaven, my Lady, that the traitor who has wronged that sweet girl will one day have to try whether his sword be sharper than that of La Corne St. Luc! But pshaw! I am talking bravado like an Indian at the war post. The story of those luckless New England ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... for rebellion—and, in consequence, FORTY-FIVE YEARS OF FOREIGN WAR have disgraced SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS of our annals, though thirty years of foreign war served in the preceding three hundred years to vindicate every British interest!—Venerated name of Barber! Where is the monument to be found in the public buildings of London, to record thy virtues for the example of others? Would it not be a worthy companion to the statues of Beckford and Chatham? ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come! for he is the type of New England's hereditary spirit, and his shadowy march on the eve of danger must ever be the pledge that New England's sons will vindicate their ancestry. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Norman, from which source—from their Scandinavian ancestors or from their Frankish neighbours? All these origins have been maintained, and others besides these. According to some writers, it is a relic of Roman law; some trace it to the Canon law; and champions have not been wanting to vindicate it as originally a Slavonic institution which the Angles borrowed from the Werini ere they had left their ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

... by which the Leslies vindicate their descent from an ancient knight, who is said to have slain a gigantic Hungarian champion, and to have formed a proper name for himself by a play of words upon the place where he ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... was a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise in a degenerate age to vindicate the honour of the human species. In the ruin of the Roman world he loved his people, sympathised with their distress, and studied by judicial and effectual remedies to allay their sufferings. He reformed the most intolerable grievances of the taxes, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... was a cruel one, but I do not think that you did rightly in giving up your visits to Madame Orio. If you still feel any love for Angela, I advise you to take your chances once more. Accept a rendezvous for another night; she may vindicate herself, and you will be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... nearer in blood to the deceased, though not of her name. Thus are we constituted!—we will quarrel over a grave even, a moment that should lay open eternity to our view, with all its immense consequences and accompaniments, in order to vindicate feelings and passions that can only interest us, as it might be, for a day. Fortunately I knew nothing of the offence that was taken at the time, nor did I see any of my kinsmen but John Wallingford ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... and distain so hood-winked her, that she could not see him. She was a thousand times on the very brink of revoking the sentence she had passed against the poor youth. Love became his advocate, and whispered many things in his favour. Honour likewise endeavoured to vindicate his crime, and Pity to mitigate his punishment. On the other side, Pride and Revenge spoke as loudly against him. And thus the poor lady was tortured with perplexity, opposite passions distracting and tearing ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... London newspapers should inflict upon their readers so much of the slang and drivel of the gentry in question. In the due prosecution of our subject, we cannot avoid the topic of the new corn-law, even were we so disposed; and we shall at once proceed to our task, with two objects in view—to vindicate the course pursued by Sir Robert Peel, and set forth, briefly and distinctly, those truly admirable qualities of the existing Corn-laws, which are either most imprudently misrepresented, or artfully kept out of view, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... Nothing could seem to be more true, than Scott's pictures. My guest then went into a long vindication of the Templars, stating Scott had done them gross injustice, and concluding with an exaggerated compliment, in which it was attempted to persuade me that I was the man to vindicate the truth, and to do justice to at subject that was so peculiarly connected with liberal principles. I disclaimed the ability to undertake such a task, at all; confessed that I did not wish to disturb the images which Sir Walter Scott had left, had I ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... sensible not of danger, but of wrong, and rising not to succor, but to revenge—all that should have disarmed a feebler enmity giving fire to theirs; the dreadest calamity their blessing—dismay their hope. It was as if the Great Mother herself had summoned her children to vindicate the long-abused, the all-inalienable heritage derived from her; and the stir of the angry elements was but the announcement of an armed and solemn union between nature ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... are inspired by great subjects and great occasions. When a speaker is moved to vindicate the national honor, to speak in defense of human rights, or in some other great cause, his thought and expression assume new and wonderful power. All the resources of his mind—will, imagination, memory, ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... of true scholarly desire to vindicate English Literature from the charge of being 'too easy,' that—as their studies advanced—they laid more and more stress on Middle-English and Old English writings than on what our nations of England and Scotland have written since they learned to write. I dare to think also that we may attribute ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... spoken HMS Salisbury, from which ship Captain Luttrell gained the information that many very disparaging reports reflecting on his honour were circulating in Jamaica respecting his conduct at the taking of Omoa. This made him at once resolve to return to the island, to vindicate his character. He immediately demanded a Court of Inquiry, which was held on board the Niger, when he was honourably acquitted of one and all the malicious charges alleged against him. Officers, especially in the navy, would always do well ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... advice and counsel to the Irish people (upon whom it has always bestowed especial affection), whenever its affairs seem to require it, by which counsel and advice they might be enabled to defend and vindicate their rights without prejudice to justice, and without disturbing the public peace.' A fairer statement of the rights of men, and a more express injunction against public disturbance of any kind, could hardly be ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... lived long," commenced the trapper, who found, by the general pause, that he was expected to vindicate himself from the heavy imputation, "and much evil have I seen in my day. Many are the prowling bears and leaping panthers that I have met, fighting for the morsel which has been thrown in their way; and many are the reasoning men, that I have looked ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... girl, much younger than himself, reasoned with him in that innocent and persuasive manner that woman is wont to use when she has entered with her whole soul upon an object, it was too much for his stout heart, and he yielded. Her next aim was to vindicate the Bible from sustaining the monstrous institution of slavery. She said, "God has created of one blood all the nations of men, to dwell on all the face of the earth. To claim, hold, and treat a human being as property is felony against God and man. ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... would serve as the incentive to similar deeds." [485] He sums up their character in the following terms: "High courage, patriotism, loyalty, honour, hospitality and simplicity are qualities which must at once be conceded to them; and if we cannot vindicate them from charges to which human nature in every clime is obnoxious; if we are compelled to admit the deterioration of moral dignity from continual inroads of, and their consequent collision with rapacious conquerors; we must yet admire the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... to a gentleman in Calcutta, who was ordered from the upper country to Chittagong, in the route thither, broke loose from her keeper, and, making her way to the woods, was lost. The keeper made every excuse to vindicate himself, which the master of the animal would not listen to, but branded the man with dishonesty; for it was instantly supposed that he had sold the elephant. He was tried for it, and condemned to work on the roads for life, and his wife and children ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... Joseph used them civilly who had brought it, and commanded them to be shewn our ship, and how she was prepared to vindicate our honour. This made the poor Portuguese much afraid, and they desired Captain Joseph to write a few words to their commander, which, added to their persuasions, might perchance induce him to come to terms. Willing to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr

... from, though for ourselves there be in it no latent evil or lurking danger. This, however, is a matter in which each person must determine his duty for himself alone, and in which no one is authorized to legislate for others. It may seem to a conscientious man a worthy enterprise to vindicate and rescue from its evil associations an amusement or indulgence in itself not only harmless, but salutary; and there may be an equally strong sense of right on both sides of a question of social morality falling under this head. The joyous side of life must be maintained. The ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... Jefferson, that, during the War of 1812 the Federalists of New England, had contemplated a dissolution of the Union, and the establishment of a northern confederacy. This charge Mr. Otis denied and he then proceeded at length to vindicate the character of the old Federal Party. He was a gentleman of refinement of manners, but as I sat near him at the Revere House dinner, I overheard enough of his private conversation with Holmes of South Carolina, to satisfy me that he had a relish ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... a high order, yet useless to the mass of mankind, and, to its own masters, dangerous. Yet, as it has become so by the want of the true intelligence which its inquiries need, and by substitution of vain subtleties in its stead, it may in future vindicate for itself a higher rank than a man of common sense usually ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin

... principles of industrial liberty, as well as those of commercial liberty, originated in France. Forbonnais was right when he said: "We may congratulate ourselves on being able to find, in our old books and ancient ordinances, wherewith to vindicate for ourselves the right to that light which we generally supposed to have been revealed to the English and Dutch before us." The further Forbonnais carried his researches into our annals, the greater the number ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... moving relation could not fail to affect the generous heart of James Gray, who determined from that moment to risk life and limb in order to vindicate the rights and avenge the wrongs of poor Clashnichd, the ghost of Craig-Aulnaic. He, therefore, took good care to interrogate his new protegee touching the nature of her oppressor's constitution, whether he was of that killable species of ghost that could be shot with a silver ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... deny its civilization; its diligent care of the soil, its cultivation of silk and of the tea-tree, its populousness, its canals, its literature, its court ceremonial, its refinement of manners, its power of persevering so loyally in its old institutions through so many ages, abundantly vindicate it from the reproach of barbarism. But at the same time there are tokens of degeneracy, which are all the stronger for being also tokens, still more striking than those I have hitherto mentioned, of its high ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... slaughter,' without the least resistance, and who had suffered thousands to follow him in the same way, now, by a miraculous interposition, arms a man with carnal weapons, and, Mahometan like, authorizes him to vindicate his cause, and avenge his wrongs, by shedding the blood of his enemies! Or, if we do not credit this account, what must we think of Constantine? and also of Christianity so far as it can be traced to, and made to depend on his influence? That candor and charity, ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... banishment in the forest as a temporary one at the best, and no longer looked for the aid of Normans, lay or ecclesiastical, to avenge his mother's wrongs and his own; he would vindicate them by the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... yet find, else why not cease the vain quest? And surely He who made us, made us not in vain, nor cursed us with immortal hopes which are only persistent lies. Surely there is some living Person who will vindicate these unquenchable hopes of humanity, and receive and requite our love and trust, and satisfy our longings, and explain the riddle of our lives. If there be not, nor ever has been, nor ever can be a man ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... prophets, seers, and priestesses of the old religion, those who continued to worship the Virgin and Child, had prophesied that a mortal woman, a virgin, would, independently of the male principle, bring forth a child, the fulfilment of which prophecy would vindicate the ancient faith and forever settle the dispute relative to the superiority of the female in the office of reproduction. Thus would the woman "bruise the serpent's head." In process of time not only Yonigas, but Lingajas as well, came to accept the doctrine ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble

... Oxford, and suffered imprisonment at the hands of his former friends in the King's Bench Prison from 1644 to 1646. Young Sir Harry Yelverton, Lady Ruthin's husband, broke a theological lance with his son, the younger Edward Bagshawe, to vindicate the cause of the Church of England. The elder Bagshawe died in 1662, and was buried at Morton Pinckney, in Northamptonshire. How and why he railed at love and marriage it is impossible now to know. Edward Bagshawe the younger published in 1671 an Antidote against Mr. ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry

... however: the criminals, though far from belonging to the more lucky of their fellow-creatures, not being quite miserable enough in appearance to awaken all those powers of magisterial reproach and severity that lay dormant in the bailiff's moral temperament, ready, at any time, to vindicate the right of the strong against the innovations of the feeble and unhappy. The reader will at once have anticipated that the prisoners were Maso and his companions, who had been more successful in escaping from their keepers, than fortunate in evading ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... my former letters, suggested an hundred things, which a friend, in earnest to vindicate or excuse a friend, might say on such ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... epithet, on the quarter-deck, I could not have blamed him if he had put you in irons. I approve his conduct fully. As you insulted him before his officers and crew, it was necessary that he should vindicate himself before them." ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... James Ross occupied the first place: a man whose name will be ever mentioned with respect. His political career does not receive or deserve unqualified praise: as a partizan of Arthur, he sometimes sanctioned by his pen what it is difficult to vindicate; but he contributed to the intellectual advancement and external reputation of the colony, beyond any person of his day. Dr. Ross was the son of a Scotch advocate: educated at Aberdeen University, and some time employed as a planter in Grenada, where he became an advocate of negro freedom. He ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... from joining in any sentiment of surprise. It is perhaps because I have not been born to the inheritance of that tradition, which has yet fashioned the fundamental part of my character in my young days, that I am so consciously aware of it and venture to vindicate its existence in ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... people, meagre-minded money-makers, destitute of originality? What have they done to demonstrate genius yet?—These skepticisms are somewhat prevalent nowadays, and are a natural enough reaction from Fourth-of-July flatulencies. Let them have their day. The fact will vindicate itself. Meanwhile we may remark, that the appeal to attained performance, in justification of the view taken in this paper of American abilities and prospects, would obviously place us at undue disadvantage. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... his rule had been simply a carrying out of the system of administration which was native to India and which he found existing there. But such a system was alien from the new humanity of Englishmen; and few dared to vindicate Hastings when Burke in words of passionate earnestness ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... trustworthy service, taking as its motto a more than princely Ich Dien. I mean the temper of mind which sees the happiness of siding against ourselves, of judging not others but ourselves; the spirit which is much more anxious to vindicate a superior's reputation than our own, more alert to ward criticism off from him than to shield our own head from its arrow. I mean the life which shows that so far from being ashamed of the idea of subjection, ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... rather than upon the reckless fancies of the Boys who are sure to surround him if he gives them a chance. In this emergency we are sure that all the best in the state will rally with us. The eyes of Europe are upon us, and we must vindicate ourselves.'" ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... swords, your spears, helms, and shields! "Oh vindicate your fame! "Sivard and Sweden glare on Norway's ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... name: 15th June 1567," may be regarded as if the author had viewed that event as being a partial accomplishment of his prediction which he states to have been written in April 1566. But the language here used by Knox, it is impossible to vindicate. ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... the most zealous and successful illustrators of the great Dramatist now living, they believe they are presenting Editions of Shakespeare's Works distinguished by an amount of mature judgment in collating the earlier copies which will vindicate their claim to the rank ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... present his case to the Diet. "It was a proud day for the nuncio. The assembly was a great one: the cause was even greater. Aleander was to plead for Rome, ... the mother and mistress of all churches." He was to vindicate the princedom of Peter before the assembled principalities of Christendom. "He had the gift of eloquence, and he rose to the greatness of the occasion. Providence ordered it that Rome should appear and plead by the ablest of ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... success of the Scottish Lords in their rising and by the terms of semi-independence which the French nobles wrested from the Queen. It was to hold the Netherlands in check that Philip longed for Mary's success. Her triumph over Murray and his confederates would vindicate the cause of monarchy; her triumph over Calvinism would vindicate that of Catholicism both in her own realm and in the realm which she hoped to win. He sent her therefore assurances of his support, and assurances as ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... believe, unfounded.[32] The Begam herself gave some colour of truth to the report by retaining the name of her first husband, Sombre, to the last, and never publicly or formally declaring her marriage with Le Vaisseau after his death. The troops in this mutiny pretended nothing more than a desire to vindicate the honour of their old commander Sombre, which had, they said, been compromised by the illicit intercourse between Le Vaisseau and his widow. She had not dared to declare the marriage to them lest they should mutiny on that ground, and deprive her of the command; ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... draw terrible morals from the author's sudden death; an actor, armed with the sword of the comic spirit, had proved victorious. And yet the theologians were not wholly wrong; the tendency of Moliere's teaching, like that of Rabelais and like that of Montaigne, is to detach morals from religion, to vindicate whatever is natural, to regard good sense and good feeling as sufficient ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden



Words linked to "Vindicate" :   explain, discharge, uphold, excuse, vindicator, legitimate, exonerate, exculpate, vindicatory, justify, defend, acquit, clear, assoil, maintain, vindication



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