"Balance of power" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over, and a new era had begun for Europe. The balance of power was largely transferred. France had again ceased to be the predominant continental state. She had attained to that position for a time under Louis XIV, and later, more conspicuously, under Napoleon I. But in both of those instances vaulting ambition ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... seem that the ancient Grecian States were perpetually jealous of any ascendant power, and their policy was not dissimilar from that which was inaugurated in modern Europe since the treaty of Westphalia—called the balance of power. Greece, thus far, was not ambitious to extend her rule over foreign nations, but sought an autonomous independence of the several States of which she was composed. Had Greece united under the leadership of Sparta or Athens, her foreign ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... Hume to prove the comparatively greater populousness of modern European countries. As for the prospect of peace, he takes a curiously optimistic view. A system of alliances has made Europe a sort of confederated republic, and the balance of power has rendered the design of a universal monarchy, such as that which Louis XIV. essayed, a chimera. [Footnote: So Rivarol, writing in 1783 (OEuvres, i. pp. 4 and 52): "Never did the world offer such a spectacle. Europe has reached ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... for which she had made so long a struggle. The treaty of San Stefano practically decreed the dissolution of the Turkish Empire. But at this juncture the other nations of Europe took part. They were not content to see the balance of power destroyed by Russia becoming master of Constantinople, and England demanded that the treaty should be revised by the European Powers in order to guard her own route to India. Russia protested, but Beaconsfield threatened war, and the Czar ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... to the tribune with defiance on his lips. After declaring for the Cabinet that no foreign power could be suffered, by placing one of its princes on the throne of Charles the Fifth, to derange the balance of power in Europe, and put in peril the interests and the honor of France, he concludes by saying, in ominous words: "Strong in your support, Gentlemen, and in that of the nation, we shall know how to do our duty without hesitation and without weakness." [Footnote: ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... and salaried class who are small investors or expect to become independent producers, the small capitalists constitute a majority of the electorate (though not of the population), or at least hold the political balance of power. It is capitalist interests alone that really count in present-day politics, and it is for capitalists alone that ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... ally of Essenland; isn't Marksland the ally of Borovia; isn't England the ally of the ally of the ally of the Country which holds the balance of power between ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... lady, in a city not very far off, who also took it into her head, in conversation with an accomplished French gentleman, to talk of the affairs of Europe. She, too, spoke of the destruction of the balance of power; stormed and raged about the insatiable ambition of the Emperor; called him the curse of mankind, the destroyer of Europe. The Frenchman listened to her with perfect patience, and when she had ceased said to her, with ineffable politeness, 'Madam, it would give my master, the Emperor, infinite ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... example), and in the tumult of party politics it was impossible to reach any harmonious adjustment. Finally, the violent agitation of the slave question forced it to the front not simply as a moral or human but as a political issue; for the old "balance of power" between the states was upset when the North began to outstrip the South in population, and every state was then fiercely jealous of its individual rights and obligations in a way that ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... be King here," the creature said to Pessim, "but we intend to run this island to suit ourselves, for we are three and you are one, and the balance of power lies with us." ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... mass of political power; and what are the inevitable results? First, that the community is divided into parties, and into parties not very unequal in their aggregate numbers. What next? That the balance of power between parties is held by a very small number of voters; and in practical action what is the fact? That the struggle is constantly for that balance of power, and in order to obtain it, all the arts and all the evil influences of elections are called into action. It ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Scots. His foreign policy lay as near to his heart as the conquest of Wales or Scotland, or the subjection of priests and nobles. He was eager to make Gascony obey him, anxious to keep in check the French king, and to establish a sort of European balance of power, of which England, as in Wolsey's later dreams, was to be the tongue of the balance. Yet, despite his severe schooling in self-control, he undertook more than he could accomplish, and his failure was the ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Brittany, etc., always opposed, and often gave laws to the crown. Nothing but making the empire hereditary in the House of Austria, can give it that strength and efficiency, which I wish it had, for the sake of the balance of power. For, while the princes of the empire are so independent of the emperor, so divided among themselves, and so open to the corruption of the best bidders, it is ridiculous to expect that Germany ever will, or can act as a compact and well-united body against France. But as this notion of mine would ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... and well-advertised endeavors to substitute a moral relationship of nations for the state of latent warfare known as the balance of power were steadily wasted. On the one side the subtle skill of Old World diplomacy was toiling hard and successfully to revive under specious names its lost and failing causes, while on the other hand the New World policy, naively ignoring historical forces and secular prejudices, was ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... therefore the offspring of Fernanda would inherit the Spanish crown. Guizot rubbed his hands, and began at once to set the necessary springs in motion; but, of course, the whole scheme was very soon divulged and understood. The English Government took an extremely serious view of the matter; the balance of power was clearly at stake, and the French intrigue must be frustrated at all hazards. A diplomatic struggle of great intensity followed; and it occasionally appeared that a second War of the Spanish Succession was about to break out. This was avoided, but the consequences of this strange imbroglio ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... of affairs," Maraton admitted, "of which I know nothing. I do not even understand the balance of power. I always thought, though, that every great nation, our own included, paid a certain amount of insurance in the shape of huge contributions towards a navy and army; that we paid such insurance as was necessary and were rewarded with ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stripped the Porte of Hungary, the Ukraine, and other places; and "henceforth" says Mr. Gordon, "Europe ceased to dread the Turks; and began even to look upon their existence as a necessary element of the balance of power among its states." Spite of their losses, however, during the first half of the eighteenth century, the Turks still maintained a respectable attitude against Christendom. But the wars of the Empress Catherine II., and the French invasion of Egypt, demonstrated that either their ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... she was so proud, and especially that she should withdraw from Spain. He declared that the Spaniards were degenerate and imbecile, but that nothing could make that right which was contrary to the balance of power and the security of nations. Holland seemed to him the hope of Europe, and he thought the allies justified in excluding the French dynasty from Spain for the same reason that no claim of law could have made it right that Philip II. should occupy England. He ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... offer of a seat in the new Cabinet. He assured Lord John that if he had been at the head of the Administration the result would have been different. Both Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright felt that Lord Palmerston blocked the way to any adequate readjustment in home politics of the balance of power, and they were inspired by a settled distrust of his foreign policy. Lord John, on the other hand, though he might not move as swiftly as such popular leaders thought desirable, had still a name to conjure with, and was the consistent advocate, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... God but pleasure and ambition, contended around the throne or the sick-bed of the futile King. Catherine de Medicis, with her stately form, her mean spirit, her bad heart, and her fathomless depths of duplicity, strove by every subtle art to hold the balance of power among them. The bold, pitiless, insatiable Guise, and his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine, the incarnation of falsehood, rested their ambition on the Catholic party. Their army was a legion of priests, and the black swarms of countless monasteries, who by the ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Organizers and Managers of business will not need probably, in order to accomplish their purpose, to strike against the uncreative millionaires. They will make a stand (which the best of them have already made now) for the balance of power in any business that they furnish their brains to. The brains that create the profits for the owners and that create the labour for the labourers, will make terms for their brains and will withhold their brains if necessary to this end. But it is far more ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... BALANCE OF POWER, preservation of the equilibrium existing among the States of Europe as a security of peace, for long an important consideration with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... public profession of magic affected the constitution of savage society, it tended to place the control of affairs in the hands of the ablest man: it shifted the balance of power from the many to the one: it substituted a monarchy for a democracy, or rather for an oligarchy of old men; for in general the savage community is ruled, not by the whole body of adult males, but by a council ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... elected by popular vote for a five-year term; election last held 7 February 2000 (next to be held NA 2005); prime minister nominated by the president in line with the balance of power in the Assembly ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... consulted them on this momentous question, but the leading idea was his own. When the moment came, the policy long meditated and matured was put in force. The world was told that a new power had come into being, which meant to hold aloof from Europe, and which took no interest in the balance of power or the fate of dynasties, but looked only to the welfare of its own people and to the conquest and mastery of a continent as its allotted tasks. The policy declared by the proclamation was purely American in its conception, and severed the colonial tradition at a stroke. In the din then prevailing ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, Louisiana and Indiana, Mississippi and Illinois were coupled, preserving in the Senate an exact balance of power.(40) ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... regents was at last disclosed Gardiner, who had till now been the leading minister, was declared to have been excluded from the number of executors. Whether the exclusion was Henry's act or the act of the men who used his name, the absence of the bishop with the imprisonment of Norfolk threw the balance of power on the side of the "new men" who were represented by Hertford and Lisle. Their chief opponent, the Chancellor Wriothesley, struggled in vain against their next step towards supremacy, the modification of Henry's will by the nomination ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... even up the chances. This, of course, on the presumption that both sides were armed alike. Constans's thoughts reverted to the fire artillery of the ancients; with that at his disposal he would hold the balance of power. The possession of a single score of rifles should enable him to demonstrate the feasibility of the attempt to his sluggard kinsmen, the Stockaders, and to the even more reluctant townsmen. He determined to take the first opportunity to make a careful search of the city armories and ammunition ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... to imbitter the hereditary feud of the Burgundians and the Alemanni. The inconstancy of a wise prince may, perhaps, be explained by some alteration of circumstances; and perhaps it was the original design of Valentinian to intimidate, rather than to destroy; as the balance of power would have been equally overturned by the extirpation of either of the German nations. Among the princes of the Alemanni, Macrianus, who, with a Roman name, had assumed the arts of a soldier and a statesman, deserved his hatred and esteem. The emperor himself, with ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... earnest, for Frontenac's imperious temper did not make him a cheerful sharer of authority with any one else. If the intendant and the bishop had been men of conflicting ideas and dispositions, Frontenac might easily have held the balance of power; but they were men of kindred aims, and they readily combined against the governor. United in their opposition to him, they were together a fair match for Frontenac in ability and astuteness. It was ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... sometimes in banter, sometimes in earnest, nothing had been done. Sternly, however, though the Falins did not know the fact, Devil Judd continued to hold aloof in spite of the pleadings of young Dave, and so confident was the old man in the balance of power that lay with him that he sent June word that he was coming to take her home. And, in truth, with Hale going away again on a business trip and Bob, too, gone back home to the Bluegrass, and school closed, the little girl was glad to go, and she waited for her father's coming eagerly. ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... There must be some power of resistance to gravitation, and nicely balanced against it, a centrifugal force—no matter whether you call it heat, light, or electricity, or by any other name—from which balance of power the movements of the universe are regulated. But here again we arrive at the same conclusion from the balance of power to which we were before driven by the combination of matter—regulated power proclaims a regulator, a ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... has held, and always on the same condition—that she shall be "liege man for life and limb and earthly regard". In this you have the whole story of the church of England, in the twentieth century as in the eleventh. The balance of power has shifted from time to time; old families have lost the land and new families have gotten it; but the loyalty and homage of the church have been held by the land, as the needle of the compass is held by a mass of metal. Some two hundred and fifty years ago a popular ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... war had decided the problem of the balance of power in a very short time, Russia might conceivably have turned out to be on that side of the trenches which victory favored. But the war dragged along for a long time, and it was not an accident that it did so. The fact alone that the international politics were for the last ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... point of view of the judiciary connotes a general difference of outlook which makes itself felt today even in that field where Marshall wrought most enduringly. The Constitution was established under the sway of the idea of the balance of power, and with the purpose of effecting a compromise among a variety of more or less antagonistic interests, some of which were identified with the cause of local autonomy, others of which coalesced with the cause of National Supremacy. The Nation and the States were regarded ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... wealth, all the power, and most of the population of Britain, the Celtic ideals had no chance of realising themselves. But the industrial revolution of the present century has turned us right-about-face, has transferred the balance of power from the secondary strata to the primary strata in Britain; from the agricultural lowlands to the uplands of coal and iron, the cotton factories, the woollen trade. Great industrial cities have grown ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... streets on the 17th January, when he was actually engaged in negotiating these very terms of the Abdication, had been apparently inspired from Nanking; whilst the Southern leaders were daily reminded by the vernacular press that the man who held the balance of power had always played the part of traitor in the past and would certainly do the same again in the ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... of the making of the nation between the War of 1812 and the rise of the slavery struggle. It needs but slight reflection to discover that in the area in question, the men and measures of the Ohio Valley held the balance of power and set the course of our national progress. The problems before the country at that time were problems of internal development: the mode of dealing with the public domain; the building of roads and digging of canals for the internal improvement of a nation which was separated ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... make Ministers uneasy; and although they cursed him in secret for a meddling fool and mad-brained enthusiast, they no longer attempted to ride rough-shod over him in the House, especially as the Labour members, who held the balance of power, entertained very friendly feelings towards the young man, and gave him considerable support. Therefore he was to be conciliated, and accordingly the curt nods of recognition, which were all that were once given him, were exchanged for friendly smiles ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... either not existed; or have presented themselves under essential modifications.—Itself an organized protest against ecclesiastical tyranny and universal empire, the Republic guarded with sagacity, at many critical periods in the world's history; that balance of power which, among civilized states; ought always to be identical with the scales of divine justice. The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty. It is a consolation to those who have hope in humanity ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... no very distant period, of losing what we now possess. A neighbor that keeps us in some awe is not always the worst of neighbors. So that, far from sacrificing Guadaloupe to Canada, perhaps, if we might have Canada without any sacrifice at all, we ought not to desire it. There should be a balance of power in America.... The islands, from their weakness, can never revolt; but, if we acquire all Canada, we shall soon find North America itself too powerful and too populous to be governed ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... delivered: but I cannot refrain from saying here something more on this matter; and that, first, because all political questions have their real root in moral and spiritual ones, and not (as too many fancy) in questions merely relating to the balance of power or commercial economy, and are (the world being under the guidance of a spiritual, and not a physical Being) finally decided on those spiritual grounds, and according to the just laws of the kingdom of God; and, therefore, the future political horoscope of the East depends entirely on the ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... to grant certain commercial concessions, including the admission of ships under the Japanese flag to the Chinese lakes and rivers, and the appointment of consuls. In view of the completeness of Japan's triumph, these conditions could not be considered onerous, but they, undoubtedly, disturbed the balance of power in the Far East, and, had they been permitted to stand, would have effectually thwarted Russia's plan of advancing southward, and of obtaining an ice-free port. The Czar's government, accordingly, determined to interpose, and, having secured the ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... a minority, the power of the government should be divided among different competitors for the regency, the parliaments and people will find it still more easy to acquire and ascertain the liberty at which they aspire, because they will have the balance of power in their hands, and be able to make either scale preponderate. I could say a great deal more upon this subject; and I have some remarks to make relating to the methods which might be taken in the case of a fresh rupture with France, for making a vigorous impression on that kingdom. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... parasite would seem to play the all-important parts, the present example being especially emphasized because of its conspicuousness and its violence to purely human sentiment. The parasite would often seem to hold the balance of power. ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... toward us, and will bring about more intimate relations between them and ourselves, besides widening the foundations of the alliance between Hungary and her allies. And this is to be the rock upon which the European balance of power is to rest in the future. Our war is not a war of conquest, and the boundary changes of which some people speak are not the sine qua non of a good peace. Therefore I do not even wish to speak about certain territorial alterations, which, nevertheless, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... intimate to them, that we cannot be indifferent to enterprises of this kind. That we should contemplate a change of neighbors with extreme uneasiness; and that a due balance on our borders is not less desirable to us, than a balance of power in Europe has always appeared to them. We wish to be neutral, and we will be so, if they will execute the treaty fairly, and attempt no conquests adjoining us. The first condition is just; the second imposes no hardship on them. They cannot complain that the other dominions of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... is yet so great that, like Cotton Mather, he might not hesitate to stand uncovered on the street-corners and ask the forgiveness of mankind. Such men are saved by their enemies. Their own good and the good of humanity require that their balance of power shall not be too great. Had the North gone down, Gladstone might never have seen his mistake. In this instance and in many others, he has not been the leader of progress, but its echo: truth has been forced upon him. His ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... of 1820 was in reality a truce between antagonistic revenue systems, each seeking to gain the balance of power. For many years subsequently, slaves—as domestic servants—were taken to the Territories without exciting remark, and the "Nullification" movement in South Carolina was entirely directed against ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... developed that the Democrats did not have a clear majority on joint ballot in the Michigan Legislature, but the margin between the two parties was so close that a few men who had been elected as independent Republicans had the balance of power. These Independents were opposed to the reelection of Senator Chandler. That the Democrats should be anxious for the retirement of such an able, active, aggressive, and influential Republican leader as Chandler was to be expected. That party, therefore, joined with the Independents in the vote ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... countries reacted somewhat on British policy in the Netherlands, this country taking a far more important share in the last period of the struggle against Louis XIV. Up till then, England had been content with checking France's encroachments in Flanders and maintaining the balance of power in Europe. The closer relationships with the United Provinces, during the reigns of William and Mary and of Queen Anne, involved England in further responsibilities and even induced her to impose, for a short time, an Anglo-Dutch protectorate on the ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... State lay in the separation of the legislative, executive, and judicial powers,—i.e., in treating the different organs through which the common life expresses itself as if they were independent organisms. In doing so, they forgot that, if such a balance of power was realised, the effect must either be an equilibrium in which all movement must cease, or a struggle in which the unity of the State would be in danger of being lost. The true security against the dangers involved, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... now on Douglas, cannot dispense with him. They have known each other for a quarter of a century, in that Illinois of the West which Douglas prophesied would hold the balance of power in any crisis of the North and the South. That prophecy is fulfilled. It would have been fulfilled by giving Douglas to the Presidency. It had given Lincoln instead; ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... in the field as the protector of the Cossacks; and, in 1656, the greater part of their body, with the Ataman Bogdan Khmielnicki at their head, formally transferred their allegiance to the Russian sceptre. This fatal blow, which in effect turned the balance of power, so long fluctuating between Poland and Russia, in favour of the latter, failed, however, to teach moderation to the Polish aristocracy; and the remainder of the Cossacks, who still continued in their ancient seats under the Ataman Doroszenko, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... security is the only response they meet when they make to the Imperial authorities a proposition calculated to keep alive their national enthusiasm, while developing their internal resources?'[2] There is a balance of power in Europe which British diplomacy labours incessantly to maintain. Each possible transfer of a few acres of ground by some petty German princeling is carefully studied by the Foreign Office. Is the creation of a power in North America to balance the United States to be forever ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... said, tenderly amused; "it is the best thing for our future. The 'sphere of influence' and the 'balance of power' are as delicate matters to adjust in marriage as they are in world-politics. You're going to be too famous a painter for your wife to be anything less than a ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... how they hold the balance of power in the musical and histrionic worlds. Still, to be candid, in comparison with these, they do not seem to have made much headway in the other branches of art. Can you explain ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... or second and third folios of the paper, present still finer studies for our reflection. The eye almost instinctively lights on the "Foreign Papers," detailing the progress of war and the balance of power—Francfort Fair, and English manufactures. Below is the well-known graphic relief—a clock, and two opened and one closed book, with "The Times"—past and future, decorated with oak and laurel. Then come the theatrical announcements teeming with novelty and attraction, which stand like the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... more of politics," said the frolicsome Berliners; "he is absorbed in the arts and sciences, and, above all other things, he lives to promote the peaceful prosperity of his people." The balance of power and foreign relations troubled him no longer; he wished for no conquests, and thought not of war. In the morning he was occupied with scientific works, wrote in his "Histoire de mon Temps," or to his friends, and took part in the daily-recurring duties of the government. ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... exceptionable in the conduct of public affairs is not to be imputed to the king, nor is he answerable for it personally to his people: for this doctrine would totally destroy that constitutional independence of the crown, which is necessary for the balance of power, in our free and active, and therefore compounded, constitution. And, secondly, it means that the prerogative of the crown extends not to do any injury: it is created for the benefit of the people, and therefore cannot be ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... undeveloped area left in the world. Whether the resources of China are to be developed by China, by Japan, or by the white races, is a question of enormous importance, affecting not only the whole development of Chinese civilization, but the balance of power in the world, the prospects of peace, the destiny of Russia, and the chances of development towards a better economic system in ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... a tall and loose-jointed man with a melancholy and almost ministerial face, enhanced in gravity by the jet-black hair that grew low on his forehead and the droop of long moustaches. In his own country the influence which he wielded was in effect a balance of power, and the candidate who aspired to public office did well to obtain Will Turk's view before he announced his candidacy. The judge who sat upon the bench made his rulings boldly only after consulting this overlord, but the matter which gave cause ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... gradually swell, and the result will be a vast river of party feeling with so strong a current and such immense volume that to try and divert its course would be useless. Considering that the present labour parties, who are democrats almost to a man, hold the balance of power in all the principal Parliaments some idea might be formed of the power that Young Australians would hold when they ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... several ages, tho the balance of power and the balance of property do not coincide. This chiefly happens where any rank or order of the state has acquired a large share in the property; but, from the original constitution of the government, has no share in the power. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... the imperialism of the Caesars,—to create new universal monarchies. The wars which grew out of the Reformation were to preserve or secure religious liberty; those which followed were to maintain the balance of power. Those of Napoleon were at first, at least nominally, to spread or defend the ideas of the French Revolution, until he became infatuated with the love of military glory. Our first great war was to secure national independence, and our second to preserve national ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... such an acquisition of territory without the consent of the several States denominated "part of the original compact," but the manifest and necessary consequences of this accession, in its effects upon the Union and upon the balance of power within the Government, were overwhelming to such an extent as to ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... a certain balance of power against the other Szowaleha. They have no right to transport pilgrims to the convent, and are, in general, considered as pseudo-Arabs, although they have become Bedouins in every respect. They are divided into several smaller tribes, ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... which will find allies at once in Abyssinia and in Mohammedan freedom movements, will make the employment of black troops against our European frontiers impossible. German Africa alone will give us a balance of power in the East and in Africa. It will remove the Egyptian pressure on Asia Minor. German Africa will make us a world power by enabling us to exert decisive influence upon the world political decisions of ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... waiting. I gathered the three heads of the government were here, and the extra one represented the balance of power in the hands of the queen. His negligent lack of interest seemed to me to be an evident giving of his voice to the queen, if he was a part ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... Celtic hill fort, and, through successive stages, has since grown to a Roman, a mediaeval, and finally a modern city. It crowns the top of a very considerable eminence, the like of which, says Professor Freeman, does not exist in England. Like Chartres, too, it has always retained the balance of power which has made it the local civil and ecclesiastical capital of its province. It is, too, more closely associated in English minds than is Chartres, forming as it did a part of the dominion of a common sovereign; ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... this. In the first book of his "Historia" he says: "The Italians wish always to serve two masters, in order to restrain one by means of the terror with which the other inspires him."[57] By means of holding in their hands the balance of power they hoped to rule their rulers; and to attain this object was the only reason which ever prompted the cities to unite with any degree of harmony. Local independence was what they aimed at, ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... path of America's future are in the form of a political serpent, as Rome has learned to know that by holding out the "vote bait" to our politicians, that she can retain the balance of power, as she has long since learned that as long as she can be instrumental in keeping two political parties, both largely made up of Protestants, and fighting each other, that she can associate herself with one or the other by offering this party the undivided suffrage of Catholicism, and by this ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... a struggle for a just and secure peace or only for a new balance of power? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... we may explain that, by the annexation of Texas, the Southern States have a majority of votes in Congress; the Northern States are therefore indifferent about war for Oregon, and the abolitionists among them frantic for it, in order that their domestic balance of power may be restored. Mr Giddings, a Whig representative from Ohio, and a red-hot abolitionist, indulges in the following ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... particular, he persuaded the Russian Government to make a very important alteration in the constitution of the Kalmuck State Council, which in effect reorganized the whole political condition of the state, and disturbed the balance of power as previously adjusted. Of this Council—in the Kalmuck language called Sarga—there were eight members, called Sargatchi; and hitherto it had been the custom that these eight members should be entirely subordinate to the Khan; ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the other hand, the use which the English had made of their precocious national organization weakened its foundations. The aggressive exercise of military force abroad for an object which it was incompetent to achieve disturbed the domestic balance of power on which the national organization of the English people rested. English political efficiency was dependent partly upon its responsible exercise; and it could not survive the disregard of domestic responsibilities ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... upon France. The great nations outside France, fearful of Napoleon's ambition and power, did not take his accession to the throne of France so complacently, and, in 1805, England, Sweden, Austria, and Russia formed the "Third Coalition" against Napoleon in an effort to restore the balance of power in Europe. Of the great powers of Europe only Prussia held aloof, refused to take sides, and in consequence enjoyed a temporary prosperity and freedom from invasion. For this, though, she was soon to pay a terrible price. Having humiliated the Austrians and vanquished the Russians, Napoleon ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... twentieth century Germany has ceased to be paramount; she has ceased to control European policy at her own sweet will, and weaker States have ceased to be given over to her tender mercies. To the Triple Alliance has been opposed the Triple Entente. The balance of power has been re-established. The three 'hereditary enemies'—England, France, and Russia—have joined hands, and have delivered Europe from the incubus of German suzerainty. German diplomacy has strained every effort to ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... the balance of power as to the meaning of this text. If it qualifies Christ's words, "Verily I say unto thee," it gives one idea; if it qualifies the words, "Thou shalt be with me in paradise," we have another and very different idea. And how shall the ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... anxiously, stretching his hands out wide and grasping at the air, he meant our Cabinet; that a hundred pirouettes on one toe without quitting the spot alluded to the German Diet; that he was thinking of the lesser princes when he tripped around with his legs tied; that he described the European balance of power when he tottered hither and thither like a drunken man; that he hinted at a Congress when he twisted his bended arms together like a skein; and finally, that he sets forth our altogether too great friend in the East, when, very gradually unfolding himself, he rises on high, stands ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... entering into alliances with Charles or Francis, seldom followed any regular or concerted plan of policy, but was influenced chiefly by the caprice of temporary passions, such occurrences often happened as recalled his attention toward that equal balance of power which it was necessary to keep between the two contending potentates, the preservation of which he always boasted to be his peculiar office. He had expected that his union with the Emperor might afford him an opportunity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... had of her own motion made ready for statehood; he expressed a hope that New Mexico would shortly follow her example, and recommended that both be admitted into the Union with such constitutions as they might present. Immediately, the House, where the free-soilers held a balance of power, fell into a long wrangle over the speakership; and the Senate was soon in fierce debate over certain anti-slavery resolutions presented from the legislature of Vermont. The North seemed to be united on the ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game now forever discredited, of the balance of power; but that ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... could tell you a great many interesting things that intimately affect your affairs, if I liked. You must understand that I shall hold the balance of power here, from ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... together and lecture them on England's sins. They said that England was letting them do all the fighting, bleeding them white of their men and treasure so as to come out at the end of the war with the balance of power necessary for her plan of retaining Constantinople and the Cinque Ports of France. Many were convinced, and this did not add to the ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... By 850 the balance of power had left or was leaving the Chow king at Honanfu. His own subjects had grown unwarlike, and he could hardly command even their allegiance; for each man's feudal duty was first to his own duke, marquis, earl, viscount, or baron;— strangely ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... and the emigrant aristocrats menaced every frontier. Austria, on the other hand, had once been soundly thrashed. Since Frederick the Great had wrested Silesia from her, and thereby set Protestant Prussia among the great powers, she had felt that the balance of power was disturbed, and had sought everywhere for some territorial acquisition to restore her importance. The present emperor, Francis II, and his adroit minister, Thugut, were equally stubborn in their determination to draw something worth while from the seething caldron before the fires of war were ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... David's. Gerald's cousin, the Lord Rhys, had been appointed the king's justiciar in South Wales. The power of the Lord Marches was to be kept in check by a quasi-alliance between the Welsh prince and his over-lord. The election of Gerald to the greatest see in Wales would upset the balance of power. David Fitz- Gerald, good easy man (vir sua sorte contentus is Gerald's description of him), the king could tolerate, but he could not contemplate without uneasiness the combination of spiritual and political power in South Wales in the ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... days of its prosperity an almost unexplainably important position beside the great monarchies of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Midway also between the Berne and Fribourg republics, the Gruyere counts held something very nearly approaching a balance of power between Savoy and the Confederates. Feudal by race and by the independence of their little principality, they were so trusted by the Confederates and so powerful with Savoy, that they repeatedly acted as arbitrators in their mutual quarrels, and by ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... Russia is gone. While those facts simplify matters for Japan somewhat, there is also the belief that in taking away potential allies, they have weakened Japan in the general game of balance and counter-balance of power. Particularly does the removal of imperialistic Russia relieve the threat on India which was such a factor in the willingness of Great Britain to make the offensive-defensive alliance. The revelation of ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... Adams won victories, but neither realized his full hopes. Canning prevented the interference of Europe in Spanish America, broke up the Quadruple Alliance, rendered the Holy Alliance a shadow, and restored a balance of power that meant safety for England for almost a hundred years; but he failed to dictate American policy. Adams on his part detached the United States from European politics without throwing England into the arms of Europe. ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... of bad men, should be confounded. His affection for the Duke of Gloucester and for the Duchess of Orleans seems to have been sincere and cordial. To attribute, as some have done, his grief for the loss of the first to political considerations, founded upon an intended balance of power between his two brothers, would be an absurd refinement, whatever were his general disposition; but when we reflect upon that carelessness which, especially in his youth, was a conspicuous feature of his character, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... lesson," said Thurmon, dryly. "We rebuilt, yes. We survived. In a sense, perhaps, we even made certain advances. There is no longer any economic rivalry, no social distinctions, no external pressure. I think I can safely assume that the danger of future warfare is forever banished. The balance of power is no longer a factor. The balance of Nature has been partially restored. And only one problem ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... allow him to be omnipotent, they set up Thucydides, of the township of Alopekae, as his rival, a man of good sense, and a relative of Kimon, but less of a warrior and more of a politician, who, by watching his opportunities, and opposing Perikles in debate, soon brought about a balance of power. He did not allow the nobles to mix themselves up with the people in the public assembly, as they had been wont to do, so that their dignity was lost among the masses; but he collected them into a separate ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... aroused the suspicions of Brandenburg and Neuburg; and these two came to an agreement to enter into joint possession of the duchies, and were styled "the possessors." The Protestant Union at Heidelberg recognised "the possessors," for it was all-important for the balance of power in Germany that these lands should not pass into the hands of a Catholic ruler of the House of Austria. For the same reason Brandenburg and Neuburg were recognised by the States-General, who did not wish to see a partisan of Spain established on their ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... is the probable predominance in a Home Rule Ireland of the present Ulster Unionist party. That group is likely, for many reasons, to retain its solidarity after ours has been dissipated. Should that prove to be the case, self-government will put the balance of power on almost all great conflicts of opinion into the hands of Sir Edward Carson and his successors. The "minority," adroitly handled, will exploit the majority almost as effectively after Home Rule as before it. Captain Craig will dictate terms to us not from the ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... sympathized with the Entente, regarded with amazement and disgust the sudden disclosure of the true character of the German militaristic government. Yet for the average American the war wore the complexion of other European conflicts, was one involving a Balance of Power, mysterious and inexplicable. To him the underlying issue was not democratic, but imperialistic; and this was partly because he was unable to make a mental connection between a European war and the brand ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... outside this little world of love and emotion. He had a grasp of facts. Supposing, for instance, that England made a sudden move towards some unknown port on the coast of Morocco, St. John knew what was at the back of it, and to hear him engaged with her husband in argument about finance and the balance of power, gave her an odd sense of stability. She respected their arguments without always listening to them, much as she respected a solid brick wall, or one of those immense municipal buildings which, although they compose the greater part of our cities, have ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... free Austria from the threatening pressure of Napoleon on the west and of Russia on the east. She must now assure to Europe a lasting peace—"not a mere truce in disguise, like all former treaties with Napoleon"—but a peace that would restrict the power of France and "establish a balance of power among the chief States."[289] Such was the secret aim of Austria's mediation. Obviously, it gave her many advantages. While posing as mediator, she could claim her share in the territorial redistribution which must accompany ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... hard-cider watchwords were born of a taunt, like the "Gueux" of the Netherlands. The once famous phrase, Gerrymandering, some of our readers may remember. Governor Elbridge Gerry contrived, by a curious arrangement of districts in Massachusetts, to transfer the balance of power to his own party. One of his opponents, poring over the map of the Commonwealth, was struck by the odd look of the geographical lines which thus were drawn, curving in and out among the towns and counties. "It looks," said he, "like a Salamander." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... A. with B. C. strikes the same sure alliance, That C. A. and B. C. had with A. B. before; And in mutual affiance None attempting to soar Above another, 50 The unanimous three C. A. and B. C. and A. B. All are equal, each to his brother, Preserving the balance of power so true: Ah! the like would the proud Autocratrix[23:1] do! 55 At taxes impending not Britain would tremble, Nor Prussia struggle her fear to dissemble; Nor the Mah'met-sprung Wight The great Mussulman Would stain his Divan 60 With Urine ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and the Reform Bill was only the removal of a barrier on the road to democracy. The Tories described the Bill as revolutionary, but as a matter of fact the Act of 1832 neither fulfilled the hopes of its friends nor the fears of its foes. What the Act did was to transfer the balance of power from the landed aristocracy, which had been in the main predominant since 1688, to the richer members of the middle class—the big farmers in the country, the prosperous shopkeepers in the towns. The working class was still voteless, ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... were secretly leagued for a partition of the Netherlands between them. Wider views too gradually set aside the narrow dreams of merely national aggrandizement. To Ashley and his followers an increase of the French power seemed dangerous not only to the European balance of power but to English Protestantism. Even Arlington, Catholic as in heart he was, thought more of the political interests of England and of the invariable resolve of its statesmen since Elizabeth's day to keep ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... mission: First, to reinforce a half of another company which is now outnumbered ten to one; second, to raise a regiment of loyal Russian troops in the great Pinega Valley where half the people are loyal and half are Bolo sympathizers. We hold the balance of power. Hold up your chins and push out your chests and bear your arms proudly when passing among the Russian people. You represent the nation that was slow to wrath but irresistible in might when its soldiers hit the Hindenburg Line. Make Russians respect your ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... Mutiny Bill the annual army was declared to be for the purpose of preserving the balance of power in Europe. The propriety of its being larger or smaller depended, therefore, upon the true state of that balance. If the increase of peace establishments demanded of Parliament agreed with the manifest ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... vice-king, because he appeared to have more enlarged views than themselves. The Creoles, as those of pure white blood born in America are called, who were excluded from all places of honor or profit, held the balance of power, and it was doubtful for a long time to which side the Creole soldiers would incline. But they were not long in suspense; for when fired upon by an undisciplined rabble, rather than an army, of Indians, they returned the ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... began to bid eagerly against each other for the favour of those whom tip to that time King and Church had combined to oppress. The Protestant Dissenters, who, a few months before, had been a despised and proscribed class, now held the balance of power. The harshness with which they had been treated was universally condemned. The court tried to throw all the blame on the hierarchy. The hierarchy flung it back on the court. The King declared that he had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the British Delegation made known their desire that words should be recorded expressing regret that the League was not to act as a whole, and to set its face "like flint against anything like the old balance of power by allowing these regional pacts to go on under this new instrument." The above text was ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... of the governor of a great dependency than to constitute himself the flickering shadow of the Secretary of State in Downing Street, who, knowing little of the real interests of the colony, is himself only the reflection of those that hold the balance of power, to whom the subject is one of entire indifference, provided that there is nothing ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... regular list of church benevolences. The state officers come in to help on the critical local fights. Any country politician fears their non-partisan denunciation as he does political death. The local machines thus backed are incurable mugwumps, hold the balance of power, work in both parties, and have voted dry the agricultural territory of the United States everywhere, by the ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... little attention to what else was going on around me until the spring of '56. Here was a poise of the scales, corruption and murder on one side, with honesty and good government on the other. Which shall be the balance of power, the ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... particular, he persuaded the Russian Government to make a very important alteration in the constitution of the Kalmuck State Council which in effect reorganized the whole 5 political condition of the state and disturbed the balance of power as previously adjusted. Of this council—in the Kalmuck language called Sarga—there were eight members, called Sargatchi; and hitherto it had been the custom that these eight members should be entirely ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... The balance of power established by Diocletian subsisted no longer than while it was sustained by the firm and dexterous hand of the founder. It required such a fortunate mixture of different tempers and abilities, as could scarcely be found or even expected a second time; two emperors without ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... spectacle presented to us by Europe, steeped in blood in an endeavor to establish a balance which is forever changing, should correct our policy in order to save it from those bloody dangers.... Besides that continental balance of power which Europe is seeking where it seems less likely to be found, that is, through war and disturbances, there is another balance, a balance which concerns us, the balance of the universe. The ambition of the European countries ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... the Visiter in supporting Van Buren was to smash one of the great pro-slavery parties of the nation, or gain an anti-slavery balance of power to counteract the slavery vote for which both contended. A few thousand reliable votes would compel one party to take anti-slavery ground. The Van Buren movement was almost certain to defeat the Democrats, and force the Whigs to seek our alliance. True, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm |
