"Usurpation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could not but revolt the priest, to whom, with his awful sense of the divine majesty, and his humble prostration in presence of it, such claims and such a demeanour must have appeared an impious and blasphemous usurpation of prerogatives that belong to God alone. And sometimes, we may suspect, lower motives concurred to whet the edge of the priest's hostility. He professed to be the proper medium, the true intercessor between God ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... not irk thee, she being wronged alone; Thy mother's bed, and not thy father's throne, Being soiled with usurpation. Ay? but say That now mine uncle and her sire lies dead And helpless now to help her, or affray The heart wherein her ruin and thine were bred, Not she were cast forth only from his bed, But thou, loathed issue of a contract loathed Since first their hands were joined not but betrothed, Wert cast ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... February, in the year 1193, when our story commences, was an epoch memorable for the base and treacherous captivity of Richard Coeur de Lion by the Duke of Austria; and for the equally base and treacherous, but short-lived, usurpation of John, the brother of our illustrious crusader. The nation was involved in great trouble and dismay. The best blood of England and the flower of her nobility had perished on the deserts of Palestine, or were pining there in hopeless captivity. The house of Fitz-Eustace, into ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... was taking place in the opposite direction, but of course in another group of buildings. For in proportion as the architect felt himself thrust aside or forgotten in one edifice, he endeavored to make himself principal in another; and, in retaliation for the painter's entire usurpation of certain fields of design, succeeded in excluding him totally from those in which his own influence was predominant. Or, more accurately speaking, the architects began to be too proud to receive assistance from the colorists; and these latter sought for ground ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... free barbarian nations were organised on a tribal or village basis. By the end of the tenth century, however, what is known as the Feudal System had been established all over Europe. "No land without a lord" was the underlying principle of the whole Feudal System. Either by conquest or usurpation, or by more or less compulsory voluntary agreement, even the free primitive communities (die Markgenossenshaften) of the Teutonic races had been brought under the dominion of the lords, spiritual or temporal, claiming suzerainty over the territory in which they were situated. The claims of ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... constitutes true royalty, to acknowledge yourself in the government of your kingdom to be the minister of God. For where the glory of God is not made the end of the government, it is not a legitimate sovereignty, but a usurpation. And he is deceived who expects lasting prosperity in that kingdom which is not ruled by the sceptre of God, that is, his holy word; for that heavenly oracle cannot fail, which declares that "where there is no vision, the people perish,"[1] Nor should you be seduced from this pursuit ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... to give the two sovereigns these titles would be merely a form, and that they would never become anything more than honorary. This might be so, but if Poland had possessed far-seeing statesmen they would have guessed that an honorary title would end in the usurpation of the whole country. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... The Committee was composed mainly of honorable men, deservedly high in the community, in every walk and relation of life. They doubtless acted from a conscientious sense of duty, and neither intended usurpation of the law, violence to justice, nor any wrong whatever. They believed it incumbent upon them to reform what they regarded as the maladministration of public affairs, and to cleanse the city of the corruption which existed—as it has existed and always ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... mentions that the witches were hanged and burned, or burned, without the previous strangling, "alive and quick." During the whole of James's reign, amid the civil wars of his successor, the sway of the Long Parliament, the usurpation of Cromwell, and the reign of Charles II., there was no abatement of the persecution. If at any time it raged with less virulence, it was when Cromwell and the Independents were masters. Dr. Zachary Grey, the editor of an edition of "Hudibras," informs us, in a note to that work, that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... ray of light; yet it was no less clear that these two persons, the one the declared enemy, the other the enthusiastic votary, of the Catholic religion,—the one at the head of the King's new government, the other, who regarded that government as a criminal usurpation—must have required and expected very different services from the individual whom they had thus united in recommending. It required very little reflection to foresee that these contradictory claims on his services might speedily ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... effect of the approach of the whites is often felt at two hundred leagues' distance from their frontier. Their influence is thus exerted over tribes whose name is unknown to them; and who suffer the evils of usurpation long before they are acquainted with the authors ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... of 1842, of course a mere executive parasite, or legislative minion, placed on the bench to repudiate the bonds. Fortunately, such an appointment was forbidden expressly by the Constitution, and would have been disregarded by the court; so this attempted usurpation failed. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Emperor He conciliates the Goths, and permits them to settle in the Empire Revolt of Maximus against Gratian; death of Gratian Theodosius marches against Maximus and subdues him Revolt of Arbogastes,—his usurpation Victories of Theodosius over all his rivals; the Empire once more united under a single man Reforms of Theodosius; his jurisprudence Patronage of the clergy and dignity of great ecclesiastics Theodosius ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... plot that had been planned, went to Scindia's camp to remonstrate against a heavy demand for money, on account of the expenses to which Scindia had been put; and to his astonishment he was, then and there, made a prisoner. Chimnajee positively refused to become a party to the usurpation of his brother's rights; but he was compelled, by threats, to ascend the musnud. On the day after his installation, Purseram Bhow wrote, proposing that Nana should come to Poona to meet Balloba, and to assume ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... the Audience a true Idea of the Filial Piety of the young Prince, and of his virtuous Character; for we are hereby informed of his fixed and strong Grief for the Loss of his Father: For it does not appear, that the Usurpation of the Crown from him, sits heavy on his Soul, at least, it is not seen by ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... court, was much less lively than such intelligence deserved. The Emperor Matthias was no longer the resolute spirit that formerly sought out his king and master in the very bosom of his people, and hurled him from three thrones. The confidence and courage which had animated him in an usurpation, deserted him in a legitimate self-defence. The Bohemian rebels had first taken up arms, and the nature of circumstances drove him to join them. But he could not hope to confine such a war to Bohemia. In all the territories under his dominion, the Protestants were ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... tacit agreement settled this point as it has so many others of the social economy. Nor would any discontent with the present arrangement have arisen; had the family life kept pace with the growth of society." This exclusive usurpation of the public life by man—or rather, as we should say, this natural development and division—so organized by immemorial usage as to have become a second nature in both parties, is at last beginning to reveal its injustice, and to give way. In savage life, woman is little more than a bearer ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... own contending factions, which often have recourse to arms, even upon points of ceremonious precedence, and are reasoned into accommodation by our resident going among them unattended. At an earlier period our protection was convenient to them against the usurpation, as they termed it, of the Dutch, of whose attempts and claims they were particularly jealous. By an article of the treaty of Paris in 1763 these pretensions were ascertained as they respected the two European powers, and the settlements of Natal ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... a nobleman who had lived at the court of king Arthur, and whose great qualities are celebrated by the pens of Lhowarch-Hen, (his cousin-german,) Taliessin, and the author of the Triades. In the beginning of the usurpation of Morcant Mawr, St. Kentigern was obliged to fly into Wales, where he stayed some time with St. David, at Menevia, {139} till Cathwallain, (uncle to king Maelgun Gwynedh,[2]) a religious prince of part of Denbighshire, bestowed ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... of the people, they answered, We cannot tell, meaning, It is inconvenient to express an opinion. As they could not venture to pronounce whether a ministry which had left its impress deep on the whole land, was a human usurpation or a divine mission, they had obviously no right to sit in judgment on the credentials of Jesus. When on this point they were condemned out of their own lips the Lord, rising now more into the stern dignity ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... monarchist harlot masquerading in the robes of liberalism. How did these people dare to use the name of Whig, how dare to resort to such false pretenses, when it was common knowledge that the personnel of that party, having been put down as Federalists for gross usurpation and monarchist practices had, being forced to change their skin, adopted the title of the liberal party of England, remaining more Tory than the party that tried to destroy American liberty during the Revolution? And now this Whig party like a ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... what he reduced to such a simple colloquy. With that Yes and No the wheel of ages made another revolution. The breath which spoke them turned the balances in which the whole subsequent history of civilization hung. It was the Yes and No which applied the brakes to the Juggernaut of usurpation, whose ponderous wheels had been crushing through the centuries. It was the Yes and No which evidenced the reality of a power above all popes and empires. It was the Yes and No which spoke the supreme obligation of the human soul to obey God and conscience, and started ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these years bygone, as having any right, title to, or interest in the said Crown of Scotland for government, as forfeited several years since by his perjury and breach of Covenant both to God and His Kirk, and usurpation of His Crown and Royal Prerogatives therein." That courageous act of those twenty patriots proclaimed the doom of the House ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... in the matter, but I will believe, as I have said, that this dead Princess, for whose soul he prays, was certainly the wife of his boyhood, a child whom Richard II had wed just before that Lancastrian usurpation which is the irreparable disaster of English history. She was, I say, a child—a widow in name—when Charles of Orleans, himself in that small royal clique which was isolated and shrivelling, married her as a mere matter of state. It is probable ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... People, deliberate in peace," pithily says Changarnier, after proving to his own satisfaction that the army will not level their arms against the Assembly in support of a Napoleonic usurpation. So the friends of Republican France throughout the world may give thanks and take courage. The darkness is dispersing; the skies of the future are red with the coming day. Time is on the popular side, and every hour's endurance adds strength to the Republic. It cannot ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... and cruelty. An allusion to the inhumanities of the Inquisition terminates this picture. The LAST PART of the Poem opens with the state of Spain previous to the unparalleled treachery of BUONAPARTE, gives a sketch of the usurpation attempted upon that unsuspicious and friendly kingdom, and terminates with the arrival of the British succours. It may be further proper to mention, that the object of the Poem is less to commemorate or detail particular incidents, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... divine legislation. To a conformity in externals which did not require them to admit the right of the civil magistracy to enact laws for the church, they were willing to yield as far as was necessary to edification. But when the command issued from the ruling power, in usurpation of the prerogative of the great and only head of the church, and obedience was to be construed as acquiescence in such usurpation, their reply was kindred in tone and spirit to that which Luther here puts into the lips of a christian man in ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... and honour of England, with such rash exuberance of confiding loyalty, that, by intrusting to his careless hand the full possession of unrestrained power, they laid the foundation of future contests and confusion. Such were the prospective evils with which the Oliverian usurpation afflicted the state, while in the department of morals, piety was brought into such contempt by the extravagance of fanatics, and the detected cheats of hypocrites, that atheism and profaneness grew popular, as being more open and ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... is seldom enviable:—in the wars occasioned by the usurpation of Stephen, Lisieux once more obtained an unfortunate celebrity. The town was attacked in 1136, by the forces of Anjou, under the command of Geoffrey Plantagenet, husband of the Empress Maud, joined by those ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... where your gloomie bounds Confine with Heav'n; or if som other place From your Dominion won, th' Ethereal King Possesses lately, thither to arrive I travel this profound, direct my course; 980 Directed, no mean recompence it brings To your behoof, if I that Region lost, All usurpation thence expell'd, reduce To her original darkness and your sway (Which is my present journey) and once more Erect the Standerd there of Ancient Night; Yours be th' advantage all, mine the revenge. Thus Satan; and him thus the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... last line of defense; and so at the present day it is the Cabinet which has the largest control not only of patronage (much of it corruptly applied), but of certain penalizing devices by which monetary pressure can be brought upon those who thwart its will. By its practical usurpation of the Crown's right to decree a general election, and by its control of the party funds, from which parliamentary candidates are subsidized and assisted to the poll, it is able to hold over the heads of its supporters a financial threat ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... prefer a second 'La Pelouse,' governed by Miss Weber, who certainly agrees with you, 'that girls are trained too delicately to allow the mind to expand.' Illuminated and expanded by 'philosophy' and 'social progress' she and Madame Dudevant long ago literally abjured stays, and glory in the usurpation of vests, pantaloons, coats, and short hair. Be pleased to fancy my Regina, my blue-eyed ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... bore all the appearance of a lawless usurpation of some intruder of the kind. He had possessed himself forcibly of the fortress, and consequently of the town. He had issued extravagant licenses injurious to the government, and apparently intended only to make partisans among the people; and had ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... usurpation is established upon this method of arguing. We do not make laws. No; we do not contend for this power. We only declare law; and, as we are a tribunal both competent and supreme, what we declare to be law becomes law, although it should not have been so before. Thus the circumstance of ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... large and serious movement through his mind he came back to Science, Philosophy or Politics as the sole three justifications for the usurpation of leisure. ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... too, he was directed to preach against the pope, and to expose his usurpation; but he could not bring himself to obey. He shrank from the pulpit; he preached but twice after the visitation, and then on other subjects, while in the prayer before the sermon he refused, as we find, to use the prescribed form. He only said, 'You shall pray for the spirituality, the temporality, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... Odin rush'd to fight, And rent the eagles of invading Rome, Whose power had changed a hundred nations' doom. In vain the Empress of the Northern Zone, With arts on arts high piled her ill-gained throne: Stern Engelbert trod Usurpation down, And from the thirteenth Eric tore the crown. Yet may my country fall—earth's works decay, And heaven's high laws ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... during the deliberations at the house of the Grand Vizier. For this purpose they chose from among the most daring of the Janissaries those officers who had a grudge against Halil for enforcing discipline against them, and were also jealous of what they called his usurpation of authority. These men they took with them to the council as members of ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... literature, which he kept concealed in a large drawer, under the stock of heads and religious images. It is probable that he felt some slight qualms at the free-and-easy manner in which he had taken possession of the post office, and recognised the desirability of getting his usurpation confirmed as far as possible. At all events, he had thought it well to call upon Rougon, who was ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... the originator of the calumny. I give the sentences, as they stand in the sermon, premising only that I was speaking exclusively of miracles worked for the outward senses of men. "It was only to overthrow the usurpation exercised in and through the senses, that the senses were miraculously appealed to. REASON AND RELIGION ARE THEIR OWN EVIDENCE. The natural sun is in this respect a symbol of the spiritual. Ere he is fully arisen, and while his glories are still under veil, he calls up the ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... believe that the "anti-uniformists" would carry away the honors. We do not pretend that the State has no rights in matters of education. But its interference should be consistent with the prior and more fundamental rights of the individual and the family and not become a usurpation or abrogation of them. Otherwise it would be the wrong way of ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... devices which have been used to sway them from their interest and duty, they are now as ready to maintain the authority of the laws against licentious invasions as they were to defend their rights against usurpation. It has been a spectacle displaying to the highest advantage the value of republican government to behold the most and the least wealthy of our citizens standing in the same ranks as private soldiers, preeminently distinguished by being the army ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... kittens, and resolutely maintained it against the parent cat. Here the case was different. The hen had become a trespasser. She had no business with kittens. There was no hypothesis by which she could claim them as her own. Kittens are not hereditary in the family of fowls, and she knew it. It was an usurpation without any pretext of justification. What would become of us if such a precedent could be extended to the genus Mammalia? Hundreds of rapacious old maids would be seizing all sorts and all sizes of babies from agonized mothers, and asserting for themselves the hallowed ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... notwithstanding possession was already fully taken by the building and occupation of Fort Good Hope, and there was no neglect from time to time in warning them, in making known our rights, and in protesting against their usurpation and violence, they have disregarded all these things and have seized and possessed, and still hold, the largest and best part of New Netherland, that is, on the east side of the North River, from Cape Cod, (by our people in 1609 called New Holland, and taken possession of [if we are correctly ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... he had broken through all the promises, pledges, and specious pretences by which he had deceived and enslaved the nation, which Mr. Macaulay calls with such opportune naivete, his fellow citizens! Then follows, not a censure of this faithless usurpation, but many laboured apologies, and even defences of it, and a long series of laudatory epithets, some of which are worth collecting as a rare contrast to Mr. Macaulay's usual style, and particularly to the abuse of Charles, which we have ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... "orderly mob" which assembled in the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and stamp act laws! Our fathers resisted, not the King's prerogative, but the King's usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. Our state archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament unconstitutional,—beyond ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... for that oppressed child an avenger, or a supporter, or vindicator, if you prefer it. It happened that the reigning king, the usurper—you are quite of my opinion, I believe, that it is an act of usurpation quietly to enjoy, and selfishly to assume the right over, an inheritance to which a man has only ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... them by a large figure of Thothmes III., the fifth King of the eighteenth dynasty. In the row to the left of the entrance are thirty-one names, and in that to the right are thirty, all of them predecessors of Thothmes. The Theban Kings who ruled in Upper Egypt during the usurpation of the Hyksos invaders are also exhibited among the lists. Over the head of each King is his oval, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... with regard to the nomination of Laurent Bertrand to be cure of Saint Leon-le-Grand, by the titular Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec, in the case of one Lavergne, who having refused to furnish the pain beni, was prosecuted in the Court of King's Bench, that it was a usurpation in the bishop to erect parishes and appoint cures. He went farther and said that there was no such person as the Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec. The title, rights, and powers of that office had been destroyed ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... hand: "Whatever is valid in a smaller matter ought to be valid also in a greater one. One may convert the preceding example." Also, "That which is valid in a parallel case ought to be valid in this which is a parallel case." As, "Since the usurpation of a farm depends on a term of two years, the law with respect to houses ought to be the same." But in the law houses are not mentioned, and so they are supposed to come under the same class as all other things, the property in which is determined ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... took part with the Opposition, justly fearing that the rule of the Directory would soon amount to nothing more than the rule of Bonaparte himself. The first debates in the new Chamber arose upon the laws relating to emigrants; the next, upon Bonaparte's usurpation of sovereign power in Italy. On the 23rd of June a motion for information on the affairs of Venice and Genoa was brought forward in the Council of Five Hundred. Dumolard, the mover, complained of the secrecy of Bonaparte's action, of the contempt shown by him to the Assembly, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... were a step beyond even this skeptical usurpation. Religion is man's conduct to himself. Man, from time immemorial, has been buried in self-love, and become so far carried away by it that his religion is now one monstrous hallucination. Religion springs not from his intellect but from his imagination. He wishes to get to heaven; he desires to be ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... another from revenge or hate, or in mere indifference. He licensed no man to do it, nor any community or nation. And whoever does it, serves not God but the devil; and if any crime be unpardonable, it is that, because it is not essential or natural, but an usurpation against nature, and breeds ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... probably at the same time, according to situation, to sound those of their companions, puns and other quibbles have been of notable service. The following is worthy of notice:—The cavaliers during Cromwell's usurpation, usually put a crumb of bread into a glass of wine, and before they drank it, would exclaim with cautious ambiguity, "God send this Crum well down!" A royalist divine also, during the Protectorate, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various
... man has a right to bestow upon himself; and added, that he might with equal propriety style himself a volunteer lord or volunteer baronet. It cannot be denied that the remark was just; but Savage did not think any title, which was conferred upon Mr. Cibber, so honourable as that the usurpation of it could be imputed to him as an instance of very exorbitant vanity, and, therefore, continued to write under the same title, and received every year ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... authority of the Church herself both in doctrine and discipline for all subsequent time. If the Church, in declaring St. Leo to be entrusted by our Lord with the guardianship of the Vine, erred; if she asserted a falsehood, or if she favoured an usurpation, how can she be trusted for any maintenance of doctrine, for any administration of sacraments, for any exercise of authority? This consideration does not touch those who believe in no Church at all. They are in the position of that individual whom ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... he had ever endeavoured to make her subject, and all others around him. Others had become subject because he was the Lord Popenjoy of the day, and would be the future Marquis; but she, though recognising his right to be first in every thing, had ever rebelled against his usurpation of unauthorized power. He, too, remembered all this, and almost snarled at her with his eyes. "I suppose I might stay if I liked, or come back if I liked, without asking you," ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Fergusson; and so, with his mind relieved Old Jock went below soon after "six bells," or two o'clock, leaving the charge of the deck to Mr Saunders—who, grumbling at the captain's rather insidious usurpation of his authority, had betaken himself to the lee-side of the taffrail, whence he watched the ship's wake and the foaming rollers that came tumbling after her, as she drove on before the stiff nor'-wester under reefed topsails and courses, the waves trying to poop her every instant, ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Bermuda offered him against his enemy. It is nearly always in the power of a party politician to distort and misrepresent the act {17} of an opponent, however just or blameless that act may be. Brougham made a great pother about the rights of freemen, usurpation, dictatorship. As a lawyer he raised the legal point, that Durham could not banish offenders from Canada to a colony over which he had no jurisdiction. He enlisted other lawyers on his side to attack ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... implication of its sub-title, the fiction is much less "Gothic" than its model, and its modernness of sentiment and manners is hardly covered with even the faintest wash of mediaevalism. As in Walpole's book, there are a murder and a usurpation, a rightful heir defrauded of his inheritance and reared as a peasant. There are a haunted chamber, unearthly midnight groans, a ghost in armor, and a secret closet with its skeleton. The tale is infinitely tiresome, and is full of that edifying ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... all his ingenuity, which was exquisite; and lent his cause a certain delicacy of taste and cultivated elegance, which, although too prim and artificial, was a vein of gold running through his mass of erudition; it was Hurd who aided the usurpation of Warburton in the province of criticism above Aristotle and Longinus.[191] Hurd is justly characterised by Warton, in his Spenser, vol. ii. p. 36, as "the most sensible and ingenious of modern critics."—He was a lover of his studies; ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... this," he said. "I have often told him that it was our duty to protect the inferior princes against the usurpation of this islander; but he answers me ever with cold respects of their relations together as suzerain and vassal, and that it were impolitic in him to make an open breach at this ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... the descendants of the two tribes which had owned the mining valley of Caravaya descended on the white inhabitants in revenge for a usurpation of their lands which had taken place more than two centuries before. They settled the question of ownership by burning the city and killing all the inhabitants with arrows and clubs. When news of ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... our attitude towards Richard changes from contempt to pity and even admiration, so our admiration for Henry, the man of action and, as he calls himself, "the true-borne Englishman," turns into indignation at his usurpation of the throne and his connivance, to use no stronger term, at the murder of his sovereign. Throughout the play, however, Shakespeare makes us feel that the national cause ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... very handsome volume: as will doubtless the "Butterfly at the end of Winter," provided that he is fortunate enough to survive the present inclemencies. We are, however, by no means convinced that the Bellman will relish Mr. S.'s usurpation of a "Christmas Carol;" which looks so very like his own, that we advise him immediately to put in his claim, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Government and providing for the formation of a constitution under its initiative at some future date. After describing this proposed action as a continuation of the crime against Kansas, Sumner declared: "Sir, you cannot expect that the people of Kansas will submit to the usurpation which this bill sets up and bids them bow before, as the Austrian tyrant set up the ducal hat in the Swiss market-place. If you madly persevere, Kansas will not be without her William Tell, who will refuse at all hazards to recognize the tyrannical edict; and this will be the beginning ...
— The Anti-Slavery Crusade - Volume 28 In The Chronicles Of America Series • Jesse Macy
... dead letter, brutum fulmen[Lat], misrule; license, licentiousness; insubordination &c. (disobedience) 742; lynch law &c. (illegality) 964; nihilism, reign of violence. [Deprivation of power] dethronement, deposition, usurpation, abdication. V. be -lax &c. adj.; laisser faire[Fr], laisser aller[Fr]; hold a loose rein; give the reins to, give rope enough, give a loose to; tolerate; relax; misrule. go beyond the length of one's tether; have one's swing, have one's fling; act without instructions, act without ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Pennsylvania stood a little mill. The miller appertaining unto this mill was a Pennsylvania Dutchman—a species of animal in which for some centuries sauerkraut has been usurping the place of sense. In Hans Donnerspiel the usurpation was not complete; he still knew enough to go in when it rained, but he did not know enough to stay there after the storm had blown over. Hans was known to a large circle of friends and admirers as about the worst miller in those parts; but as he was the only one, people who quarrelled ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... Roman culture is significant. Theodoric put the name of the eastern emperor on the coins that he issued and did everything in his power to insure the emperor's approval of the new German kingdom. Nevertheless, although he desired that the emperor should sanction his usurpation, Theodoric had no idea of being really subordinate ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... the poor colonists against becoming tenants, and the usurpation of the land, were clearly brought out by Bellomont in a letter written on Nov. 28, 1700, to the Lords of Trade. He complained that "people are so cramped here for want of land that several families within ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... ever afterwards famous in Swedish history. Here for the first time his words were heard with some degree of favor. The proud spirits of these mountain peasants had been already often roused by evidences of foreign usurpation, and it needed little to induce them to rebel. But their isolated position in a measure saved them from the burdens of the Danish yoke, and they answered they could venture nothing till they had held a conference with their ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... arrival of the fugitives a myriad of the feathered tribes fled away into the topmost branches, protesting by their outcries against this flagrant usurpation of their domicile. These birds, who themselves had taken refuge in the solitary OMBU, were in hundreds, comprising blackbirds, starlings, isacas, HILGUEROS, and especially the pica-flor, humming-birds of most resplendent colors. When they flew away it seemed as though a gust of wind had ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... for a period of more than five years, this peninsula remained unnoticed by the Spaniards. Then Cortez left Mexico, which he had already subjugated, for a journey of discovery to Honduras, and for the purpose of calling to account, for insubordination and usurpation of authority, Cristoval de Olid, whom he had previously sent to that region from Vera Cruz. He received from the princes of Xicalanco and Tobasco maps and charts, giving the natural features of the country, ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... less universal feeling that it was our duty to the world to provide this transit in the shape of a canal—the resolution of the Pan-American Congress was practically a mandate to this effect. Colombia was then under a one-man government, a dictatorship, founded on usurpation of absolute and irresponsible power. She eagerly pressed us to enter into an agreement with her, as long as there was any chance of our going to the alternative route through Nicaragua. When she thought we were committed, she refused to fulfil the agreement, with the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... a sense of their great share in them. In particular, that discipline, which is one of the greatest of those blessings, never can, and, indeed, never ought to be restored, till the Church resumes its lawful authority, and puts an end to the usurpation of its powers by the clergy. There is a feeling now awakened amongst the lay members of our Church, which, if it can but be rightly directed, may, by God's blessing, really arrive at something truer and deeper than satisfied the last century, or than satisfied the last seventeen centuries. Otherwise, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... the nation, may not be protected by primary legislation upon the part of Congress. Justice Harlan pointed out that it is for Congress not the judiciary, to say that legislation is appropriate, for that would be sheer usurpation of the functions of a coordinate department. Why should these rules of interpretation be abandoned in the case of maintaining the rights of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... other creatures of the Commonwealth, had instituted this Club [the Calves-head Club], as he was inform'd, in opposition to Bp. Juxon, Dr. Sanderson, Dr. Hammond, and other divines of the Church of England, who met privately every 30th of January; and though it was under the Time of Usurpation, had compil'd a private Form of Service for the Day, not much different from what we now find in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... absorbed he had become in these greater things. How, in the swing of congenial interests, he had been borne insensibly forward—his capacities expanding, his intelligence asserting itself. He had so undeniably found his sphere that the idea of usurpation had receded gently as by natural laws, until his own personality had begun to color the ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... Writings have occasioned so much mischief, abject slavishness, bloated pride, tyrannous usurpation, bloody persecution, with kings even against their will the drudges, false soul-destroying quiet of conscience, as this text, 'John' xx. 23. misinterpreted. It is really a tremendous proof of what the misunderstanding of a few words can do. That even ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... for success in her egg-laying; the other has a thankless and precarious task, at the mercy of a thousand accidents which endanger the great undertaking of installing the eggs. One has only to watch the prolonged hesitation of a Coelioxys seeking for the Leaf-cutters' cells to recognize that the usurpation of another's nest is not effected without serious difficulties. If she turned parasite in order to make the rearing of her offspring easier and more prosperous, certainly she was very ill-inspired. Instead of rest, hard work; instead of a flourishing ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... particulars their institutions had been violated, and to the truth and certainty of our public annals. As the record now stands, whilst the resolution plainly charges upon the President at least one act of usurpation in "the late Executive proceedings in relation to the public revenue," and is so framed that those Senators who believed that one such act, and only one, had been committed could assent to it, its language is yet broad enough to include several such acts, and so it ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... Commencement of the Viceroyalty of Blasco Nunnez Vela, and renewal of the civil war in Peru by the usurpation ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... the Stage?—In a pamphlet entitled Arbitrary Government displayed to the Life, in the illegal Transactions of the late Times under the tyrannick Usurpation of Oliver Cromwell, ed. 1690, p. 98., we are informed that Hugh Peters, after he had been expelled the University of Cambridge, went to London, and enrolled himself as player in Shakspeare's company, "in which he usually performed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... to the womanly conscience—Is it not a hundred times more honourable to exercise, so to speak, rights that are legitimately recognised, though wisely limited, than to suffer in consideration, and often in reputation, from an usurpation ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... constrained to take the oath of fealty, the public officers, who refused, were dragged away captive, etc. Ellingen, Stopfenheim, Absperg, Eschenbach, Nueremberg, Postbaur, Virnsperg, Oettingen, Dinkelspuehl, Ritzenhausen, Gelchsheim, were scenes of brutal outrage."—The History of the Usurpation of Brandenburg, A.D. 1797, with the original Documents, published by ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... of Bijanagur had been governed for thirty years by the usurpation of three brothers, keeping the lawful king a state prisoner, and ruling according to their own pleasure, shewing the king only once a year to his subjects. They had been principal officers under the father of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... about seven or eight thousand men kept in Scotland. The pay of the army brought so much money into the kingdom that it continued all that while in a very flourishing state...... We always reckon those eight years of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity." "During the time of the usurper Cromwell," says Fletcher, "we imagined ourselves to be in a tolerable condition with respect to the last particular (trade and money) by reason of that expense which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... believe me, you say—they will believe that a mother should know her own son. Then are your hours of usurpation numbered." ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Carthage. His army was cut off, and he sought terms of peace, which were haughtily rejected, and he then gave hostages for keeping the peace, and agreed to pay five thousand talents within fifty years, and acknowledge Masinissa's usurpation. The Romans, instead of settling the difficulties, instigated secretly Masinissa. And the Roman commissioners sent to the Senate exaggerated accounts of the resources of Carthage. The Romans compelled ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... I dare, without usurpation, assume the honourable style of a Christian. Not that I merely owe this title to the font, my education, or the clime wherein I was born; but that having, in my riper years and confirmed judgment, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... Victory, And with her, hand in hand, firm-footed Peace, 160 Her countenance twice lighted up with glory, As if I had charmed a goddess down from Heaven? But these will flee abhorrent from the throne Of usurpation! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the great troubles of life is that Reason has taken charge of the administration of Justice, and by mere identification it has achieved the crown and sceptre of its master. But the imperceptible usurpation was recorded, and discriminating minds understand the chasm which still divides the pretender Law from the exiled King. In a like manner, and with feigned humility, the Cold Demon advanced to serve Religion, and by guile and violence usurped her throne; but ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... that Beauchene had resumed his dissolute life, and daily intrusted the young man with more and more authority. Blaise's home was prospering too; Charlotte had now given birth to a second child, a boy, and thus fruitfulness was invading the place and usurpation becoming more and more likely, since Constance could never more have an heir to bar the road of conquest. Without penetrating her singular feelings, Mathieu fancied that she perhaps wished to sound him to ascertain if he were not behind Blaise, urging on ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... a long, long time to become reconciled to the complete usurpation of all their former rights by this new parent whom their boys are bound to serve,—this anything but Alma Mater,—the war school of the nation. As for Miss Nan, though she made it a point to declaim ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... to assert the character which it pleased them to profess, or maintain the reputation which they had prospectively acquired for the very commendable virtue which constituted their ordinary theme. Bolivar found them cold. Accustomed to overthrow and usurpation, they were now slow to venture property and life upon the predictions and promises of one who, however perfect in their estimation as a patriot, had yet suffered from most capricious fortunes. His past ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... which the business has of recent years had to contend is the unscrupulous methods of some of its "managers." Knowing no such thing as professional honor, these men are ever ready to benefit themselves, regardless of the cost to an associate club. The reserve rule itself is a usurpation of the players' rights, but it is, perhaps, made necessary by the peculiar nature of the base-ball business, and the player is indirectly compensated by the improved standing of the game. I quote in this connection Mr. A. G. Mills, ex-President of the League, and the originator of the National ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... and accordingly the jurisdiction over Pawtuxet was formally conceded to Massachusetts. Thereupon that colony, assuming jurisdiction, summoned Gorton and his men to Boston, to prove their title to the lands they occupied. They of course regarded the summons as a flagrant usurpation of authority, and instead of obeying it they withdrew to Shawomet, on the western shore of Narragansett bay, where they bought a tract of land from the principal sachem of the Narragansetts, Miantonomo. The immediate rule over this land belonged to two inferior chiefs, who ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... secondly, it is necessary to observe, that, if the degeneracy of the higher orders of society be such that no remedy less fraught with horror can effect a radical cure; and if, enjoying the fruits of usurpation, they domineer over the weak, and check, by all the means in their power, every humane effort to draw man out of the state of degradation into which the inequality of fortune has sunk him; the people are justified ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... laudabilis, et gloriosus, et superexaltatus in saecula. Every day doing marvels and exceeding all that seemed possible in power and love, by new and still newer manifestations. A Greek had come to Africa to embellish the shrines of heathenism, to minister to the usurpation of the evil one, and to strengthen the old ties which connected genius with sin; and she had suddenly found salvation. But yesterday a poor child of earth, and to-day an inhabitant of the heavens. But yesterday without God and without hope; and to-day a martyr with a green palm and golden vestment, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... natural right to prevent people from crossing that strip of wood where his pheasants were sitting. His ancestors had assumed it from time immemorial, and by dint of never being questioned had come to regard the absurd usurpation as quite fair and proper. He placed himself straight across the narrow path, blocking it up with his short and stumpy figure. "Now look here, young man," he said, with all the insolence of his caste: "if you try to go on, I'll stand here in your way; and if you dare to touch me, it's ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... principal works were De Regno et Regali Potestate, &c. (Paris, 1600), a strenuous defence of the rights of kings, in which he refutes the doctrines of George Buchanan, "Junius Brutus" (Hubert Languet) and Jean Boucher; and De Potestate Papae, &c. (London, 1609), in opposition to the usurpation of temporal powers by the pope, which called forth the celebrated reply of Cardinal Bellarmine; also commentaries on some of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... which insulted and roused us under the short-sighted ambition of the five Directors; that Jacobinism, to which we have sworn enmity through every shifting of every bloody scene, through all those abhorred mockeries which have profaned the name of liberty to all the varieties of usurpation; to this Jacobinism we are now to reconcile ourselves, because all its arts and all its energies are united under one person, the child and the champion of Jacobinism, who has been reared in its principles, who has fought ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... alarm On Gallia's blood-stain'd ground; When usurpation's giant arm Enslav'd the nations round: The thunders of avenging heaven To Nelson's chosen hand were given; By Nelson's chosen hand were hurl'd To ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... a little time as were those of the Maire du Palais and the Comte de Paris. But by the providence of God, Cardinal Mazarin, who succeeded him, was not capable of giving the State any jealousy of his usurpation. As these two ministers contributed chiefly, though in a different way, to the civil war, I judge it highly necessary to give you the particular character of each, and to draw a parallel ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... resources behind the insurrection, and no military leadership. General Canrobert, Commandant of the Guards, soon put down the revolt in blood. Order was speedily restored throughout Paris, and the victory of the President was complete. It only remained to submit his usurpation to the judgment of the people, and the decision in that case could, under existing conditions, hardly ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... looked upon as the Gog of the prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming of Christ; his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his implacable hostility to the Jews; his pollution of the Holy of Holies; and his miserable death ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... government, of which he was chosen chief: restored the authority of the laws; established a university; and took such measures, both for repressing abuses and moulding the rising generation, that, if France had not interfered, upon its wicked and detestable principle of usurpation, Corsica might at this day have been as free, and flourishing and happy a commonwealth as any of the Grecian states in the days of their prosperity. The Genoese were at this time driven out of their fortified towns, and must in a short time have been expelled. ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... there. On the government? it suffers itself to be insulted and defied at home, and abroad it has shown itself incapable of maintaining the relations of peace and amity with its allies, so far has it been divested of power by the usurpation of the press. It is at peace with Spain, and it is at peace with Turkey; and although no government was ever more desirous of acting with good faith, its subjects are openly assisting the Greeks with men and money against the one, and the Spanish ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... respect become less the express image of the imperial beast of the sea, (ch. xiii. 14;) yet the leaven of the Romish religion pervades all the Christian community, so far as allegiance to the beast or his horns is either enjoined or tolerated. This usurpation of the royal prerogatives of Christ over the churches and nations in the eastern hemisphere by the kings of the earth, and a similar usurpation in the western hemisphere, whether by individual despots or by the body politic, is the great crime which fills the measure of the cup of wrath, to ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... collected various particulars regarding the life, character, and subsequent sufferings, for conscience' sake, of this pious and useful minister. ("Hist. of the Suff. of the Ch. of Scot.", vol. i. pp. 197-200.) As he was persecuted, during the Usurpation, for persisting in praying publicly for the king, he had thus the singular misfortune of being punished both for his loyalty and his supposed disloyalty. Mr. Moncrieff has had a niche assigned to him by Howie among the Scots Worthies. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... republic, by an act of usurpation of the strongest and yet most popular character. The partisans of the new emperor were rewarded with the chief offices of the state; the leading republicans languished in prison or in exile for the crime of doing their duty to their constituents; ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... war, and that the tyrant should be altogether got rid of; otherwise the liberty of Greece would never be secure. That it would have been much better never to have entered on the war than to drop it after it was begun; for this would be a kind of approbation of his tyrannical usurpation, and which would establish him more firmly, as giving the countenance of the Roman people to his ill-acquired authority, and that he would quickly spirit up many in other states to plot against the liberty of their countrymen." The wishes of the general himself tended rather ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... squatters, who hold their place by intimidating the rightful owners; while in more than one case the Indians have been wholly dispossessed, and are wanderers upon the face of the earth. So far have these forms of usurpation been carried at times in Kansas, that an Indian reservation there might be defined as that portion of the soil of the State on which the Indians have ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... consider Buonaparte as a great man, abiding by his principles, and content with the true glory of being the first citizen of a free people; but as one meditating usurpation, and on the point of overturning, for the selfish love of dominion, the liberty of France. With this impression, my father declared that he would not go to the court of a usurper. He never went to his levees, nor would ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... entertained for some time, but died away, and the opposite, or Orleans party in France, was afterward supported by the English Crown. At length Henry the Fourth, on the eve of an expedition to the Holy Land, undertaken, it is said, in expiation of his usurpation of the throne, was struck with apoplexy; and a tale, in regard to his death, is current among the historians of the period, on which Shakespeare has founded one of the most beautiful scenes in his historical dramas. The poet, however, is far more indebted for the splendor of his materials ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... Procas, left two sons, Numitor and Amulius. Amulius, the younger, seized the kingdom; and Numitor, who was of a peaceful disposition, made no resistance to his brother. Amulius, fearing lest the children of Numitor might not submit so quietly to his usurpation, caused his only son to be murdered, and made his daughter, Rhea Silvia, one of the vestal virgins, who were compelled to live and die unmarried. But the maiden became, by the god Mars, the mother of twins. She was, in ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... have been common enough. Kings who died leaving helpless heirs to the guardianship of ambitious and wicked nobles were not rare in the early days of Britain, Wales, or Denmark; the murder of the heir and the usurpation of the kingdom by the cruel regent were no unusual occurrences. The opportunity of localising the early legend seems to have come with the growing fame of Anlaf, or Olaf, Sihtricson, who was known to the Welsh as Abloec or Habloc. ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... other man. Destroy the equivalent, and what is left? "So God created man in his own image—male and female created he them." This is a death-blow to all claims of superiority, to all charges of inferiority, to all usurpation, to ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... which deserves to be mentioned, as being well calculated to shew how deep an impression ideas of witchcraft had made on the public mind even in the gravest affairs and the counsels of a nation. Richard duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III, shortly before his usurpation of the crown in 1483, had recourse to this expedient for disarming the power of his enemies, which he feared as an obstacle to his project. Being lord protector, he came abruptly into the assembly of the council that he ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... negroes to the lower pursuits of labor. Even at this it would be possible to live, for there would be work. In the North, however, such employment has been monopolized by foreign immigrants clearing Ellis Island at the rate of more than a million a year. The usurpation here brought no clash, for the number of negroes in the North scarcely equalled a year's immigration. From the ranks of unskilled labor, accordingly, they were effectively debarred, being used occasionally, and to their own detriment, ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... Henry IV., Henry V., the three parts of Henry VI., and Richard III. This series may be divided into two, each forming a tetralogy, or group of four plays. In the first the subject is the rise of the house of Lancaster. But the power of the Red Rose was founded in usurpation. In the second group, accordingly, comes the Nemesis, in the civil wars of the Roses, reaching their catastrophe in the downfall of both Lancaster and York, and the tyranny of Gloucester. The happy ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... weight, which, as a burden, was laid upon other great stones, and yet so equally thereon poised up by Nature only, as a little child could instantly move it, but no one man or many remove it. This natural monument all travellers that came that way desired to behold; but in the time of Oliver's usurpation, when all monumental things became despicable, one Shrubsall, one of Oliver's heroes, then Governor of Pendennis, by labor and much ado, caused to be undermined and thrown down, to the great grief of the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... During the ten years' usurpation of Cromwell, those who endeavored faithfulness, had a fight of affliction to keep their ground; yet, after this came to a period, they had a far more fierce encounter, and of longer duration, to engage in, in the cruel and bloody tragedy ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... sometimes a little misleading; as where he praises Lincoln's readiness to acquiesce in the result of the election in 1864 and to retire peaceably in favor of McClellan; contrasting it with Cromwell's dissolution of his Parliaments and usurpation of the supreme power. There was a certain likeness in the exigencies, to be sure, but a broad difference between the problems confronting the two rulers. Lincoln was a constitutional President with strictly limited powers, ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... into three parts, and each would be a play with the ancients; or take the three AEschylean dramas of Agamemnon, and divide them into, or call them, as many acts, and they together would be one play. The first act would comprise the usurpation of AEgisthus, and the murder of Agamemnon; the second, the revenge of Orestes, and the murder of his mother; and the third, the penance and absolution of Orestes;—occupying a period ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... perfectibility, by the free action of mind upon mind, not by the obtrusive intervention of misapplied force; to uphold the integrity and guard the limitations of our organic law; to preserve sacred from all touch of usurpation, as the very palladium of our political salvation, the reserved rights and powers of the several States and of the people; to cherish with loyal fealty and devoted affection this Union, as the only sure foundation on which the hopes of civil liberty rest; to administer government with ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... a casting off of an unjustifiable usurpation in temporal as well as in spiritual things, and a violent reaction against that course of events which, from the eighth century downwards, had been tending to reduce the different sovereigns of Western Christendom to the rank of ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... Campbell leaves New Orleans for home this evening. Want of respect for Governor Wells personally, alone represses the expression of indignation felt by all honest and sensible men at the unwarranted usurpation of General Sheridan in removing the civil officers of Louisiana. It is believed here that you will reinstate Wells. He is a bad man, and ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... following Friday, the Piedmont Eagle appeared with an editorial signed by Dr. Cameron, denouncing in the fine language of the old school the arrest of Ben as "despotism and the usurpation of authority." ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... wanting to this display of power but the will. But a fleet requires only one commander, and a feeling is fast spreading in the country that we ought to be all commanders; unless the spirit of unconstitutional innovation, and usurpation, that is now so prevalent, at Washington, be controlled, we may expect to hear of proposals to send a committee of Congress to sea, in command of a squadron. We sincerely hope that their first experiment may be made on ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... buying liquor, denotes selfish usurpation of property upon which you have no legal claim If you sell it, you will be criticised ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... have set up a pro-slavery State Legislature, to choose two pro-slavery senators, whom in its turn the strong Lecompton majority in the United States Senate would have admitted to seats; and thus the whole chain of fraud and usurpation back to the first Border-Ruffian invasion of Kansas would have become complete, legal, and irrevocable, on plea of mere ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... which he had been so vexed and chagrined. Fitzosborne urged the duke not to allow such events to depress or dispirit him. "As for the death of Edward," said he, "that is an event past and sure, and can not be recalled; but Harold's usurpation and treachery admits of a very easy remedy. You have the right to the throne, and you have the soldiers necessary to enforce that right. Undertake the enterprise boldly. You ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... went as far down into the valley as he had been up on the heights during his vision—of a world made better by his hand. In his darker moments he saw nothing but enmity and disloyalty about him—even, a little later, "usurpation" in the case of the timorous and ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... people. "I view" (said he) "with the liveliest interest the loyal and determined spirit manifested in resisting the violence and perfidy with which the dearest rights of the Spanish nation have been assailed. The kingdom thus nobly struggling against the usurpation and tyranny of France, can no longer be considered as the enemy of Great Britain, but is recognised by me as a natural friend and ally." It has been already mentioned that the British commanders in ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... While continuing for twelve years to elect to the Presidency Jackson or his nominee, they finally dispossessed the Whigs from the control of Congress; and they were right. The American people have much more to fear from Congressional usurpation than they have from executive usurpation. Both Jackson and Lincoln somewhat strained their powers, but for good purposes, and in essentially a moderate and candid spirit; but when Congress attempts to dominate the executive, its objects are generally bad and its methods furtive ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... the question is the no less inveterate conviction in the tenants' mind that the absolute power of the landlord was originally a usurpation effected by the sword. Right or wrong, they believe that the confiscations were the palpable violation of the natural rights of the people whom Providence placed in this country. With bitter emphasis they assert that no set of men has any divine right to root a nation out of its own land. Painful ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... poverty was early relegated to the limbo of neglect. Only a few years after the founding of Manila royal decrees began to issue on the subject of complaints received by the King over the usurpation of lands on the part of the priests. Using the same methods so familiar in the heyday of the institution of monasticism in Europe—pious gifts, deathbed bequests, pilgrims' offerings—the friar orders gradually secured the richest of the arable lands in the more thickly settled portions ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal |
