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Balance of power   /bˈæləns əv pˈaʊər/   Listen
Balance of power

noun
1.
An equilibrium of power between nations.






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"Balance of power" Quotes from Famous Books



... most varied kind. Brought up to the bar, he has been a trained lawyer all his life. He has been acting-governor of South Australia; he refused the colonial secretaryship of New Zealand; he has been official draftsman for the colony of Victoria; he has held the balance of power in more than one colony; and in the colony of New South Wales, at the time when he suddenly discovered his miraculous powers, he was leading counsel on circuit, and in receipt of one of the largest professional incomes of any lawyer at the antipodes. Nor was his training solely colonial. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various

... even Hay — could have come out on precisely such extreme personal satisfaction, but as he sat at Hay's table, listening to any member of the British Cabinet, for all were alike now, discuss the Philippines as a question of balance of power in the East, he could see that the family work of a hundred and fifty years fell at once into the grand perspective of true empire-building, which Hay's work set off with artistic skill. The roughness of the archaic foundations looked ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... the spirit and the flesh made Cecil's heart an odd sort of debatable land; if she could not always insure success and supremacy to the right side, she certainly did endeavor to preserve the balance of power. Personally she rather disliked Mr. Fullarton, but she seemed to look upon him as the embodiment of a principle, and the symbol of an abstraction. He represented there the Establishment which she had always been taught to venerate; and so she felt bound, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... not expect these experiences, especially in America: for here probably enough men have already become property holders to make a sufficient balance of power for the preservation of property. If not, the first step toward ensuring civilization, is helping enough men to develop into property holders, and continue property holders, which general experience declares that they will not unless they ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... nations are kept in order by what is called the Balance of Power, and this policy they would delight to see established on this continent. Should the different States of the American Union be occupied, like the European states, in checking each other, they could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... 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 the French out of Flanders than of the interests of Catholicism. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... cannot but feel that it was a providential event, designed for some grand benefit to the human race. That benefit was the preparation for the reception of a new and universal religion. No system of "balance of power," no political or military combinations, no hostilities could prevent the absorption of the civilized world in the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... 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 ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... 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 ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell

... Lycurgus, uniting with the exiled Alcmaeonidae, succeeded in expelling him from the city. But the union that had led to his expulsion ceased with that event. The contests between the lowlanders and the coastmen were only more inflamed by the defeat of the third party, which had operated as a balance of power, and the broils of their several leaders were fed by personal ambition as by hereditary animosities. Megacles, therefore, unable to maintain equal ground with Lycurgus, turned his thoughts towards the enemy he had subdued, and sent proposals to Pisistratus, offering ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... contests innumerable on the earth. We read of wars for conquest, to avenge national insults, about disputed territory, against revolted provinces, and between dynasties; civil wars, religious wars, wars for the succession, to preserve the balance of power, and so forth. But never before was a war inaugurated to establish slavery as a principle of the government. We can predict no other fate for the leaders in this diabolical plot than discomfiture and defeat. We have an unwavering faith that the Republic will come out of this contest ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... from William the Norman, she 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

... in the throes of an earthquake. He groaned over it; he groaned over everything, and especially over his niece, who had suddenly developed into the most unmanageable element in the whole vexed problem of the future. He felt that they owed her very much, and that she held the balance of power through her influence over the negroes; and yet he was incensed that she was not meek and submissive as a young woman should be under all circumstances. An angry spot burned in each of Mrs. Baron's cheeks, for she felt that Miss Lou's conduct reflected very ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... War was 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 ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... constant stream of supplies from parliament; and to secure its regularity he had to rely on the good offices and advice of those who commanded most votes in the House of Commons. In the Lords, who then numbered less than two hundred, he could secure the balance of power through the appointment of bishops. In the Commons his situation was more difficult. The partial demise of personal monarchy in 1688 led to a scramble for its effects, and the scramble to the organization of the two principal competitors, the Whig ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... would thus 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 conquests might have been considerable, and her ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... both Houses to the Queen, presented on December 23rd, 1707, urged: "That nothing could restore a just balance of power in Europe, but the reducing the whole Spanish monarchy to the obedience of the House of Austria; and ... That no peace can be honourable or safe, for your Majesty or your allies, if Spain, the West Indies, or any part of the Spanish Monarchy, be suffered to remain ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... 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

... failure in what does the World War betoken? Was it national jealousy of the sort of the seventeenth century? But Europe has done more to break down national barriers than any preceding culture. Was it fear of the balance of power in Europe? Hardly, save in the half-Asiatic problems of the Balkans. What, then, does Hauptmann mean when he says: "Our jealous enemies forged an iron ring about our breasts and we knew our breasts had to expand,—that we had to split asunder this ring or else we had to cease ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... purposes. In 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; holding, in fact, the ministerial character ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... sorrow to him, that neither in the Writing-case, nor in Katte's or the Prince's so-called "Confessions," can the thing be seen into. A deeper bottom it must have, thinks his Majesty, but knows not what or where. To overturn the Country, belike; and fling the Kaiser, and European Balance of Power, bottom uppermost? Me they presumably meant to poison! he tells Seckendorf one day. [Dickens's Despatch, 16th September, 1730.] Was ever Father more careful for his children, soul and body? Anxious, to excess, to bring them up in orthodox nurture ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... recognised; no power viewed with indifference any movement threatening the existence of the Papacy, which represented religious unity, or of the crusading principalities which formed the outer bulwark of Western Christendom; the principle of the Balance of Power, though not yet crystallised into a dogma, was so far understood that the inordinate growth of any single power alarmed the rest, even though they stood in no imminent danger of absorption. Therefore whenever the Empire gained the upper hand over the ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis

... Berg replied quietly. "The balance of power is still with the government, because it does have more of the really heavy weapons than any other group can possibly muster. Alphabet bombs, artillery, rockets, armor, spaceships and space missiles. You see? Only research has lately suggested ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson

... was again elected in 1843 by the Legislature, there having been no choice by the people, a majority being required. The Senate was Democratic by a considerable majority. The House was equally divided at the opening of the session, and there were four abolitionists who held the balance of power. After several trials the Whigs succeeded in electing Daniel P. King of Danvers, by the help of one or more of the abolitionists. There were several contested seats, and when the house had been purged, as the process was called, the Democrats were in a majority. The session was a short one. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... should have; I 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 now on." ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... 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 ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... dwindling as it passed from generation to generation. So, let us travel ahead another one hundred years. During this time, as we learn from our historical and political archives, the socialists began to die out, since they at last realized the utter futility of combating the balance of power. The account, ...
— John Jones's Dollar • Harry Stephen Keeler

... wish you, therefore, to 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 ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... England in order to meet the English sovereign, while the King of France arranged an interview in his own dominions, known, from the magnificence of its appointments, as the "Field of the Cloth of Gold." Henry held the balance of power by which he could make France or Germany predominate as he saw fit. It was owing to his able diplomatic policy, or to that of Cardinal Wolsey, his chief counsellor, that England reaped advantages from both sides, and advanced from a comparatively low position to one that was fully abreast ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... ladies clad as soldiers. Sir Robert says: "These Household Troops charge in a most disorderly manner, but they are too many for us." While the Duke observes: "Our position is no longer tenable; draw off in good order, while I cover the retreat." No. 592 is "The Balance of Power. The figure proposed to displace the old one of Justice at the top of Constitution Hill." It shows a statue of the Queen, as Justice, holding a pair of scales, in which "Private Friendship," typified by two ladies of the household, weighs down "Public Service" full of Ministers. I ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton

... fortune the colonel did not see the chickens, so they and the turkeys were safely smuggled into camp, Benny getting full credit for maintaining the balance of power, when the odds were dead ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the Reichstag over the censorship, member Stresemann, National Liberal (the party which now holds the balance of power), violently abused President Wilson and said he was not wanted as a peace-maker. All applauded except the Socialists—so I think the President had better say nothing more about peace for the present. What he has said has done much good and has pleased the Government ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... determined to seize on and control all the resources of the Federal Government, and to spread their institutions through new States and Territories until the balance of power should fall into their hands and they should be able to force slavery into all ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... 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 ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... to extend and enlarge their possessions in the West, but also to people them, will not your Majesty look well to British interests in those regions, and adopt timely precautionary measures to maintain a balance of power in that quarter which, in the opinion of your memorialists, is destined at no very distant period to participate largely in ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... Carolinas, and to the coast of Florida, and ever after proved a migratory people. They were evidently 'subdued,' as Colden, Evans, and Pownall inform us, and the decisive battle was fought at Sandy Island, where a vital blow was given to the balance of power on the Ohio, which decided finally the fall of Kentucky with ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... thinks no 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. The remainder ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... statesmanship has detected in existence unquestionable elements of danger to the general peace and welfare of the world. To be always scrutinizing the movements of foreign states, with a view to convicting them of designs to destroy the balance of power (as it is called) in Europe, and thereupon evincing a disposition to assume an offensively distrustful and hostile attitude, requiring explanations, and disclaimers, and negotiations, which every one knows the slightest miscarriage may convert into inevitable pretexts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... endure for several ages, though the balance of power and the balance of property do not coincide.... But where the original constitution allows any share of power, though small, to an order of men who possess a large share of property, it is easy for them gradually to stretch their authority, and bring the balance of power to coincide ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... into collision with Welsh and 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 more signal because he found the utmost difficulty in discovering trustworthy ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... and 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

... bestrewn with testimonies to Joe. Portrait of Mr. Specks, bust of Mr. Specks, silver cup from grateful patient to Mr. Specks, presentation sermon from local clergyman, dedication poem from local poet, dinner-card from local nobleman, tract on balance of power from local refugee, inscribed Hommage ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... had the faculty of seeing things clearly and judging their values reasonably, without superstition. They had to pay the penalty of their opposition to the forces of the world; there was no cohesion in their society, and when once the balance of power in the island was disturbed, the Commonwealth broke up. But before that, they accomplished what had been ineffectually tried by the poet of Beowulf, the poet of Roland; they found an adequate form of heroic narrative. Also in their use of this ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... he advocated a world settlement based upon the old balance of power ideas, demonstrates necessity for and wisdom of your trip, and has set stage for final issue between balance of power and League of Nations. If America fails now, socialism rules the world and if international fair-play under democracy cannot curb ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... be replied, there may be such a balance of power, such a PONDERATION DE FORCES, as would lead states to hold back of their own accord. Well, that has been tried and is being tried even now. The Holy Alliance was nothing but that, the League of Peace was another attempt at the ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... 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 ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... projects of aggrandizement in Eastern Europe. The strife on the Rhine had set Russia free, as Pitt had foreseen, to carry out her schemes of aggression; and Austria and Prussia saw themselves forced, in the interest of a balance of power, to share in her annexations at the cost of Poland. But this new division of Poland would have become impossible had France been enabled by a restoration of its monarchy to take up again its natural position in Europe, and to accept the alliance which Pitt would in such ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... absolutism and the Moslem faith. The reflections of every people are cast in the national mould; it is so the world over, and has been so in all times. Europe, or at least a very influential portion thereof, thinks that the 'balance of power' system will yet be inaugurated among the family of nations yet to spring up on this continent. Her people think balance of power, and the London Times and like organs of the existing polity write balance of power for ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... dangerous enemy, and to win Prussia to Austrian interests. Germany wishes for peace, and Prussia and Austria must be on good terms. If Prussia and Austria were to take up arms against each other, the balance of power in Europe would be destroyed, and a war would be inaugurated which, perhaps, for years would deluge Germany with blood and tears! Austria will do all that lies in her power to avoid this; and we, my dear friend, will be Austria's allies, and will assist her to the best of our ability. ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... met his first important defeat. His policy had been repudiated in his own State. And it was Lincoln who had formulated the argument against him, who had held the balance of power, and had turned ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... purposes. In 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 subordinate 10 to the Khan; holding, in fact, ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... known the political importance of this Mission, we must recollect what was at that period the balance of power between the petty Indian tribes of Guiana. The banks of the Lower Orinoco had been long ensanguined by the obstinate struggle between two powerful nations, the Cabres and the Caribs. The latter, whose principal abode since the close of the seventeenth century has been between the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... some hostile States 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 ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... 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 ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... 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 ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... power to pounce upon it with as much certainty as the latter do, it is evident they would have greatly the advantage. The want of that capability, however, brings them upon an equality; and, as I have said, Lucien perceived in this that peculiar equilibrium, or "balance of power," which constantly presents itself to the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... The balance of power between the Life Principle in us and the Death Principle, is then, necessarily, a question of the balance between these two, the spirit and the flesh, or ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward

... agency all three were put on the dry land, without even wetting their feet, though I fared worse myself. No sooner were they safe, than Marble, who was up to his shoulders in the water, and who had made prodigious efforts to maintain the balance of power, released his hold, the wheelbarrow gave way at the same moment, and the whole affair, coach and horses, had their will, and went, stern foremost, overboard. One of the horses was saved, I believe, and the other drowned; but, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... in their skepticism. At the same time, a secret German propaganda for some years before the war did much to spread abroad the doctrine of German invincibility. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that a section of the population holds entirely erroneous views as to the present balance of power and requires unmistakable evidence of Turkish defeat to ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... destruction of the American Union. I speak of what I know from a residence now of nearly two years in Europe. Thus it is that Louis Napoleon intends to bring us within the centrifugal gravitation of the European balance of power. This wonderful man proposes to extend this system from the old continents to the new, embracing both, and thus hold in his grasp the equilibrium—the balance of power of the world. We may well imagine what that equilibrium will be when Napoleon the Third shall hold the balance in his hands. Already ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... 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.

... commander-in-chief," was created It is even asserted that it was moved in Congress that a committee should be appointed to arrest Washington, which was defeated only by the timely arrival of a new delegate, by which the balance of power was lost ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... unnatural that they should be desirous of existing as an independent nation, under a government of their own? Yet were it ascertained beyond dispute, that the wishes of the Belgians are such as the French represent them, surely the general interests of Europe, and the preservation of that balance of power so essential to its permanent tranquillity, would forbid the further extension of France, which might again reassume that preponderance which it has cost the other powers so much to reduce. I am, however, inclined to think, that ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard

... opponents to pieces with supreme scorn. What matters it to us who is King of Spain? asks one adversary. As well ask, retorts Defoe, what it matters to us who is King of Ireland. All this talk about the Balance of Power, says another, is only "a shoeing-horn to draw on a standing army." We do not want an army; only let us make our fleet strong enough and we may defy the world; our militia is perfectly able to defend us against invasion. If our militia is so strong, is Defoe's reply, why should a standing-army ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... less in abstract principles, and more in individual details. He makes less use of general topics, and more of immediate facts. Sir James is better acquainted with the balance of an argument in old authors; Mr. Brougham with the balance of power in Europe. If the first is better versed in the progress of history, no man excels the last in a knowledge of the course of exchange. He is apprized of the exact state of our exports and imports, and scarce a ship clears out its ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various

... the spoliation of Poland; and if openly, it would be deemed an avowal of hostilities against the Court of France, whose political system would certainly impel it to resist any attack upon the divan of Constantinople, that the balance of power in Europe might be maintained against the formidable ambition of Catherine, whose gigantic hopes had been ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... by Bolingbroke against Cromwell's foreign policy, on the ground that to unite with France, which was gaining strength, against Spain, which was beginning to decline, was not the way to maintain the balance of power in Europe, is once more reproduced as though it had not been often brought forward and answered. Cromwell was not bound to trouble his head about such a figment of a special diplomacy as the balance of power any ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... Majesty's. I also know that the Emperor of Russia does not wish for it. He, none the less, demands from the Porte things which all the Powers of Europe—among them, yourself—have solemnly declared to be incompatible with the independence of the Porte, and the European balance of power. In view of this declaration and of the presence of the Russian Army of invasion in the Principalities, the Powers could not but be ready to confirm their word by action. If "the Turk" now goes into the background, and if the approaching War appears to you ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... firing line, and neither he nor any of his men doubted that they could hold off the enemy for an indefinite time. In the course of the afternoon reinforcements arrived for the Boers, but Kitchener's Horse and a field battery came back and restored the balance of power. In the evening the latter swayed altogether in favour of the British, as Tucker appeared upon the scene with the whole of the 14th Brigade; but as the question of an assault was being debated a positive order arrived from Lord Roberts ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... third, lay in the fact that he never walked. He trotted, he cantered, he galloped; he progressed in jerks, in jumps, in somersets; he crawled up-stairs like a little Scotch plaid spider, on "all fours;" he came down stairs on the banisters, the balance of power lying between his steel buttons and the smooth varnish of the mahogany. On several memorable occasions, he has narrowly escaped pitching head first into the hall lamp. His favorite method of locomotion, however, consisted ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... should become dangerous by unduly extending his sway. For example, he thought it good policy to side with Charles when Francis was successful, and then with Francis after his terrible defeat at Pavia (1525) when he fell into the hands of Charles. This idea of the balance of power came to be recognized later by the European countries as a very important consideration in determining their policy. But Wolsey was not long to be permitted to put his enlightened ideas in practice. His fall and the progress of Protestantism in England are both closely ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson

... a slave State, was a factor in establishing a balance of power, politically, between the North ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... gentlemen remind me of an obscure 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 ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... protection of citizens abroad and political stability in backward areas. Partition of Africa, Asia, and Near East. 10. Militarism. Expansion and colonial acquisition by one country exclude another, thus unsettling the balance of power. Therefore rival nations depend on force and go in for military and naval programs. F. The conflict between reactionary and bourgeois interests, 1815-1848. 1. Reactionary elements in control—opposed to democracy and revolutionary doctrines. a. Restore ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... 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 ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... natural, therefore, that the British plenipotentiary should make no distinction between the French in Rome and the Austrians at Bologna: he denounced both occupations as equally to be condemned and equally calculated to disturb the balance of power, but at the root of the matter was the abominable misgovernment, which made it impossible to leave the Pope to his subjects without fear of revolution. The papal administration was the opprobrium of Europe. As to the king of Naples, if ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... societies and in all matters connected with the interests of the colleges and schools; we are considered members in good standing of the associations, and, in some cases, the young ladies in the institutes have been told they hold the balance of power. The same reason for woman suffrage that has been given by the delegate from Indiana [Mrs. McRae] holds good with reference to the State of Illinois. Women must have the ballot that they may have protection in getting bread for themselves and their families, by giving to the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... acquired than riches, educated men became a wholesome check upon wealthy men, since they could outvote them. Learning goes usually with uprightness, broad views, and humanity; so the learned voters, possessing the balance of power, became the vigilant and efficient protectors of the great lower rank ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... their religion. To grant an elective assembly now would mean that the representatives of the five hundred English traders would rule over 70,000 French. When accusing the French Catholics of Quebec of remaining a solidarity so that they may wield the balance of power, it is well to remember how and when the quarrel began. Murray sides with the French and stands like a rock for their right. He will have no elective assembly under present conditions; and he puts ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... less impressive, a political theorist instead of a statesman, a student of the balance of power instead of a soldier, a casuistical disputant about culture and morals in place of a devil venturing all for empire and revenge. It is as if Alexander were exchanged for Aristotle: almost as if St. George ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... of a family famous in scandalous history, Minister of Foreign Affairs, hurries 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." ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... wonderful 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

... the negro an unusual power. From being suppressed by all to being courted by many involved a change that raised his hopes only to destroy them. The South no sooner saw the possibility that the negro vote might hold a balance of power between two equal white factions than it took steps to remove itself from temptation and to ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... for the first time seriously since the establishment of the Government, beginning to exhibit itself, is through the combinations of the designing to obtain a mercenary corps of voters, insignificant as to numbers, but formidable by their union, to hold the balance of power, and to effect their purposes by practising on the wilful, blind, wayward, and, we might almost add, fatal obstinacy of the two great political parties of the country. Here, in our view, is the danger that the ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper

... to be employed in order to rescue society from unwonted dangers. It is not to be denied that these tribunals, as they are constituted in Europe, are apt to violate the conservative principle of the balance of power in the State, and to threaten incessantly the lives and liberties of the subject. The same political jurisdiction in the United States is only indirectly hostile to the balance of power; it cannot menace the lives of the citizens, and ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... to disturb the balance of power, because at the time the continent was divided into four groups: The close alliance of the central powers—Germany, Austria and Italy—referred to as the Triple Alliance or Dreibund; the Triple Entente, or understanding between Great Britain, France and Russia; the smaller group whose ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... compensation would be the cession of those Austrian provinces inhabited by Italians. In other words, she insisted that, if Austria was to extend her borders below the Danube by an occupation of Serbia, as was obviously her intention, thus upsetting the balance of power in the Balkans, Italy expected to receive as compensation the Trentino and Trieste, which, though under Austrian rule, are Italian in sentiment and population. Otherwise, she added, the Triple Alliance would be broken. On the 3d of August, having ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... 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 appearance of the balance, confidence in ministers as to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... 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 ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... still continues to be a place of destiny in Europe. It is not in the glare of light in which Berlin and Paris find themselves, but the fates of Berlin and Paris are secretly dependent on it. For Rome sways the balance of power after the war. If Rome backs Germany, France at once feels isolated; if Rome backs France, Germany must come to terms. The French are victors and have the winning forces in their hands, but the Italians are psychologists and know how ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... retort. The log-cabin and 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

... strong but scattered hostility in the course of its growth, became inevitable. This enmity Ridgway proposed to consolidate into a political organization, with opposition to the trust as its cohesive principle, that should hold the balance of power ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... to Salt Lake City, before a campaign, to consult with the Church authorities; that every request of the authorities made to the Idaho political leaders was granted; that six of the twenty-one countries in Idaho were "absolutely controlled" by Mormons, and the "balance of power" in six counties more was held by Mormons; and that it was "impossible for any man or party to go against the Mormon Church in Idaho." Apostle John Henry Smith testified that one-third of the population of Idaho was Mormon and one-fourth of the population of Wyoming, and that there were large settlements ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... Maul," he continued, "the Negro population is so distributed that it now holds the balance of power in the nation. We have it in our power to keep the South ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... incorporated in amendments. But there is ample evidence that for none of them was he prepared to go the length of opposing or even delaying the settlement. It is also worth noting that none of them related to the balance of power between the Federal and State Governments, upon which Jefferson is often loosely accused of holding extreme particularist views. As a fact he never held such views. His formula that "the States are independent as to everything within themselves ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... of 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 ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... dominions into a strong hereditary kingdom; unable, as the hierophant of a priestly caste, to unite his people in the bonds of national life; unable, as Borgia tried to do, to conquer the rest of Italy for himself; and form it into a kingdom large enough to have weight in the balance of power; the Pope has been forced, again and again, to keep himself on his throne by intriguing with foreign princes, and calling in foreign arms; and the bane of Italy, from the time of Stephen III. to that of Pius IX., has been the ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... isn't grammar,' said the thing that looked like Maurice. 'Why, my good cat, don't you see that if you are I, I must be you? Otherwise we should interfere with time and space, upset the balance of power, and as likely as not destroy the solar system. Oh, yes—I'm you, right enough, and shall be, till some one tells you to change from Lord Hugh into Maurice. And now you've got to find ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... from English interference. Many of the minor German states were too deficient in numbers, boundaries, and wealth to have outstood the despotic ages of Europe but for those foreign alliances, which, whether resting on friendship or a desire to preserve the balance of power, secured them against their rapacious neighbours. And now time has given its sanction to their continuance, and the progress of localisation guarantees their future safety. When Ireland is a nation she will not, with her vast population and her military character, require ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... It is these Articles which have reconciled to the League some of its original opponents, who now hope to make of it another Holy Alliance for the perpetuation of the economic ruin of their enemies and the Balance of Power in their own interests which they believe themselves to ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... arrival in a prairie-waggon, dips every doubtful head of stock, prevents forest-fires, keeps weather records, escorts a lunatic to an asylum eight hundred miles away, herds wood bison on the Slave, makes a cross-continent dash from Great Slave Lake to Hudson Bay, preserves the balance of power between American whaler and Eskimo ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... we are from Europe by the great Atlantic Ocean, we can have no concern in the wars of the European Governments nor in the causes which produce them. The balance of power between them, into whichever scale it may turn in its various vibrations, can not affect us. It is the interest of the United States to preserve the most friendly relations with every power and on conditions fair, equal, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... if he should err deeply, 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 passionate earnestness, his intense volition, his insensibility to moral ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... crown. But if in the time of 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 ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... nutritive substance in the blood for the formation of new tissue. By this process, growth in the healthy body is continuous through life, replacing equally continuous waste. But this all depends on a due balance of power in the process. Suppose one eats more than can be changed into healthy tissue, the food may all go into blood, but the nervous power of the cells is insufficient to deal with it. Sluggish living in bad air, tobacco, or alcoholic drinks, ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... Egypt has been lost, Tripoli also, and the only force that, for the last hundred years has kept alive in Europe the existence of that monstrous anachronism has been the strange political phenomenon, now happily extinct, called the Balance of Power. No one of the Great Powers, from fear of the complications that would ensue, could risk the expulsion of the Turkish Government from Constantinople, and there all through the nineteenth century it has been maintained lest the Key ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... "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

... effects already touched on; the evils not only of active war; but of the spirit and methods of war; idealized, inculcated and practiced in other social processes. It tends to make each man-managed nation an actual or potential fighting organization, and to give us, instead of civilized peace, that "balance of power" which is like the counted time in the prize ring—only a ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... Thirty Years' War (1618—1648), a struggle having a special character of its own as the last of the religious wars which had torn Europe asunder for a century and the first of a long series of wars in which the new and purely political principle of the Balance of Power can be seen at work. The struggle was, nominally, between Protestant and Catholic Germany for, during the Reformation period, Germany, which consisted of numerous states under the headship of the Emperor, had split into two great camps. ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... morally right and a benefit to both blacks and whites. It was strenuously declared that the people of each incoming State had a right to determine their own institutions; and it was also urged that to keep the balance of power between the two sections, it was necessary that slave States should be admitted equally with free. It was disclosed with startling suddenness that two systems of labor and society stood face to face, ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... extending its dominion by arms, and subjugates India. The great Royalties and Despotisms, without a plea, partition among themselves a Kingdom, dismember Poland, and prepare to wrangle over the dominions of the Crescent. To maintain the balance of power is a plea for the obliteration of States. Carthage, Genoa, and Venice, commercial Cities only, must acquire territory by force or fraud, and become States. Alexander marches to the Indus; Tamerlane seeks universal empire; the Saracens conquer ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... 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 hands of two able, ambitious, and energetic kinsmen, such as ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... believed that before the coming of our race there was a balance of power between those two great North American nations, the Iroquois and the Algonquins, and that our wars and intrigues destroyed this balance, which was never restored, and put an end to all hope of advance in the native race. Whether ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... 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 body, and by thus concentrating their strength was able ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... against envy, and the poor against oppression, marks the highest level attained by the statesmanship of Greece. It hardly survived the great patriot who conceived it; and all history has been occupied with the endeavour to upset the balance of power by giving the advantage to money, land, or numbers. A generation followed that has never been equalled in talent—a generation of men whose works, in poetry and eloquence, are still the envy of the world, and ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... the 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 of elders. The change, by whatever causes produced, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... judged more wisely when he sold Louisiana, left the New World to itself, and sought only to secure to France the hegemony of the Old. But the hegemony of the New World henceforth belongs to the United States, and she will have a potent voice in adjusting the balance of power even in Europe. To maintain this position, which is imperative on her, she must always have a large armed force, either on foot or in reserve, which she can call out and put on a war footing at short notice. The United States must henceforth be a great military and naval power, and ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... prognostication that appears to emerge 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 last ditch, but from a far ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... 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

... the well-meant 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 ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the empire, was anxious to depose the emperor. But England was no more willing to see Austria dominant over Europe than to see France thus powerful. Maria Theresa was now in possession of all her vast ancestral domains, and England judged that it would endanger the balance of power to place upon the brow of her husband the imperial crown. The British cabinet consequently espoused the cause of the Elector of Bavaria, and entered into a private arrangement with him, agreeing to acknowledge him as emperor, and to give him an annual pension that he ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... general law, which is never deviated from, and which requires that whenever a member of a tribe dies, whether from violence or otherwise, a life must be taken from some other tribe. This practice may have originated in a desire to preserve the balance of power; or from a belief, which is very general among them, that a man never dies a natural death. If he die of some disorder, and not of a spear-wound, they say he is "quibble gidgied," or speared by some person a long distance off. The native doctor, or wise man of the tribe, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... only his own inclinations (for Mr. Bennet married late in life), he took pleasure in referring everything to the choice of his amiable companion, only reserving to himself the privilege of the veto, that indispensable requisite to a "proper balance of power." Let us intrude on the conjugal tete-a-tete, the first year after marriage, that we may better understand the meaning of this "reserved right." The parties were about to commence housekeeping, and the subject under consideration was the renting ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... condition of France at the commencement of the thirteenth century. The balance of power, however, was only sustained by the activity of all the parties concerned. The slightest wavering on the part of the crown would be fatal, the least opportunity seized. A wise, sincere, and humane ruler was needed to confirm and enlarge ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... (in such matters as the tariff, for 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 we ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... 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; also by reason of being the birthplace ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun

... work it all over the West with the power of our party at the North. We could have controlled the rest of this coast by the Federal patronage, keeping the free part out of the Union as territories. Then our balance of power would be stable. It is not a lost game. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... the equator, and the electrostatic urging their spread, through the mutual repulsion of the particles accumulated in the "wings," from the equator towards either pole. The cyclical change in the corona, he adds, is probably due to a variation in the balance of power thus established, the magnetic polar influence dominating at minima, the electrostatic at maxima. And he may well feel encouraged by the fortunate combination of many experimental details into one explanatory whole, no less than by the hopeful ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... over squires. So that that very unity, which Mr. Wells contrasts so favourably with war, was not only itself due to a war, but to a war which had one of the most questionable and even perilous of the results of war. That result was a change in the balance of power, the predominance of a particular partner, the exaltation of a particular example, the eclipse of excellent traditions when the defeated lost their international influence. In short, it made exactly the same sort of difference of which we speak ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... 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 a light and unencumbered ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... of severer mould. She had knelt at the feet of M. Thiers, and went into the historico-political line. She had written a remarkable book upon the modern Carthage (meaning England), and more recently a work that had excited much attention upon the Balance of Power, in which she proved it to be the interest of civilization and the necessity of Europe that Belgium should be added to France, and Prussia circumscribed to the bounds of its original margraviate. She showed how easily these two objects could have been effected by a constitutional ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... settler, who regarded the red man as having no rights he was bound to respect. While the rivalry between the two white nations was in progress, the red man was courted by each as holding in large degree the balance of power. But the war over, the ascendant Briton no longer regarded the Indians as necessary allies, and they were in large measure treated with indifference and injustice. The hostility of the Indian against the British was, of course, assiduously ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... And equalises each to each. 45 Thus C. 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

... three main methods are remarkable. First, he removed or rendered innocuous all real or potential rivals. Secondly, he pursued what Sir Alfred Milner has called 'a well-considered policy of military concentration.' Thirdly, he maintained among the desert and riverain people a balance of power on the side of his own tribe. All these three methods merit ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... republics in every part of the globe, and a stranger to that lust of domination which was the characteristic passion of monarchies. Shifting with address the sentiment really avowed by their opponents, they ridiculed a solicitude for the existence of a balance of power in Europe, as an opinion that America ought to embark herself in the crusade of kings against France in order to preserve ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... their depths. The religious convulsions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were over, and the earthquake of the French Revolution had not begun. At the middle of the eighteenth century the history of Europe turned on the balance of power; the observance of treaties; inheritance and succession; rivalries of sovereign houses struggling to win power or keep it, encroach on neighbors, or prevent neighbors from encroaching; bargains, intrigue, force, diplomacy, and the musket, in the interest ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... worst of these he reckoned the Turk, "a lazy, ugly, sensual, dark fanatic, whom we have now had for 400 years. I would not buy the continuance of him in Europe at the rate of sixpence a century." Carlyle had no more faith in the "Balance of power" than had Byron, who scoffed at it from another, the Republican, side as "balancing straws on kings' noses instead of ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... the military movements. The author's theory, relative to the origin of the war may be stated thus:—The South saw that, as the North increased in prosperity, it was decreasing, and was losing the balance of power which it had always held since the adoption of the Constitution. It determined, therefore, to force slavery into the new States and Territories; and, failing in this, it foresaw but two alternatives,—either to give up the cause as lost, or to initiate a conflict ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various

... which is nothing but the result of the calculation of combination and chances as a base for our operations, we shall long remain the greatest nation and most powerful state in Europe—nay, more, we shall hold the balance of power, we shall make it incline wherever we desire, and if it were the will of Providence, it would be no impossibility to achieve in the course of a few years those great results which a glowing and excited ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... which he had asked, and which had been freely accorded to him, respecting dismissals, appointments, and creations, Lord Buckingham proceeded at once to redress the balance of power in Ireland, by dismissing from their offices the persons who had recently opposed the conduct of the Government on the Regency question. A similar course had been pursued in England on His Majesty's recovery. Mr. Grenville mentions specially "the justice ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... descend, Dhemetri pointed out a village, distinguished by a single tall, slender cypress, with the words; 'There is Megalopolis.' This is the city founded by Epaminondas, almost the only statesman of antiquity who seems to have had a dim conception of the modern policy of the balance of power, as a point of union for the jealous and disunited States of Arcadia, and as a sentinel stationed at a chief entrance to Laconia. The whole of his great project was not realized, and Megalopolis, instead of becoming 'the great city' of Arcadia, was only a mate to Tegea and Mantinea. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... been returned to the box of death instead of his ballot. Poor voters, now only fit to serve the vilest purpose! how degraded in the scale of human nature is the being, only worth a suffrance at elections, where votes cast from impulse control the balance of power. Such beings are worth just nothing; they would not sell in the market. The negro waiters say, "It don't make a bit of matter how much white rubbish like this is killed, it won't fetch a bid in the market; and when you sell it, it won't ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... northerly part of the town of Westminster," and these additional people were "to join the inhabitants of said Fitchburg to build a meeting-house on Ezra Upton's land." This scheme was very artful, but the wise men of the east saw that such a move would throw the balance of power into the hands of the west, and ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various



Words linked to "Balance of power" :   equilibrium



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