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Body politic   /bˈɑdi pˈɑlətˌɪk/   Listen
Body politic

noun
1.
A politically organized body of people under a single government.  Synonyms: commonwealth, country, land, nation, res publica, state.  "African nations" , "Students who had come to the nation's capitol" , "The country's largest manufacturer" , "An industrialized land"






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"Body politic" Quotes from Famous Books



... any creature in the image of man be a wholesome power in a free country; whether this is a school in which to train the young republican mind; whether slave blood and free blood can course healthily together in the same body politic. Whatever may be present appearances, and by whatever name party may choose to call things, this question must finally be settled by the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... elephant, and laying down theories as to the whole internal structure of the vast animal, from the phenomena of the hide. The comparison is unjust to the geologists; but is very applicable to those historians who write as if the body politic were homogeneous, who look only on the surface of affairs, and never think of the mighty and various organisation which lies ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the body politic, we can assist the development of science in two ways. Firstly, by doing each our individual part towards ensuring that endowment for the university must provide not only for "teaching adolescents the rudiments of Greek and ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... was an opening for relieving the body politic from the great anomaly of bondage in the midst of freedom. But though divine justice never slumbers, the opportunity was but partially seized. The diminution of the number of laborers at the South revived ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... ("Remember the Boston Tea Party!"); loose divorce laws; fraternal lodges; "promiscuous enfranchisement"; water fluoridation; and so on. These were but a few of the cancers, he screamed, that must be ruthlessly excised from the body politic so that a lean, clean Euramerica might face the Arch-Enemy ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds

... says, "by the servility and duplicity and rascality I have witnessed among the swarms of scrub politicians who crawl about the great metropolis of our State like so many vermin about the head of the body politic." ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... in some quarters a disposition to create distempers in this body politic. Men are even uttering slanders against the United States as if to excite her. Men are saying that if we should go to war upon either side there will be a divided America—an abominable libel of ignorance. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... be their fellow-countrymen. No one needs to be reminded how much wrong-doing and cruelty have been encouraged by perfectly honest patriots who lack "intellectual armour." Dr Johnson knew that the blockhead seeks the shelter of patriotism with almost worse result to the body politic ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... business it is to trade in human passion. We revolt from the red aphides upon the plant, the caterpillar upon the tree, the vermin upon bird or beast. How much more do we revolt from those human vermin whose business it is to propagate parasites upon the body politic! The condemnation of life is that a man consumes more than he produces, taking out of society's granary that which other hands have put in. The praise of life is that one is self-sufficing, taking less out than he put into ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... patent under which they sailed had no force in the territory of the Plymouth Company, they united themselves by the so-called "Mayflower compact," November 11, 1620, into a "civill body politic," and promised "submission and obedience to all such ordinances as the general good of the colony might require from time to time." Under the patent John Carver had been chosen governor, and he was now confirmed in that office under the new authority, which ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... any sense out of a page of printed matter, very easily understood a picture. It conveyed truthful information, though in a form that hurt, as cartoons usually do, and it roused a healthy sentiment against a very malignant evil in the Church and in the body politic. If the Popes would keep out of politics, they and their followers would enjoy more ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... J. H. C. Brown, formerly the northeast corner of John Brown's barn; thence to the crossing of Isaac Grossman's and Bowen's line on the chain bridge road; thence to the place of beginning, is and shall continue forever to be a body politic and corporate under the name and style of the town of Falls Church, and shall possess and exercise the rights and powers conferred on towns by the general laws of this State and shall be subject to the restrictions ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart

... Socialistic and non-Socialistic, points to the existence of ills in the body politic, and the Socialistic agitation is exceedingly valuable inasmuch as it draws general attention to these ills. Some complaints of the Socialists will be found to be imaginary, ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... satisfaction was without solid grounds. The boasting about English freedom implied some misunderstanding. But it was at least the boast of a vigorous race. Not only were there individuals capable of patriotism and public spirit, but the body politic was capable of continuous energy. During the eighteenth century the British empire spread round the world. Under Chatham it had been finally decided that the English race should be the dominant element in the new world; if the political ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... in the scale either of power or of culture. Great peoples must have in addition the governmental capacity which comes only when individuals fully recognize their duties to one another and to the whole body politic, and are able to join together in feats of constructive statesmanship and of honest and effective administration. ... We justly pride ourselves on our marvelous material prosperity, and such prosperity must exist ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis

... action. Sociological error, committed today, will cause malformation of an important member of the American body politic. It will cause the ship of state to ride an uneven keel. This ship of state must be brought to her ancient moorings, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address of Lincoln, and the Farewell of Old ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... am less social, less interested in my neighbors and in the body politic, more inclined to shirk civic and social responsibilities and to stop my ears against the brawling of the reformers, ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs

... with astonishing celerity the interrupted process of economic expansion. The germs of a severe disease, to which the Fathers of the Republic had given a place in the national Constitution, and which had been allowed to flourish, because of the lack of wholesome cohesion in the body politic—this alien growth had been cut out by a drastic surgical operation, and the robust patient soon recovered something like his normal health. Indeed, being in his own opinion even more robust than ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... the centre of gravity, so to say, was shifted from the present to a future life, and however much the other world may have gained, there can be little doubt that this one lost heavily by the change. A general disintegration of the body politic set in. The ties of the state and the family were loosened: the structure of society tended to resolve itself into its individual elements and thereby to relapse into barbarism; for civilisation is only possible through the active co-operation of the citizens and their ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... philanthropic. He holds to the distinction of classes, and thus admits a difference in the fulness and value of human lots. But he will not consent to any social arrangement which implies a necessary moral inferiority in any section of the body politic; and he esteems it the statesman's first duty to provide that all citizens shall be placed under conditions of life which, however humble, shall not be ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... my individuality in the body politic. I could not do without my vote," said the judge, with a ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock

... subjects. It had had from the first an extreme jealousy of secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is the case with modern governments, it wished to have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority in every movement of the body politic and social, and its civil institutions were based, or essentially depended, on its religion. Accordingly, every innovation upon the established paganism, except it was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. Hence the professors of low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... stylish young men with vast ideas of personal importance, amateurs and patrons! City Hall is the brain of New York, of the continent, and it is one of the laws of the world that brains will rule. Rebel as muscles merely of the body politic, and ye rebel against inexorable law: that scribbling literati in the fifth story—for newspapers like men have their brains in the upper story—is more potent than you in settling the artistic position of a Lucca or a Rubenstein, a Dickens or a Dore, a Tennyson or a Carlyle. ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... pushed brutally to the wall. The whites of both sections make themselves believe, as a sort of salve to their conscience, I suppose, that the Negro in their midst is an alien race, is a non-assimilable element in the body politic, whose ejectment or isolation the health of that body and the race purity of the whites render necessary. Since ejectment is impracticable as involving too huge a displacement of or amputation from the productive labor of the South, isolation remains ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke

... except the general immigration law, being only 105,465—the merest handful among our scores of millions of people. The objections that they are addicted to gambling and immorality, that they come only for temporary mercenary purposes and that they do not become members of the body politic but segregate themselves in special communities, might be urged with equal justice by the Chinese against the foreign communities in the port cities of China. Segregating themselves, indeed! How can the Chinese help themselves, when they are not allowed to become naturalized and are treated with ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... the congregation, and to foul him with abuse. Never had he dared to exhibit such topping insolence, had he not supposed himself supported by a mutinous spirit from without. It was a dangerous spirit which, if inflamed by indulgence, would become a deadly boil to poison the whole body politic. Prick therefore the imposthume at once, and, like wise surgeons, let out the offensive matter. He was not surprised at the indignation of the worthy Deputy. It was a zeal unto godliness, and devoutly did he wish, that himself, and all, were more ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... manufacturers were starving for want of employment, and the price of provisions continued so high that even those who were employed could scarce supply their families with bread; that the real design of the bill was to make such an accession to the dissenters as would render them an equal match in the body politic for those of the church of England; to create a greater dependence on the crown, and, in a word, to supply a foreign head with foreign members. Sir John Knight, a member of the house, in a speech upon this subject, exaggerated the bad consequences that would attend such a bill, with all the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... strength of the Communist Party is comparable to the strength of the Jesuits, who, similarly, put themselves and their opinions at the disposal of the body politic of their fellow members. Until a decision had been made, a Communist is perfectly free to do his best to prevent it being made, to urge alterations in it, or to supply a rival decision, but once it has been made he will support it without changing his private opinion. In all mixed congresses, ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... of folly and the nobles of insolent idleness, for the poor spent their lives in hopeless labour that others who did nothing might enjoy all. But there was a secret circulation of substance in the body politic, and the focussing of all benefits in the few was the cause of nutrition and prosperity to the many. Perhaps the truth might be even better expressed in a physiological figure somewhat more modern, by saying that the brain, which consumes much blood, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... civil or religious, are, therefore, representative, in the main, of the state of development of the dominant and controlling class in the community. In a Monarchical or Aristocratic nation it is the upper portion of the body politic whose condition is chiefly indicated. In this case, the manners, customs, laws, etc., of the country are in advance of the great body of the people, who have yet to grow up to them. In Democratic states, the manners, customs, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... father was a pioneer. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia" reveal clearly his conception that democracy should have an agricultural basis, and that manufacturing development and city life were dangerous to the purity of the body politic. Simplicity and economy in government, the right of revolution, the freedom of the individual, the belief that those who win the vacant lands are entitled to shape their own government in their own way,—these ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... greater need than the Jews to steep itself again in the sources of its existence, and no period more than the present imposes upon it the duty of bringing its past back to life. Scattered over the face of the globe, no longer constituting a body politic, the Jewish people by cultivating its intellectual patrimony creates for itself an ideal fatherland; and mingled, as it is, with its neighbors, threatened by absorption into surrounding nations, it recovers a sort of individuality by the reverence ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... a new problem to the modern state and city, especially in America. With the problems of the child's normality and defectiveness, discipline and delinquency, work and play, and its assimilation into the body politic, our towns and cities, states and nation have been forced to deal. Hitherto we have dealt far more with the negative and repressive aspects of these problems than with any constructive ideal, purpose and method respecting them. We have, for instance, paid more attention ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... in the instructions which he gave to his disciples, respecting their conduct towards their enemies, had no design reaching to the laws of a body politic, but only to the conduct by which the ministry of the gospel would best succeed in its early beginning, while it was necessary for it to be persecuted, by which we are now favoured with its evidences, we may now err in applying those instructions differently from their ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... granted by Queen Elizabeth on December 31, 1600, was addressed by name to the earl of Cumberland and two hundred and fifteen knights and merchants, whom it created a corporation and a body politic under the name of "The Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading to the ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... not make a greater contribution to the productiveness of the Woodruff District than by working in the fields, he would go back to the fields. Whether he could make his teaching thus productive or not was the very fact in issue between him and the local body politic. ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick

... community in which he lives. Almost the whole problem of the Negro in the South rests itself upon the fact as to whether the Negro can make himself of such indispensable service to his neighbour and the community that no one can fill his place better in the body politic. There is at present no other safe course for the black man to pursue. If the Negro in the South has a friend in his white neighbour and a still larger number of friends in his community, he has a protection ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington

... Representatives has never been elected by the people. The cries of the Indians have reached their ears, and we trust affected their hearts. They will abolish a needless and unjust protectorate. The limb, which is now disjointed and bleeding, will be united to the body politic. What belongs to the red man shall hereafter in truth be his; and, thirsting for knowledge and aspiring to be free, every fetter shall be broken and ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes

... situated than men. Good books are allowed, with more time to read them. They are not so early forced into the bustle of life, nor so weighed down by demands for outward success. The perpetual changes, incident to our society, make the blood circulate freely through the body politic, and, if not favorable at present to the grace and bloom of life, they are so to activity, resource, and would be to reflection, but for a low materialist tendency, from which the women are generally exempt in themselves, though its existence, among the men, has a tendency ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... woman as an appendage to man, limiting her sphere to the physical duties of maternity; demanding perfection in that respect, but regarding her mentally as of no account. To such men the admittance of woman as an actual sharer in society, in the body politic, in the family, meant the subversion of the social system. In these days we are so far removed from this theory of primitive people that almost all women, even those who do not desire the fatal emancipation offered by the new sects, will be shocked in merely hearing of it; but it must ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac

... American Ambassador to Great Britain, at the end of his official service, comes to Massachusetts on an interesting errand. He comes to deliver to the lineal successor of Governor Bradford, in the presence of the representatives and rulers of the body politic formed by the compact on board the "Mayflower," Nov. 11, 1620, the only authentic history of the founding of their Commonwealth; the only authentic history of what we have a right to consider the most important political transaction ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... Office in 1839. This is no place to write at length about that greatest of all documents ever published with regard to colonial affairs. This much, however, may be said. In the Report Lord Durham rightly diagnosed the evils of the body politic in Canada. He traced the rebellion to two causes, in the main: first, racial feeling; and, secondly, that 'union of representative and irresponsible government' of which he said that it was difficult to understand how any English statesman ever imagined that such a system would work. And yet one ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles

... treasure-chest of the Doomsmen. Now and then some well-to-do proprietor may suffer loss from cattle thieving and rick burning, but as often as not the marauders pay full price for all they get. And this leads us to a consideration of the Doomsman himself, that foul excrescence upon our modern body politic. Fortunately, history here speaks clearly, and we have only to listen ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... existence of man became the prevalent conception of the Church and of legislators; and nations sought rather to isolate themselves from one another, than to coalesce and correspond. Moreover, the life of antiquity was eminently municipal. The city was the germ of each body politic, and the connection of roads with cities is obvious. But our Teutonic ancestors abhorred civic life. They generally shunned the towns, even when accident had placed them in the very centre of their shires or marks, and when the proximity of great rivers or the convenience of walls and markets ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... divorced from the deeds for which they are supposed to stand. The phrase-maker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, however great his power, whose speech does not make for courage, sobriety, and right understanding, is simply a noxious element in the body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he has influence over them. To admire the gift of oratory without regard to the moral quality behind the gift is to do ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... was certainly not merely a question of slavery; in the last analysis this institution was hardly more than an incident. Slavery has ceased to exist, but even to-day the Problem is with us. The question was rather what was to be the final place in the American body politic of the Negro population that was so rapidly increasing in the country. In the answering of this question supreme importance attached to the Negro himself; but the problem soon transcended the race. Ultimately it was the destiny of the United States rather than of the Negro that was to be ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... rhetorical contrast with the extravagant wealth of a favored few. But there is still something in the mutual relations of all classes of society in this country that proves a healthy condition to exist in our body politic, that shows that we are really brethren, and that whether interest or kind sympathies govern us we are still one people—with great differences of opinion among us indeed, openly expressed by all, but still with a feeling prevalent ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... Lincoln's definition would fairly enough apply have existed, and now exist, in which, though the supreme authority reside in the people, yet they can act only indirectly on the national policy. This generation has seen a democracy with an imperial figurehead, and in all that have ever existed the body politic has never embraced all the inhabitants included within its territory, the right to share in the direction of affairs has been confined to citizens, and citizenship has been further restricted by various limitations, sometimes ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... by each, in relation to the end of the association. This political authority is the sovereignty." Again this writer remarks: "The authority of all over each member essentially belongs to the body politic or ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... uneducated. The principles inculcated in this work were reproduced in the year 1651, in the "Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil;" this, along with a "Treatise on Human Nature," and a small work on "The Body Politic," form the groundwork of the "selfish schools" of moral philosophy. As soon as they were published, they were attacked by the clergy of every country in Europe. They were interdicted by the Pontiffs of the ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... in the way of being developed into working bees, and change their food and cells, whereon they develop into queens instead. How Mr. Darwin could attribute the neutralization of the working bees—an act which is obviously one of abortion committed by the body politic of the hive on a balance of considerations—to the action of what he calls "natural selection," and how, again, he could suppose that what he was advancing had any but a confirmatory bearing upon Lamarck's position, is incomprehensible, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... revolutionary current which swept the whole empire at the period of Parliamentary Reform, and, with characteristic fervour, seemed inclined to riot in the novel element. Whenever symptoms of such a disposition appear in the body politic, there is manifest danger that, in the new accession of power, the old and sacred landmarks may be disregarded, and little heed be given to the mutual dependence and common interests of every class of society. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... the widespread change that was taking place in the public mind; to the ever-increasing pressure from above and the never-ceasing fermentation from below; to the feverish restlessness that had come over the body politic, changing its form, its ideals, and its convictions; and to the more scrupulous and sometimes reactionary stand that was being taken on all matters ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... with franchises. Blackstone says that franchise and liberty are used as synonymous terms. And after enumerating other liberties and franchises, he says: "It is likewise a franchise for a number of persons to be incorporated and subsist as a body politic, with a power to maintain perpetual succession and do other corporate acts; and each individual member of such a corporation is also said to have a franchise ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... evening I shall publish in La Capitale an article in which I shall explain exactly what spies are, the real part they play in the body politic, their terrible power; that it is a mistake to consider them only cowards; that owing to the exigencies of their sinister profession, they very often give proof of an exceptional courage—bravery—and in ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and King having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same, unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people, divided in terms and by names of spiritualty and temporalty being bounden and owen to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience; he being also institute ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... know that in civil matters nothing tends more powerfully to strengthen and perpetuate the body politic than hereditary rulers and nobles. The father's life, his principles and interests, are continued in the son, or rather, one life, one character, one idea, is carried on from age to age. Thus a dynasty or a nation is consolidated and secured; ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... monarchy, the royal authority is the mainspring which controls all movements and all actions in every part of the State. Let this source of energy grow weak, and decline at once shows itself throughout the entire body politic. It is as when a fatal malady seizes on the seat of life in an individual—instantly every member, every tissue, falls away, suffers, shrinks, decays, perishes. Egyptian architecture is simply non-existent from the death of Ramesses III. to the age of Sheshonk; the "grand style" of pictorial ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... men among us, this and a thousand other blessed things would follow from it; till then let us be content to work and pray, and lay our hand to the wheel wherever we can find a spoke to grasp. Corruptio optimi est pessima; the national Church as it ought to be is the soul and conscience of the body politic, but a man whose body has the direction of his conscience we do not commonly consider in the most hopeful ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... extenuation; more, when there was necessity, for a king. At any rate the monarch then earned, or could earn, his pomp and state by services actually rendered. And now? The Hapsburg decided that there was not a more contemptible parasite on the body politic. The crowned head was simply the first among paupers. He had his bowl of porridge, which was ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... incurred the hostility of any, it has been through his opposition to the schemes of corrupt rings and the purposes of selfish individuals, which he regarded detrimental to the public good; or through his support of wholesome measures, calculated to protect the body politic, and thwart their illegitimate designs in ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various

... government and who spy upon and terrorise the population; upon the German bureaucrats who do not consider themselves the servants of the public, but look upon the public as their servant, and whose spirit of meanness and corruption is so characteristic of the Austrian body politic; finally, the dynasty relies upon the Catholic hierarchy who hold vast landed property in Austria and regard it as the bulwark of Catholicism, and who through Clericalism strive for political power rather than for the religious welfare of their denomination. In alliance with them are the powerful ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... had trimmed him) upon a charge of grand larceny arising out of the same transaction. One crook bred another every time he made a victim, and the disease of crime, the most infectious of all distempers, ate its way unchecked into the body politic. Broadway was thronged by a prosperous gentry, the aristocracy and elite of knavery, who dressed resplendently, flourished like the green bay-tree, and spent their (or rather their victims') money with the lavish hand ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... countries, indeed, are no longer the great and powerful empires they were, although the natural advantages of their situations are still unchanged. But what mighty ravages will not a blood-thirsty and overwhelming despotism effect? What health and vigor can belong to that body politic which is forced to inhale the nauseous effluvia of tyranny? Prosperity is a plant that can only flourish in an atmosphere fauned by the wholesome breath of freedom. The highest fertility of soil, the greatest benignity of climate, the most commanding superiority of position, will ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... private accounts with their own souls. The liberty of praying when and how they would, must be balanced with an ability of paying when and as they ought. Nor is the resulting fact in this case at variance with the a priori theory. They succeeded in making their thought the life and soul of a body politic, still powerful, still benignly operative, after two centuries; a thing which no mere fanatic ever did or ever will accomplish. Sober, earnest, and thoughtful men, it was no Utopia, no New Atlantis, no realization of a splendid dream, which ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... district in Massachusetts, would represent Dutch Gap. They had already, in his friend from Missouri, a representative of the German Flats; and he submitted that a member from Dutch Gap would be two tonic for the body politic. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various

... in the life of just principle; and as the weight of an elephant could not be sustained by the skeleton of a gazelle,—as, moreover, the bones must be made stouter as well as longer,—so must a vast body politic be permeated by a sturdier element of justice than is required for a diminutive state. It is, indeed, the chief recommendation of our federative form of government, that this, so far as may be, localizes legislation, and thus, by lessening the number of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... ion that which is made into a body: hence, a body politic, authorized by law to act ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... to him, a girl spoke of the "purple perfume of petunias," and a man used the phrases, "body politic," and "the gaiety ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... original cannot kill or cure. Whilst bleeding the patient to death, Sangrado like, and sacking the fees, they will greet him right courteously with Viva V. milanos—live a thousand years, and not one less of the allotted number. Whilst drenching the body politic with Reform purge, or, with slashing tomahawk, inflicting Repeal gashes, they bid the prostrate and panting state subject rejoice over the wondrous dispatch with which its parts can be dismembered, the arithmetical accuracy with which its financial plethora ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... XIV. had declared himself to be the State, and thus acquired a personal and selfish interest in the controversy. Moreover, Talon, the skilled agent of Colbert, wishing to readjust and balance the disproportionate elements of the body politic, had written in 1670 advising the re-introduction of the Recollet priests, who arrived eight years later to counterbalance ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United States," it is acknowledged to be implied. In virtue of this clause, has been implied the right to create a government; that is, to create a body politic or corporation of the highest nature; one that, in its maturity, will be able itself to create other corporations. Thus has the constitution itself refuted the argument which contends that, had it been designed to grant so important a power as that of erecting corporations, it would ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... those which belong to the people in their political capacity. The word political, in a general sense, relates to government. The whole body of the people united under one government, is called the political body, or body politic. The right of the people to choose and establish for themselves a form of government, or constitution, and the right to elect persons to make and execute the laws, are political rights. The right of voting at elections ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... American institutions. There was a time in our history when the better class of foreign immigrants and our own population was able to swallow up the less desirable class, but it takes no great discernment now to see the congested spots here and there on our body politic. In this lies the danger. Such a change in the character of immigration as herein shown cannot have taken place without materially affecting the entire immigration problem, and the sooner our statesmen get to the ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg

... the walls, besides those of the late and present King,—which hung on each side of the throne,—might be seen the features of Richelieu, who first organized the rude settlements on the St. Lawrence into a body politic—a reflex of feudal France; and of Colbert, who made available its natural wealth and resources by peopling it with the best scions of the motherland, the noblesse and peasantry of Normandy, Brittany, and Aquitaine. There too might be seen the keen, bold features of Cartier, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... really calculated to effect in all points but one the end which he had in view. His object was to terminate the convulsions of France by depriving every element in the State of the power to create sudden change. The members of his body politic, a Council that could only draft, a Tribunate that could only discuss, a Legislature that could only vote, Yes or No, were impotent for mischief; and the nation itself ceased to have a political existence as soon as it had selected its ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... descriptions of law are of the same force, and are derived from an equal authority, emanating from the common agreement and original compact of the state, communi sponsione reipublicae, and as such are equally binding on king people too, as long as the terms are observed, and they continue the same body politic. ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... arbitrary power is soon corrupted, and grows hateful to his dearest friends. In order to guard against this evil, the God who watched over Sparta gave you two kings instead of one, that they might balance one another; and further to lower the pulse of your body politic, some human wisdom, mingled with divine power, tempered the strength and self-sufficiency of youth with the moderation of age in the institution of your senate. A third saviour bridled your rising and swelling power by ephors, ...
— Laws • Plato

... pledged to liberty and the sovereignty of States. Shall a contest between our own principles and those of our enemies awaken no emotions in us? We believe that government should exist for the advantage of the individual members of the body politic, and not for the use of those who, by birth, fortune, or personal energy, may have risen to positions of power. We recognize the right of each nation to establish its own institutions and regulate its own affairs. Our revolution rests upon ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... and prospective wrongs, that loyalty to the old flag, which at heart they loved, was swept away by the madness which precedes destruction. Above all and directing all was the God of nations; and He had decreed that slavery, the gangrene in the body politic, must be cut out, even though it should be with the sword. The surgery was heroic, indeed; but as its result the slave, and especially the master and his posterity, will grow into a large, healthful, and prosperous life; and the evidences of such ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... independent India; while Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli must become a part of Europe, with modern development and home rule. South Africa, stripped of its black serfs and their lands, must admit the resident natives and colored folk to its body politic as equals. ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... interest, broadening every day now that women have the ballot and now that our vision is no longer limited to the homeland horizon, but finds itself searching eagerly onward into international relationships. Once we were content, as a national body politic, to discuss candidates for the Presidency or what our stand should be upon currency and the tariff. To-day we are also gravely concerned to know what is to become of Russia and Germany, or how the political and social unrest in France ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing

... of knowledge, it is most unfriendly to that individuality, independence, and purity, without which republican governments rapidly sink into decay. It was probably in this view that Mr. Jefferson said, great cities were sores upon the body politic. Needful for the purposes of commerce, required for the exchanges on which agricultural and manufacturing industry depend for their prosperity,—they are not evils which we could desire to see abated. My desire, however, is, that the rural districts shall ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis

... parties to elect men to offices of trust and then to have these same men refuse to enforce the laws which they have sworn to uphold. In consequence we have all kinds of abuses and evils growing up in the body politic. Too often the political race is for the honour and ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... District Post-Office also occupy part of the same site. The extension of the Army and Navy Stores stands on the site of the Greencoat School, demolished in 1877. Certain gentlemen founded this school; in Charles I.'s reign it was constituted "a body politic and corporate," and the seal bears date 1636. The lads wore a long green skirt, bound round with a red girdle. In 1874, when the United Westminster Schools were formed from the amalgamation of the various school ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... out rich men for undergoing those employments, which ought rather to be trusted to the wise. These laws, I say, might have such effect as good diet and care might have on a sick man whose recovery is desperate; they might allay and mitigate the disease, but it could never be quite healed, nor the body politic be brought again to a good habit as long as property remains; and it will fall out, as in a complication of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore you will provoke another, and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others, while the strengthening one part of the body weakens ...
— Utopia • Thomas More

... divine right to rule; that no man inherited the right to govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended to families; but that all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body politic. These were the great principles they announced; these were the purposes for which they made their declaration; these were the ends to which their enunciation was directed. They have no reference to the slave; else, how happened it that among the items of arraignment against George III ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... come over the country since this book was originally written. The nation is passing from the gristle into the bone, and the common mind is beginning to keep even pace with the growth of the body politic. The march from Vera Cruz to Mexico was made under the orders of that gallant soldier who, a quarter of a century before, was mentioned with honor, in the last chapter of this very book. Glorious as was that march, and brilliant as were its results ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... estimate of expenses! In fact, young Glazier had based his financial arrangements on a miscalculation of the amount furnished by the State. He did not then know that the only provision made by the body politic was for mileage, tuition and text-books. But on Monday morning, September seventeenth, 1859, he signed his name to the Normal pledge, and at the conclusion of the examination—which continued until September twenty-third—was assigned to the Junior Class—there being at that time ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... been such as to turn our energy, capacity, and accomplishment into prosaic channels. Physicians call certain remedies, to be administered only in desperate cases, heroic, and Providence reserves heroes for similar crises in the body politic. They are not sent but in times of agony and peril. If we have lacked the thing, it is because we have lacked the occasion for it. And even where truly splendid qualities have been displayed, as by our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... have laughed aloud at all this hollow pretence, having been brought up within the range of that which was no mockery. "I am willing to become a loyal member of the Society of the White Wolf for the furtherance of any honest purpose. All things, I admit, are not well within the body politic. Let us, in the city of Thorn, strive after the same rights as are possessed by the Free Cities of the North. If that be your object, the son of the Red Axe is with you—with you to the death, if need be. But for God's sake let us take off these masks ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... a soldier—a man 'under authority,'—one obedient to another's will, subservient to strict discipline, with scarcely a free agency himself, and yet, during that long probation, he had been a useful member of the body politic, sustained a fair reputation, and as he admitted himself, been a contented and happy man. He returned home his own master, and older by twenty years. Alas! it was a fatal free agency for him, for time had not brought wisdom. The steward ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... system of things as averse as can be imagined to a working-man's sharing in the legislation for working-men. The matter in hand that night chanced to be one peculiarly interesting to a believer in the people's doing as many things as possible for themselves, as the body politic, instead of leaving them to a variety of bodies corporate. The steamboat service on the Thames had grown so insufficient and so inconvenient that it was now a question of having it performed by the London County Council, which should be authorized ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... making applies to them, not only as a nation, but as a body politic. When they descended on horseback upon the rich territories which they occupy, they had need to become agriculturists, and miners, and civil engineers, and traders; all which they were not; yet I do not find that they have attempted any of ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... subsidence of the tumult left the state, in every case, as an organic whole, the same. The consequences of unsuccessful rebellion fell only upon the persons engaged in it. So, in the successive changes that befell France after the Revolution, the state, as the body politic, remained unchanged. In dealing with the question of rebellion in our country the same principle applies, only another element enters into the calculation. That element results from the peculiar character ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... time of the Conquest, scarcely more than country villages; and that the inhabitants lived in entire dependence on the king or great lords, and were of a station little better than servile [u]. They were not then so much as incorporated; they formed no community; were not regarded as a body politic; and being really nothing but a number of low dependent tradesmen, living, without any particular civil tie, in neighbourhood together, they were incapable of being represented in the states of the kingdom. Even in France, a country which made more early advances ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... critique upon Bodley's France Madame Darmesteter, writing in the Contemporary Review, July, 1898, points out that even so well informed an observer of French life as the author of that remarkable book failed to appreciate the steadying influence exercised upon the French body politic by the network of voluntary associations, the syndicats agricoles, which are the analogues and, to some extent, the prototypes, in France of our agricultural societies in Ireland. The late Mr. ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... thousand years ago, experienced the same troubles we are having. There is a fable comparing the corporeal body to the body politic. Once upon a time the feet became discontented and struck. They refused to be walked upon longer. The legs noted the dissatisfaction of the feet. Although they never had cause for complaint before, they said: 'Well, we will quit also. We will refuse to carry the body around longer.' The stomach ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic. ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington

... nation back. Principles have been needed, and not 'proprieties.' The consequence is that China has increased beyond its ancient dimensions, while there has been no corresponding development of thought. Its body politic has the size of a giant, while it still retains the mind of a child. Its hoary age is in danger of becoming but senility. Second, Confucius makes no provision for the intercourse of his country with other and independent nations. He knew indeed ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... pooling their personalities? And what is it they have gained—what pledge of success in food, in safety, in propagation? They are not separate entities, they have none of the freedom of action, of choice, of individuality of the solitary wasps. They are the somatic cells of the body politic, while deep within the nest are the guarded sexual cells—the winged kings and queens, which from time to time, exactly as in isolated organisms, are thrown off to propagate, and to found new nests. They, no less than the workers, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... great. Thus, in most of the States there exists that modification of the ancient Saxon system of local action by "hundreds"—the township organization. This alone carries a healthy political movement into the farthest nook and corner of the body politic: every citizen of common sense may well be consulted in this primary activity, and every household may be interested in the question whether its results are good or bad. But besides this, simple and slightly compensated as are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... as this it may indeed be said, that it "exists for the benefit of its members, not its members for the benefit of society. It has ever to be remembered that great as may be the efforts made for the prosperity of the body politic, yet the claims of the body politic are nothing in themselves, and become something only in so far as they embody the claims ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... bruises, and putrifying sores." It proves, too, the folly of all plasters and palliatives. Some men are still talking of preventing the spread of the cancer, but leaving it just where it is. They admit that, constitutionally, it has now a right to ravage two-thirds of the body politic—but they protest against its extension. This in moral quackery. Even some, whose zeal in the Anti-Slavery cause is fervent, are so infatuated as to propose no other remedy for Slavery but its non-extension. Give it no more room, they say, and it may be safely left to its fate. Yes, but who shall ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison

... those of the late (Louis XIV.,) and present King (Louis XV)—which hung on each side of the throne—might be seen the features of Richelieu, who first organized the rude settlements on the St. Lawrence in a body politic—a reflex of feudal France; and of Colbert, who made available its natural wealth and resources, by peopling it with the best scions of the Mother Land—the noblesse and peasantry of Normandy, Brittany and Aquitaine. There, too, might be seen the keen, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... say that graft has become a science in city, state and nation. Losses by such misapplication of public funds—piled Pelion on Ossa—no longer run in the millions but the hundreds of millions. Our city governments are, in many instances, foul cancers on the body politic; and for us to boast of having solved the problem of local self-government is as fatuous as for a strong man to exult in his health when his body is covered with running sores. It has been estimated that the annual profits from violations of the prohibition ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... that. Not thieves, of course. They're degradation, like body lice. But rebels and crackpots and revolutionaries who prevent hardening of the arteries of commerce and furnish wholesome exercise to the body politic—they're worth cherishing!" ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... advertisement that on this day the board of registration appointed by the commander of the military district in which Horsford County was situated would convene there, to take and record the names, and pass upon the qualifications, of all who desired to become voters of the new body politic which was to be erected therein, or of the old one which was to be reconstructed and rehabilitated out of the ruins ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... sexes are as such distinct, the one a degree superior, the other a degree inferior, the difference between them is limited—it is not impassable in individual cases. The two make up but one species, one body politic and religious. There are many senses besides marriage in which the two are one. It is the right hand and the left, both belonging to one body, moved by common feeling, guided by common reason. The ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... Doubly victimized have been those resident landlords who at all periods, from the earliest era of colonization, in spite of temptation and bad examples around them, have acted towards their tenantry as humane and patriotic citizens. A bad agrarian system infects the whole body politic. Good landlords and contented tenants inevitably suffered with ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... and it was evident that the war could not last much longer. The danger past, the Colonial aversion to pay Union expenses and to obey the orders of Congress became daily stronger. The want of a "Crisis," as a corrective medicine for the body politic, was so much felt, that Robert Morris, with the knowledge and approbation of Washington, requested Paine to take pen in hand again, offering him, if his private affairs made it necessary, a salary for his services. Paine consented. A "Crisis" appeared ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... to the health of our entire body politic. It stifles in those for whose benefit it is permitted all patriotic love of country, and substitutes in its place selfish greed and grasping avarice. Devotion to American citizenship for its own sake and for what it should accomplish as a motive to our nation's advancement and the happiness ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... minute, and then ventured to seek a new subject. I had been going over the vigorous details of a Western robbery in the papers. After briefly telling the story as I remembered it, in its broader lines at least, I carried my curiosity to that interesting body politic, the town of Wolfville. ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... passed upon the night of their labors." These kindled a fire which has never been extinguished. They had, with all their barbarism, some great elements of character, and in all the solid qualities of the heart, were superior to the races they subdued. They brought their fresh blood into the body politic, and were alive to sentiments of religion, patriotism, and love. They were enthusiastic, hopeful, generous, and uncontaminated by those subtle vices which ever lead to ruin. They made innumerable mistakes, and committed inexcusable ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... making some tentative steps towards a system of national education. Societies, Congresses, and Institutes were springing up like mushrooms; and all enlightened people agreed that extension of knowledge was the one and all-sufficient remedy for the obvious disorders of the body politic. The Victorian Age was, in brief, the age of Education; and the one dogma which no one ventured to question was that the extension of knowledge was necessarily, and in itself, ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... problem: "What makes a people one?" Neither blood, nor territory, nor language, but only the fact of being more or less compactly organized in a political society, will be found to yield the unifying principle required. Once the primary constitution of the body politic has been made out, a limit is set up, inside of which a number of fairly definite forms of grouping offer themselves for examination; whilst outside of it various social relationships of a vaguer kind have also to be considered. Thus, amongst institutions of the internal kind, ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... because the Millennium did not immediately show itself, and make all rich, prosperous, and happy, they leaped to the conclusion that its failure was due to the existing regime, making no account or allowance for the still uncicatrised wounds of the body politic being the work ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid



Words linked to "Body politic" :   rogue state, commonwealth country, dominion, the three estates, suzerain, Eelam, ally, developing country, world power, sea power, political entity, foreign country, estate, political unit, state, renegade state, estate of the realm, Tamil Eelam, city-state, rogue nation, superpower, Reich, city state, major power, great power, power



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