It is not an authority, at first usurped in times of ignorance, and established only by succession and by precedents.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

But the abuse which the pope made of his dispensing power, in violating the canons of general councils, in invading the privileges and customs of all particular churches, and in usurping on the rights of patrons, was more likely to excite the jealousy of the people, than to reconcile them to a similar practice in their civil government.

"One of the fathers tells us that an excommunication is null when it would usurp over citizens the right of their prince.

inations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines, by which cunning ambitions and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp to themselves, the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

But as Henry foresaw that a crown, usurped against all rules of justice, would sit unsteady on his head, he resolved, by fair professions at least, to gain the affections of all his subjects.

In the name of his lord, Frederic, Marquis of Vicenza, he demands the Lady Isabella, daughter of that Prince whom thou hast barely got into thy power; and he requires thee to resign the principality of Otranto, which thou hast usurped from the said Lord Frederic, the nearest of blood to the last rightful lord, Alfonso the Good.

These were the gradations marking the status of families, and Confucius's sense of propriety was offended at the Ki's usurping in this way the appearance of royalty.]