"Nullify" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... contraction, of orgasm, of turgescence in the fleshy envelopes, in the muscular layers which protect and inclose the abdomen, the thorax, the principal vascular trunks, and the bony surfaces, must essentially contribute to weaken, to deaden, to nullify, the effect of the blows. Is it not by means of an analogous state of orgasm, which an over-excited will produces, that boxers and athletes find themselves in a condition to brave, to a certain point, the dangers of their profession? In fine, it is to be remarked, that, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... abundant evidence in this episode of a deliberate purpose at the North not to enforce the essential features of the compromise. Both Whig and Democratic leaders, with few exceptions, roundly denounced all attempts to nullify the Fugitive Slave Law.[372] None was more vehement than Douglas. He could not regard this Boston rescue as a trivial incident. He believed that there was an organization in many States to evade the law. It was in the nature of a conspiracy against the government. ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... first;—but when and how? Perhaps affairs of state detained him also. Perhaps, even, this man, Hannibal, whose eye pierced through all subterfuges, had already divined the danger and set himself to nullify it. Perhaps—and then, as she was reclining in the larger dining hall, one of the slaves entered and whispered in her ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... or his discoveries, by his scruples or his assertions, by his adherence to truth, or by the curiosity of his speculations, to be persecuted by two opposite parties, even when the accusations of the one necessarily nullify the other; such an author will be fortunate to be permitted to retire out of the circle of the bad passions; but he crushes in silence and voluntary obscurity all future efforts—and thus the nation ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Federalist bank in 1790 as a violation of the Constitution and State rights, cheerfully signed the bill rechartering that bank when it became useful to the fiscal interests of the Democratic party. Jefferson was ready to nullify the alien and sedition laws and the Constitution of the United States in the Kentucky resolutions of 1798. The very Federalists who fought him in that day and denounced him as a traitor and nullifier lived to proclaim and practice doctrines of nullification in behalf of State's rights ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... a great deal concerning "Reconstruction" of the Union that summer. The Old Squire was painfully concerned about it; he feared that Congress had made mistakes which would nullify the results gained by the Civil War. The low character of the men, sent to the South to administer the government, revolted him. He used to bring his newspaper to the table nearly every meal and would sometimes fling it down indignantly, crying, "Wrong! wrong! all wrong!" Then he and ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... a commission with discretionary powers was not specially sanctioned by their charter, they resolved to resist the orders of the king and nullify his commission. While the fleet sent from England was engaged in reducing New York, Massachusetts, on September 10th, 1664, published an order prohibiting complaints to the commissioners, and at the same time issued a remonstrance, not against deeds of ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... into two branches: First, the natural antagonism of the old system to economic changes; and, second, the effect of the profit principle to minimize if not wholly to nullify the benefit of such economic improvements as were able to overcome that antagonism so far as to get themselves introduced.—Now, Florence, tell us what there was about the old economic system, the system of private capitalism, which made it constitutionally opposed ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... were almost as obnoxious to the priests as the brandy which they offered. Among them were many worthy men, like the great Du Lhut; but the majority were 'white savages,' whose conduct went far to nullify the teaching ...
— The Jesuit Missions: - A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... abided with the book, patiently, confidently, energetically, taking plenty of time to work over into your practical life its teachings and directions, you have invoked that law, and, soon or late, you will find yourself a new soul and successful, provided you do not nullify the law by dropping out of your career the practical use of ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... heated partisans of South Carolina in their zeal for free trade and State rights had made a step in advance of the more staid and reflecting Statists, and undertook to abrogate and nullify the laws of the Federal Government legally enacted, they found themselves unsupported and in difficulty, and naturally turned to their acknowledged leader for guidance. To contest the Federal Government, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... Those sleeves, rising above the shoulders—as high as the ear in Catherine's costume, you will observe—are unsightly enough to nullify whatever beauty the costume might have in other points; though in her case they only complete the expression of the costume, which is a grim, unnatural stiffness. And the reason of the unsightliness of these sleeves is, that the outline which they present is directly opposed to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... be assumed that we are much worse in this respect than our neighbours across that Channel which some desire to have destroyed and so nullify the famous John of Gaunt speech. In books and plays the Gallic writers are almost as fond of presenting the French aristocracy as are our dramatists and novelists of writing works concerning the British ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... to the atom, which may be described as a number of electrons positive and negative in stable equilibrium, this condition being brought about by the mutual repulsion of the like and attraction for the opposite electrification so arranged as to nullify each other. Having thus established the law of the equilibrium of electrons, corpuscles, atoms, and molecules, I found that the same law applies to the equilibrium of our solar system, and, in fact, of the universe, and, by the elimination ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... open mutiny have ulterior designs upon the treasure, upon the life of Umballa? Perhaps. At any rate, events so shaped themselves as to nullify whatever plans he had ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... verse after verse to show her this sort of thing could never be, how it would mock at the love of Christ and nullify His sacrifice. I urged upon her that if she were true, and the central thought of her life were towards God, all the outworkings would correspond, creed fitting deed, and deed fitting creed without the least shade of diversity. But faith and ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... end bring them together in a complete picture, but this will require effort on the part of the reader; and it is fundamentally important in all writing to reduce the conscious attention and effort of the reader to the lowest point. Only extreme literary art can so nullify this effort in effect as to make description by detail pleasurable, if of any length. Description by detail is, perhaps, more admissible in writing having a meditative tone than in any other, except, of ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... made her sign a document granting him the right to repurchase possession with the same amount at any time that it might please him, and you have the apprehension of the woman who knows that possession constitutes but few points of the law when there is ink and parchment to nullify the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... furthers the good of all humanity. Whereas violence on the part of the individual merely retards the final result for which we are striving. The murder of Estan Medina, for instance, may be the one display of individual violence which will nullify all our ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... human nature that that which we call civilization strives unceasingly to nullify emotion. The almost childlike faith which made our church spires point heavenward also gave us Gothic architecture, that emblem of frail humanity striving towards the ideal. It is a long leap from that ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... tariff for revenue but not a tariff for a protective purpose. Every State, Calhoun declared, must have the Constitutional right to protect itself against an Act of Congress which it deemed unconstitutional. Let such a State, in special Convention, "nullify" the Act of Congress. Let Congress then, unless it compromised the matter, submit its Act to the people in the form of an Amendment to the Constitution. It would then require a three-fourths majority of all the States to pass ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... states. It followed from this that any state could determine for itself whether any act of Congress were constitutional or not. It followed from, this, again, that any state could refuse to permit an Act of Congress to be enforced within its limits. In other words, any state could make null or nullify any Act of Congress that it saw fit to oppose. This last conclusion was found only in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1799. But Jefferson wrote to this effect in the original draft of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions called the voter's attention ...
— A Short History of the United States • Edward Channing
... that it was liable to be overwhelmed by superior forces in the great open plains of Leipzig. He would have been wiser to lead it to the mountains of Thuringia and Hesse, which offered good defensive positions, and so nullify some of the numerical advantage of the royal coalition. In addition, the approach of winter and the need to feed their many troops would have soon compelled the enemies to separate, while the French army, its front and its flanks protected ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... beamed expectantly, for he was particularly partial to fried eggs. As for his companion in distress, anything edible and which would serve to nullify the gnawing at his internal economy would be welcome. Inasmuch as Captain Scraggs did not readily reply to Mr. Gibney's salutation, McGuffey decided to be more emphatic and to the point, albeit in a ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... gaseous emanations, which constitute the aerial contagions, being dissipated by the same agent, at an inferior degree. In the absence of direct experiment, we may venture to infer, that 120 deg. would suffice, to nullify these last. Such, at least, has been the belief of those, who have been employed to purify ships, barracks, and hospitals, from contagion, and I should think it must have been ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... started the idea, as a forlorn hope, that although the president might ratify, it still rested with the house of representatives to refuse, if they chose, the pecuniary means to carry the treaty into effect, and thus to nullify it. They, therefore, resolved to use every effort to accomplish their purposes in this way. The elections in the several states were not yet completed, and they felt confident that a majority had already been chosen who were hostile ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... American line, whose watertight compartments have no passage through them; no doors to be left open, and consequently no way for water to get from one of them to another in time of collision. If you nullify the peril which collisions threaten you with, you nullify the only very serious peril which attends voyages in the great liners of our day, and makes voyaging safer than staying ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the vibration in it was almost imperceptible, it was sufficient to nullify the ridiculousness of Julian's demeanour as a wearer of sackcloth, and to bring a sudden lump into Rachel's throat. The comical absurdity of his bellicose pride because he had accomplished something which he had sworn to accomplish was extinguished by the absolutely painful sincerity of his final ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... you have noticed that we have a complete supply in every part of the house, so that there need not be a dark corner anywhere. This I had specially arranged. It is worked by a set of turbines moved by the flowing and ebbing tide, after the manner of the turbines at Niagara. I hope by this means to nullify accident and to have without fail a full supply ready at any time. Come with me and I will explain the system of circuits, and point out to you the taps and the fuses." I could not but notice, as we went with him all over the house, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... despot in a republic, is the most amazing fact of history. It took the Methodist Church forty years to get a membership of 138,000. Mormonism in forty-four years counted 250,000. It seems incredible, nevertheless it is a fact. In this brief space of time it has also been able to nullify our laws, oppose our institutions, openly perpetrate crimes, be represented in Congress, boast of the helplessness of the nation to prevent these things, and give the Church supremacy over the State and the people. Bills introduced in Congress adequate to their overthrow have been year after year ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... throughout is one of hostility to this legislation, and that if their relation to the law after it is enacted is to be judged by the attitude towards the Interstate Commerce Law, it will be one of continued effort to destroy its efficiency and nullify its provision." Events have shown that he was right in his predictions, and his idea that the war against monopolies must last until they are deprived of their dominant position in politics is now ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... it easier and much quicker to speak than to write; and I'm informed that I ought never to exert myself more than is necessary. Supposing I were to die within the next few days—and I have yet to go through the business of the funeral ceremonies!—circumstances might arise which might nullify part of my plan, unless a clear account of the affair should ultimately come into the hands of some person whom I could trust not to make a fool of himself—such as ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... were, as a body, entirely unfitted to exercise the suffrage thrust upon them. A degrading and exasperating struggle was the inevitable result—the whites of the South striving by intimidation and chicanery to nullify the negro vote, the professional politicians from the North battling, with the aid of the United States troops, to render it effectual. Such a state of things was demoralising to both parties, and in process ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... action of the Free States, which has created so much excitement and alarm among the people of the slaveholding States, as the passage of the so called "personal liberty" acts. They are regarded as deliberate infractions and breaches of the Constitution, and as attempts to nullify the operation of a constitutional enactment of Congress. But I do not wish to invite discussion upon the subject now; I hope my motion ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... duty, as the light at the mouth of the tunnel had been put out, and it was one of the night signalman's duties to do this as soon as daylight appeared; it is possible, therefore, that Pritchard went down to the tunnel for that purpose. Against this theory, however, and an objection that seems to nullify it, is the evidence of Dr. Williams, who states that when he examined the body his opinion was that death had taken place some hours before. An inquest was held on the following day, but before it took place there was a new and most important development. ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... fell, the sea rose and subsided, the Sybarite trudged on into dull weather. The sky grew overcast; and Lanyard, daily scanning the very heavens for a sign, accepted this for one, and prayed it might hold. Nothing could be more calculated to nullify his efforts than to have the landfall happen on a ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... for the sequestration of the two nuns, no matter at what risk. The bailiff, however, in the interests of the petitioner himself, did not dare to grant this request, for he was afraid that the ecclesiastical authorities would nullify his procedure, on the ground that the convent ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... give them the rubber, and should it do so, its amount will be most materially affected by the action of the player who has the chance either to score a bonus or win a game. If the first game be of normal size, a large bonus will nullify the result of the rubber, but if instead a game be taken in the adversaries will score an ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... have been so puerile and imbecile that one quite non-partisanly wonders why on earth they have been allowed to continue. A second thought demonstrates, of course, that fear has had the major part in it, and that skill in cheating has gone so far as practically to nullify the ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... instruments on which it is played by a consummate musician, equally perfect in all. One instrument may be more capacious than another, but as far as its compass extends, and in what it sounds forth, it will be true to the conception of the master. I can conceive no softening here which would not nullify the doctrine, and convert it to a cloud for each man's fancy to shift and shape at will. And this doctrine, I confess, plants the vineyard of the Word with thorns for me, and places snares in its pathways. These may be delusions of an evil spirit; but ere I so ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... with resolutions declaring the acts constitutional. Whereupon, in the following year (1799), Kentucky declared that when a state thought a law of Congress unconstitutional, that state might veto or nullify it, that is, forbid its citizens to obey it. This doctrine of nullification, as we shall see, was later ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic Governments of the world. We are now about to accept the gage of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... offence than that of supporting Mr. Chamberlain's policy with President Krueger while they made him believe that, as they were fighting against that policy in England, there was no necessity for him to heed their advice. Their attitude in Europe was bound to nullify the effect of the warnings they were sending to Africa. It is astounding to see sedate men contradict themselves in that way. I cannot help wondering at Dr. Clark boasting on the 27th of September that owing to his endeavours Mr. Stead's pamphlet ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... all ties in grafting to prevent strangulation of the tender new growth. This, with removal of sprouts or suckers from the stock below the graft are two very important features of after-care, and neglect can nullify the most expert work ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... family, then must the atonement of the Mediator be restricted to them. There seems no evading this inference. To give the designed objects of the Saviour's atonement a greater extension than the covenant of grace, is to nullify its character as the stipulated condition of the covenant, and to render nugatory and unavailing the consolatory address by which the heart of many an awakened sinner has been soothed. 'Behold ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... forward to testify to the falsity of these charges, and the fact that Richard had himself placed Conrad of Montferat upon the throne, and had no possible interest in his death, was alone more than sufficient to nullify the vague rumours brought against him. Richard himself in a few scornful words disposed of this accusation. The accusation that he, Richard of England, would stoop to poison a man whom he could have crushed in an instant, was too absurd ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... Jefferson, who was then American minister in France, gave the Constitution but a grudging and inconsistent approval, and would prefer that it failed, were not amendments tacked on which practically would nullify its energies. But although Hamilton had such lieutenants as John Jay, Philip Schuyler, Duane, and Robert Livingston, Madison had the inestimable, though silent, backing of Washington. The great Chief had, months since, forcibly expressed his sentiments in ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... now," Gladys observed. "Au revoir." And with one of those tantalising and perplexing smiles, with which some women, consciously or unconsciously, counteract—and sometimes, perhaps, for reasons best known to themselves—completely nullify the needless severity of their speech, shook hands with Shiel, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... the battle—shams cannot save me. There is also the mystery of democracy, or sentiment of the equality before God of all his creatures. This sentiment (which seems in general to have been more widespread in Mohammedan than in Christian lands) tends to nullify man's usual acquisitiveness. Those who have it spurn dignities and honors, privileges and advantages, preferring, as I said in a former lecture, to grovel on the common level before the face of God. It is not exactly the sentiment of humility, though it comes ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... during the last twenty-five years, which I have spent entirely amongst drunkards and drunkenness. These people are not in the least affected by orthodox temperance efforts; they continue to propagate drunkenness, and thereby nullify the good results of temperance energy. Their children, born of defective parents, and educated by their surroundings grow up without a chance of decent life, and constitute the reserve from which the strength ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... is wholly impracticable. If the South were only one State it might work; but as it is, if only one State objected to emancipation, it would nullify the whole thing: for you are aware the people of Virginia cannot vote slavery out of South Carolina, nor the people of South Carolina vote it out ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... new Stadtholder, Prince William Frederick of Orange-Nassau, having incorporated Belgium as an integral part of the kingdom of the Netherlands, set himself to nullify the French racial traits of his Belgian subjects. A suggestion of future strife on this score could already be found in Van der Palm's memorial on "The Restoration of the Netherlands," ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... poison, which was shown in the first act) Here stands death before me! The doctor told us yesterday, in reference to Champagne's wife, that this terrible substance required some hours, almost a whole night, to produce its deadly effects, and that it was possible, during the first hours, to nullify these effects; if the doctor remains at the house, he will ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... machinery, for all things in a material universe are merely a matter of vibration. We of Xoran plan to cross the barrier of the fourth dimension by creating a narrow strip of vibrations powerful enough to exactly match and nullify those of the fourth dimension itself. The result will be that this narrow strip will temporarily become an area of three dimensions only, an area over which we can safely pass from our world ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... these bodies results in the subordination of active energetic capacities to the worn-out capacities of old men, who, thinking they know best, alter or nullify the plans submitted by their subordinates,—perhaps with the sole aim of making their existence felt; for that seems to me the only influence exercised over the public works of France by the Council-general of ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... while the grief and bewilderment of that little damsel herself, who had, in all good faith, believed that she had mother's sanction for her course, were pitiable to witness. As for Jim, not even the gratifying pecuniary results could nullify his mortification at the disgrace which he believed to have fallen upon the family, especially his beloved Miss Daisy; and he found it hard to forgive the captain, who had encouraged ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... Committee. Mr. Vallandigham, then temporarily colonized in Canada, was the Democratic candidate for Governor, and the canvass was "red- hot." At no time during the war did the spirit of war more completely sway the loyal masses. It was no time to mince the truth, or "nullify damnation with a phrase," and I fully entered into the spirit of General Burnside's advice already referred to, to breathe into the hearts of the people a feeling of animosity against the rebels akin to that which inspired their warfare against us. I remember that at one ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... think about it the people may wonder if the referendum might not make it possible for a small, malevolent, and mischievous minority to obstruct the machinery of government and for a time at least to nullify ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... the obligation of contracts'—which clause has been uniformly held by all the Federal as well as State Courts, to apply to contracts of a State—and yet, in flagrant defiance of the highest duties and the most sacred obligations, the Legislature passed these resolutions, to nullify the anticipated decisions of the court. We have seen, however, that this executive and legislative usurpation was ineffectual. The court stood firm, not a single judge wavered, and, by a unanimous decree, reversed the legislative ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Assembly, at that time about forty years of age, a political agitator, a Puritan of the strictest creed, poor and indifferent to money, an incarnation of zeal for liberty, a believer in original, inherent rights which no Parliament can nullify,—a man of the keenest political sagacity in management, and of almost unlimited influence in Massachusetts from his long and notable services in town-meeting, Colonial Assembly, as writer in the journals of the day, and actor in every public crisis. Eleven years ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... American fleet with a cargo of slaves. An English commander reported: "The officers of the United States' navy are extremely active and zealous in the cause, and no fault can be attributed to them, but it is greatly to be lamented that this blemish should in so great a degree nullify our endeavours."[35] ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the Jury had unloosed "The Greater Jury," which always now sits upon the smaller. Every means was taken to nullify the value of the "palladium of British liberty." The foreman and the jurors were interviewed, the judge was judged, and by those who were no judges. The Home Secretary (who had done nothing beyond accepting office under the Crown) was vituperated, and sundry provincial persons ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... been absorbed in the momentous problems which then occupied the minds of intelligent American citizens: What Gen. Jackson should do with the scolds, and what with the disreputables? should South Carolina be allowed to nullify? and would the wives of cabinet ministers call on Mrs. Eaton? It is an unfailing opiate to turn over the drowsy files of the Richmond Enquirer, until the moment when those dry and dusty pages are suddenly kindled into flame ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... by the Democratic party, in the hope that he would gain support from a third party committed to inflation. Since then it would appear that the Democratic leaders seek to change the issue. The same old questions about the rights of states to nullify the laws of the United States—the same old policy to belittle and degrade our national government into a mere confederacy of states—are now thrust ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... no sooner made than fresh attempts were made to nullify it. Hungary's needs, as a country, were many. Her taxation required alteration; her peasants had still feudal burdens to bear, instead of being freehold proprietors of land. Religious toleration was not enforced, and free trade was an unknown quantity, ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... therefore you were afraid of publicity. You see it now, and you want a sensational article published, so that Senator Smollet will be forced to deny it, or further arouse the suspicions of the honest men in his party. In either case publicity will nullify the results of the deal, and you will hold the share you have. As you didn't know any of the regular London representatives of the New York papers, you couldn't trust them not to tell on you, and so you came to me. Now that I see a good substantial selfish motive ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... Rover. They gave Philistinism many a shrewd blow, but perhaps at the same time helped to some degree—with other far deeper and stronger forces—to produce that sceptical and centrifugal state of mind, which now tends to nullify organised liberalism and paralyse the spirit of improvement. The Benthamites, led first by James Mill, and afterwards in a secondary degree by John Mill, had pushed a number of political improvements in the radical and democratic direction during ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... great and the opportunity short. An election for the Legislature, held subsequently to that for the Convention, showing a public opinion decidedly adverse to it, the sole study of its members thenceforth seemed to be, how they could most adroitly and effectively nullify the ascendency of the majority. For this end alone they consulted, and caballed, and calculated, and junketed; and the Lecompton Constitution, with the Schedule annexed, was the worthy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... the increased facility of emigration nullify the Malthusian law of population in your ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... them, they have in our country,—this land of unbounded religious toleration,—the same right to their religion and their ecclesiastical government that Protestant sects have; and if Protestants would nullify their influence so far as it is bad, they must outshine them in virtues, in a religious life, in zeal, and in devotion to the spiritual interests of the people. If the Jesuits keep better schools than Protestants ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... abandoning the refugees in the island of Salamis, and he regarded the adjacent straits as the best position in which the Greeks could give battle. There, as in the channel of Euboea, the narrow waters would do something to nullify the Persian advantage of numbers. For the Greeks, formed in several lines extending from shore to shore, could only be attacked by equal numbers. Only the leading ships of the attack would be in action at ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... the town which was to engage their attention for the next day or so. Over everything hung that vague air of dejection and moral decay which is so hard to define and so easy to detect. The street was lit with feeble electric lights which did little more than nullify the moon. Grass grew at its pleasure through the broken brick pavement; and even in that dimness, it was very evident that the White Wing department had been ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... which had recently been ceded; should make one-half of Portuguese Guiana over to the French; should shut all the ports and roads of Portugal in Europe against all English vessels, until peace was concluded with England; should nullify all preceding treaties and conventions with England; should treat France in all matters of commerce as the most favoured nation; and should admit all French commodities and merchandise whatsoever. The Portuguese court likewise ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... He knew it. He knew it was a race between his condition and the completion of the work. He was living in an atmosphere of contending poisons, breathing one to nullify the effects of the other. There were moments when he wondered how long his body could endure the struggle which he knew must go on to the end, whatever that ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... not to be one with that good by perfect obedience, is to be unsaved; but one better thought concerning him, the poorest desire to draw near him, is an approach to him. Very unsure of him we may be: how should we be sure of what we do not yet know? but the unsureness does not nullify the approach. A man may not be sure that the sun is risen, may not be sure that the sun will ever rise, yet has he the good of what light there is. Richard was fed from the heart of God without knowing ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... that other gods exist does not nullify the attitude of tentative monotheism. "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?" asks Moses, and his father-in-law, when converted to the new belief, says: "Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods."[27] But this is not the ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the Northern States sooner or later passed "Personal Liberty laws," which, without directly assuming to nullify the Federal statute, aimed to defeat its enforcement. They contained such provisions as the exemption of State officials and State buildings from service in the rendition of fugitives, and the right of alleged ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... church in all its sections should be thoroughly awake to its danger from the destructive errors, idolatry and power of its ancient irreconcilable enemy; and should, by all legitimate means, labour to counteract and nullify its political influence. The ministry and the rising youth of the church should study carefully the Popish controversy, and should be intimately acquainted with the history of the rise and progress of the Papacy—its assumed blasphemous power—its accumulated errors and delusions, and its ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... statists of this our happy but disputatious Union. It seizes upon the brain of a heated politician, sometimes in one state, sometimes in another, and its natural offspring is the doctrine of nullification; that is, the sovereign power of any one state of the confederacy to nullify any act of the whole twenty-four states which the sovereign state shall please to consider as unconstitutional. Stripped of the sophistical argumentation in which this doctrine has been habited, its naked nature is ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... existence of an inherent corrupt principle from the beginning; because hitherto certainly, and probably it will be so for ever, even the most salutary movements and most effective social conceptions have been provisional. In other words, the ultimate certainty of dissolution does not nullify the beauty and strength of physical life, and the putrescence of Jesuit methods and ideas is no more a reproach to those who first found succour in them, than the cant and formalism of any other degenerate form of active ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... "The elevation of this class is a matter of prime importance, since a ballot in the hands of a black citizen is quite as potent as in the hands of a white one." Or (2) Negro suffrage meant a determined concentration of Southern effort by actual force to deprive the Negro of the ballot or nullify its use. This last is what really happened. But even in this case, so much energy was taken in keeping the Negro from voting that the plan for keeping him in virtual slavery and denying him education partially failed. It took ten years to nullify Negro suffrage in ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... know and feel that annexation to the great Republic in their neighbourhood will swamp their nationality more effectively than the red or the blue coats of England can ever do, will desecrate their altars, will portion out their lands, will nullify their present importance, and render them an isolated race, forgotten and unsought for, as the Iroquois of the last century, who, from being the children and owners of the land, the true enfans du sol, are now—where? The soil, had it voice, could alone reply, for on ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... to the foregoing representation, that the expectation of a future life, instead of being harmful to the interests and attractions of the present, simply casts a cheering and magnifying light upon them. It does not depreciate the realities or nullify the obligations now upon us, but emphasizes them, flinging their lights and shades forward through a mightier vista. Consequently there is no reason for assailing the idea of another life in behalf of the interests of this. Such an opposition between ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... existence &c. 1; be null and void; cease to exist &c. 1; pass away, perish; be extinct, become extinct &c. adj.; die out; disappear &c. 449; melt away, dissolve, leave not a rack behind; go, be no more; die &c. 360. annihilate, render null, nullify; abrogate &c. 756; destroy &c. 162; take away; remove &c. (displace) 185; obliterate, extirpate. Adj. inexistent[obs3], nonexistent &c. 1; negative, blank; missing, omitted; absent &c. 187,; insubstantial, shadowy, spectral, visionary. unreal, potential, virtual; baseless, in nubibus[Lat]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... against their schools, the Cyrillic alphabet and so forth. It was natural that the suffering Serbs were apt to compare these restrictions with those that were imposed upon the Croats. However, among the intelligentsia an effort—a fairly successful effort—was made to nullify this dividing policy; the Serbo-Croat Coalition was formed, one of the protagonists being Svetozar Pribi[vc]evi['c], that very energetic Serb of Croatia, and in 1906 this party obtained no less than sixty-eight seats, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... bought by that indirect corruption which takes the form of subscriptions, charitable donations, gifts of coals and of blankets; and yet, with the present system, these votes may decide the result of an election and completely nullify the votes ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... me, Heaven!" she continued with emotion. "I care not what may come out of this Convention, so that this great cause shall go forward to its consummation! And though this Convention by its action shall nullify the National Association of which I am a member, and though it shall tread its heel upon The Revolution, to carry on which I have struggled as never mortal woman or mortal man struggled for any cause ... still, if you will do ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... he finally expelled the House of Hapsburg in 1866, and thus translated ancient theories into modern facts. It was therefore highly improbable, to say the least, that only a few years after the Treaty of Berlin he should be engaged in an attempt to nullify his own work. [Footnote: On January 14th, 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament voted the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... same offenses; that for petty larceny a Negro may be condemned to the criminal class for life, albeit he had to steal or starve. He shows that the criminal machinery of the South is frequently used to nullify the Negro's right of suffrage; that no hand is extended to lift him up when he falls, and no effort is put forth for his reformation, and for this reason the South turns out one-third of the criminals of the whole country; that Massachusetts expends ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... Union brings with it "the support of the State governments in all their rights," but it is not one of the rights of any State government to renounce its own place in the Union or to nullify the laws of the Union. The largest liberty is to be maintained in the discussion of the acts of the Federal Government, but there is no appeal from its laws except to the various branches of that Government itself, or to the people, who grant to the members of the legislative and of the executive ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... Senate (Tzuchengyuan) the writer finds this note written in 1910: "The Debates of this body have been remarkable during the very first session. They make it seem clear that the first National Parliament of 1913 will seize control of China and nullify the power of the Throne. Result, revolution—" Though the dating is a little confused, the prophecy is ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... to fight for it, sooner perhaps than we realize. We are a nation divided against ourselves; democracy—Jacksonian democracy, at all events, is a flat failure, and we may as well acknowledge it. We have a political system we have outgrown, and which, therefore, we have had to nullify. There are certain needs, certain tendencies of development in nations as well as in individuals,—needs stronger than the state, stronger than the law or constitution. In order to make our resources effective, combinations ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in ministerial—consequently in Swedish—Cabinet Council a consul appointed in Norwegian Council, I ventured to point out 1) that this demand was entirely contrary to the Norwegian Constitution, 2) that an arrangement by which a Swedish authority of state might nullify a resolution adopted by a Norwegian authority of state would, according to the general principles of political and international law, impress upon Norway the stamp of a dependency, and 3) that it would therefore from a national point of view ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... from Overcombe; and it had been to her even a more grievous thing that Bob had acquiesced in his brother's ruling than that John had determined it. At the time of setting out she was sustained by a firm faith that Bob would follow her, and nullify his brother's scheme; but though she ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... the moment when our resolution seems about to become irrevocable—when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon us—that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long struggles, and bring us the defeat that ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... artists were strictly limited to the nine colors named. No one might use other than cerulean blue, if he employed blue at all; no other red than the tone popularly known as "Pompeiian" has been admitted in the scheme. In this red the admixture of brown and yellow nullify any tendency towards carmine on crimson. The French and the copper greens and the intermediate shades approved by Guerin are the ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... centralising economies which created our great manufacturing towns. Whether a wide diffusion of industrial villages, which might be of a size and structure to reproduce in a somewhat less virulent form many of the physical and moral vices of the larger towns, and which possibly might retard or nullify some of the educative and elevating influences springing from the organisation and co-operative action of large masses of workers, can be regarded as a desirable substitute or remedy for our congested city life, is open to grave doubt. A whole country like ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... may the Executive elect which he will enforce. The duty to obey and to execute embraces the Constitution in its entirety and the whole code of laws enacted under it. The evil example of permitting individuals, corporations, or communities to nullify the laws because they cross some selfish or local interest or prejudices is full of danger, not only to the nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious expedient to escape their just obligations or to obtain an unjust ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... evident, that Fielding had no desire to write what might be harmful. The contrast between his promise and his fulfilment is simply an illustration of the standard of his time. His novels are coarse to a degree which may nullify their merits in the eyes of some readers of the present day, and may unfit them for the perusal of very young people. But this is simply because the standard in such matters has changed, and not because the novels were purposely made dissolute. Their coarseness was adapted ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... internal improvements at national expense and a high protective tariff. The State Rights party, which was strongest at the South, opposed these views, and in 1832 South Carolina claimed the right to "nullify" the tariff imposed by the general government. The leader of this party was John Caldwell Calhoun, a South Carolinian, who in his speech in the United States Senate, on February 13, 1832, on Nullification and the {425} Force Bill, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... near to them except for their own interests; appearing as friends when it is to their own advantage, they stand not by a man in the hour of his need." 4. He used to say, "Do His will as if it were thy will. Nullify thy will before His will, that He may nullify the will of others ...
— Pirke Avot - Sayings of the Jewish Fathers • Traditional Text
... practical knowledge of the country, but would depend upon prejudiced accounts for his information. Thus he would never arrive at any correct information; he would receive all testimony with doubt, considering that each had some personal motive in offering advice, and one tongue would thus nullify the other until he should at length come to the conclusion of David in his haste, "that all men are liars," and turn a deaf ear to all. This would enable him to pass the rest of his term without any active blunders, and he might vary the passive monotony of his ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... God-like that, was commonly sufficient; and then there was no lack of material, for he had taken care to provide himself with a Riddle who, he really believed, had given an opinion, at some time or other, on every side of every subject that had ever been mooted in Leaplow. He could nullify, or mollify, or qualify, with the best of them; and these, which he termed the three fies, he believed were the great requisites of a Leaplow legislator. He admitted, however, that some show of independence was necessary, in order to give value to the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... canons and beneficiaries to give acquittances to their farmers. Then, from house to house, with club in hand, they oblige some to hand over money, others to abandon their claims on their debtors, "one to desist from criminal proceedings, another to nullify a decree obtained, a third to reimburse the expenses of a lawsuit gained years before, a father to give his consent to the marriage of his son."—All their grievances are brought to mind, and we all know the tenacity of a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... two purposes."—Id. "Moreover, this destruction is both perpetual and terrible."—Id. "Giving to several men several gifts, according to his good pleasure." "Until; to some time, place, or degree, mentioned."—See Dict. "Annul; to make void, to nullify, to abrogate, to abolish."—See Dict. "Nitric acid combined with argil, forms the nitrate ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... people; and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law." When a state questions the lawfulness of any act of the federal government, it cannot nullify that act or withdraw from the union; it must abide by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. The union of these states is perpetual, ran Lincoln's simple argument in the first inaugural; the federal Constitution has no provision for ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... important admission however, and enunciated his golden Canon of interpretation, when he hastens to nullify it. His very next words are,—"The meaning of the Canon is only this,—'That we cannot understand Scripture without becoming familiar ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... prove to be the case, you are welcome back to your own," said Lord Braithwaite, quietly. "It will be a very remarkable case, if the proofs for two hundred years, or thereabouts, can be so distinctly made out as to nullify the claim of one whose descent is undoubted. Yet it is certainly not impossible. I suppose it would hardly be fair in me to ask what are your proofs, and whether ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Captain Runacles broke in, "if you are talking of yourself, let me advise you to quit England by the first ship that sails. The child is already furnished with a guardian—a guardian, my dear sir, who will nullify your legal claim upon the child by the simple expedient of ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... complacent justification of himself. And the most maddening part of it was her knowledge that Benton was right, that in many essential things he had done her a good turn, which her own erratic inclinations bade fair to wholly nullify. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... one true one; nay, that it is not a thing very improbable that, amongst those many millions which make up the Romish hierarchy, there are not twenty true." We do not pretend to know to what precise extent the canonists of Oxford agree with those of Rome as to the circumstances which nullify orders. We will not, therefore, go so far as Chillingworth. We only say that we see no satisfactory proof of the fact, that the Church of England possesses the apostolical succession. And, after all, if Mr. Gladstone could prove the apostolical succession, what would the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the tariff is a palpable, deliberate usurpation; Carolina, therefore, may nullify it, and refuse to pay the duties. In Pennsylvania it is both clearly constitutional and highly expedient; and there the duties are to be paid. And yet we live under a government of uniform laws, and under ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... September, when John returned to the Hill, the country had just learned that the proposals of the Imperial Government to accept the note of August 19th (provided it were not encumbered by conditions which would nullify the intention to give substantial representation to the Uitlanders) had not been accepted. That this meant war, none, least of all a schoolboy, doubted. Desmond could talk of nothing else. He told John that his father had promised to let him leave Harrow before the end of the ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... several predecessors. I suppose that it is not right to rejoice in the misfortunes of anything, even a Bill; but I confess that this event afforded me lively satisfaction, for I was a member of the Royal Commission on the report of which the Bill was founded, and I did my best to oppose and nullify that report. ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley |
