Central Powers

“ All in all the Revolution did nothing else, and it is time that this should stop. Safety and security for consciences, property, and persons is the loud and unanimous outcry vibrating in all hears.3103—To calm things down, many novelties are required: To start with, the political and administrative concentration just described, a centralization of all powers in one hand, local powers conferred by the central power, and, to exercise this supreme power a resolute chief, equal in intelligence to his high position. ”

“ But whenever a central administration affects to supersede the persons most interested, I am inclined to suppose that it is either misled, or desirous to mislead. However enlightened and however skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself embrace all the details of the existence of a great nation. Such vigilance exceeds the powers of man. ”

“ They have led the first real convention of any democracy that ever drew breath. The first act of that memorable revolution was to proclaim a state of peace with an appeal not to the kings, not to the rulers, but an appeal to the people of all nations. They are the very breath of democracy; the quintessence of freedom. They made their appeal to the people of all nations, the Allies as well as the Central Powers, to send representatives to lay down terms of a peace that should be lasting. Here was a fine opportunity to strike a blow to make democracy safe to the world. ”

“ According to the division in question, the King, Lords, and Commons, as composing the sovereign Parliament, are the legislative power: the King, in his ministerial character, with the aggregate of the functionaries deriving their functions from him, are the administrative or executive authority.—In regard to the sovereign, (whether an individual or a body,) this division is palpably false. All political powers, actual and possible, reside actively or passively in the central authority; and all such powers residing in others are merely emanations from it. ”

“ The fault in its construction is, that the powers of the constituent units are not harmoniously related to the central power, nor to each other, discord being the natural consequence of such inequality. Though the constituent parts of society are in themselves imperfect, their relations to each other and to the governing power may be so well defined and regulated that their imperfections shall not have power to mar the harmony of action proceeding from the central power. ”

“ They have lost the powers which the people in the Constitution gave to the Central Government; but in the field of powers left to them each is supreme within its own limits, and by the exercise of that power may trespass on the exercise of similar power by its neighbor. ”

“ A central government, constructed on the basis of their democratic creed, would have been a government whose powers were smaller, more rigid, and more inefficiently distributed than those granted under our Federal Constitution—as may be seen from the various state constitutions subsequently written under Jeffersonian influence. ”

“ That State has always hitherto supposed a General Government to be the pursuit of the central States who wished to have a vortex for everything—that her distance would preclude her from equal advantage—and that she could not prudently purchase it by yielding national powers. ”

“ The splendor of a central government dazzles the unthinking—its opulence tempts the poor and the avaricious—its strength assures the rich and the timid—its patronage incites the spoilsmen and its powers inflame the partisan. ”

“ In large and civilised countries, and in more modern times, the central authority has commonly limited its activity to matters of general and permanent concern. Commonly confining itself to the making of laws regarding those weightier matters, it has delegated many of its legislative powers, and more of its administrative functions. By extending this reasonable policy as far as it might extend it with advantage to the country, it would heighten its efficiency and strengthen its power. ”

“ As one stands at a central point on the elegant avenue of the new portion, in front of him is this ravine; and beyond this is the Old City with its dark-colored, quaint, ten-storied buildings pierced with many windows. Innumerable gables present themselves, the stories often jutting out over each other; and the compact buildings rise in the rear, generally conforming to the slope of the land. On the extreme right on the further side is the castle, at a very rocky elevation, and forms a fit termination to the aggregation of sombre houses. ”

“ The highly complex character of a system in which the duties and rights of the citizen are thus governed by distinct sovereignties, would seem to render the administration of the central power—surrounded as it is by jealous and vigilant local governments—an exceedingly difficult and delicate task. ”

“ Each has, under the pressure of circumstances and to secure temporary ascendancy in the Federal or State governments, departed from the landmarks and traditions which gave it its distinctive character. The Centralists, a name which more significantly than any other expresses the character, principles, and tendency of those who favor centralization of power in a supreme head that shall exercise paternal control over States and people, have under various names constituted one party. On the other hand, the Statists, under different names, have from the first been jealous of central supremacy. ”

“ At the time I speak of, the Oregon Central Railroad was only completed to Salem ...
On the afternoon of the 10th, I took my seat in a coach of the California and Oregon Stage Company to commence my long ride to San Francisco . . .
The country from Salem to Albany, a distance of 25 miles, is more broken and picturesque than the 50 miles preceding it. The road was dotted along with fair-goers, who greeted us cheerfully; and our route led us often alongside the gangs of railroad-building Chinamen, and past the piers and trestlework of bridges to be completed for the iron track . .. ”

“ The intrinsic tendency of such governments to clash with the central authority, is enhanced by a cause which still operates although its origin is remote. Almost every extensive country is an aggregate of units, which, in substance at least, were once independent states ”

“ On the contrary, many a people has gradually emerged from this condition by the aid of a central authority, whose position has made it the rival, and has ended by making it the master, of the local despots, and which, above all, has been single. ”

“ These were the ideas and principles of leading consolidationists and radicals in Congress who were politicians of ability, had studied the science of government, and were from conviction opponents of reserved rights and State sovereignty and of a mere confederation or Federal Union, based on the political equality and reserved sovereignty of the States, but insisted that the central Government should penetrate further and act directly on the people. ”

“ By whom will those liberties be destroyed? This central power, styled the Federal Government, is formed by the people, is of the people, is for the people, and has only such power as the people gave it ”

“ I have already examined several of the incidents which may concur to promote the centralization of power, but the principal cause still remains to be noticed. The foremost of the incidental causes which may draw the management of all affairs into the hands of the ruler in democratic countries, is the origin of that ruler himself, and his own propensities. Men who live in the ages of equality are naturally fond of central power, and are willing to extend its privileges ”

“ There is centralized authority in full play. There a function of government claiming to be supreme, removed from the original source of sovereignty to an unmeasurable distance, entrenched in irresponsibility, endeavoring gradually to absorb all the organized powers around it. Sir, it requires but little sagacity to discern the danger and to foresee the consequences. ”

“ That the central government was created chiefly for matters of a general character, which concerned all the States and their people, and not for matters of interior regulation, is shown as much by the history of its formation as by the express language of the Constitution. ”

“ It is in the interests of the political establishments of the separate states to prevent their engulfment by the central authority, even as in olden times the local chieftains kept a jealous eye on the growing power of the king. ”

“ This independence of the individual, within the limits marked out by the interests of the State, forms the necessary complement of the wide expansion of the central power, and assures an ample scope to a liberal development of all our social conditions. ”

“ I am not aware that history furnishes any example in which a number of these political atoms or corpuscles have coalesced into a body, and learned to feel themselves one people, except through previous subjection to a central authority common to all. [2] It is through the habit of deferring to that authority, entering into its plans and subserving its purposes, that a people such as we have supposed receive into their minds the conception of large interests common to a considerable geographical extent. ”

“ The suppression, for instance, of anarchy and resistance to law,—the complete establishment of the authority of the central government, in a state of society like that of Europe in the middle ages,—is one of the strongest interests of the people, and also of the rulers simply because they are the rulers: and responsibility on their part could not strengthen, though in many conceivable ways it might weaken, the motives prompting them to pursue this object. ”

“ Those were days when although the people felt the need for the consolidation of a strong, central power, to secure freedom from strife, they were as a fact much more accustomed to manage their affairs than we happen to be at the present day. ”

“ It makes the men that make it. It controls offices, and places of trust and profit. It has all the powers of centralization. One man in a State is at the head of the organism. He is an autocrat, a czar, a sultan. ”

“ I declare that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend. ”

“ As Europe's largest economy and second most populous nation, Germany is a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense organizations. European power struggles immersed Germany in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. ”

“ And yet the best men of the country were brought at length more and more to the opposite view; a strong central authority, in which the states as a whole should become a larger self-directing unit, carrying out and ensuring the self-direction of the component members, was seen to be a necessity. ”

“ A strong central government does not necessarily mean anything approaching a monarchy. But it does mean a republic which will have the support of all its citizens as a central support, instead of each State comprising the Union reserving to itself the right to differ from the central power. ”

“ Therefore first of all, we must get a government which will be autonomous in so far as it will be government by the people and for the people. The different provincial governments are to be connected together by some sort of central government and then again that central government is to be connected up with the different parts of this vast empire. That is the sort of Government for which the time has come for which to make a definite scheme. ”

“ One General Government was formed for the whole, to which were delegated all the powers supposed to be necessary to regulate the interests common to all the States, leaving others subject to the separate control of the States, being, from their local and peculiar character, such that they could not be subject to the will of a majority of the whole Union, without the certain hazard of injustice and oppression. ”

“ Opposition to centralization, and to that dangerous spirit of encroachment which tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism ”

“ The task of grouping the scattered forces of society had thus fallen to the central power, which, in performing it, had naturally applied itself more to imposing duties on the associations it called into being than to acknowledging that they possessed rights of their own. ”

“ Nothing would be more natural, than that nations so situated should establish a common military power, a common treasury, and a common agency, through which to carry on their intercourse with other powers ”

“ When this is the case, when kings give a law to society, history is not unphilosophical which recognizes chiefly their enterprises and ideas.
The Rise of Absolute Monarchy. rise of absolute monarchy on the ruins of feudal states is one of the chief features of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There was every where a strong tendency to centralization. Provinces, before independent, were controlled by a central government. Standing armies took the place of feudal armies. Kings took away from nobles the right to coin money, administer justice, and impose taxes. ”

“ Towards the end of the seventh century, again, we find a much more centralized form of government. The Revolution of 1868 is a remarkable example of a rapid change from a feudal system to a strong central government. ”