Central power

“ 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. ”

“ In proportion as the duties of the central power are augmented, the number of public officers by whom that power is represented must increase also. They form a nation in each nation; and as they share the stability of the government, they more and more fill up the place of an aristocracy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ But, clear away the ruins, and you behold an immense central power, which has attracted and absorbed into unity all the fractions of authority and influence which had formerly been dispersed amongst a host of secondary powers, orders, classes, professions, families and individuals, and which were disseminated throughout the whole fabric of society. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In such a government, the majority of the people would, at any time, have the right to elect new officers, as provided for, so that the strong central power would not be in the individuals administering the government, but in the organic law which constitutes the several parts of the country a common government, which, while being the strongest possible governmental form, it would, at the same time guarantee the greatest possible freedom, equality and justice to its people which would be compatible with the common interests and the common good. ”

“ There are strong men who rejoice in this unbalancing and deliberately contend that the center is the true repository of power and source of privilege—men who, were they charged with the solar system, would shred the planets 147into the sun, and, exulting in the sudden splendor, little reck that they had kindled the conflagration that presages universal nights! Thus the States are dwarfed and the nation magnified—and to govern a people, who can best govern themselves, the central authority is made stronger and more splendid! ”

“ The authority which is most conversant with principles should be supreme over principles, while that which is most competent in details should have the details left to it. The principal business of the central authority should be to give instruction, of the local authority to apply it. Power may be localized, but knowledge, to be most useful, must be centralized ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 dominance of the Social Democratic Party from the mid-1920s to the mid-1960s provided direction and continuity for Danish efforts in the domestic realm, and the bourgeois parties during the short breaks in Socialist power largely abstained from attempting to reverse what had been accomplished. Despite philosophical and practical differences, Danes of all political persuasions tend to agree that the government has an important role in guiding the domestic life of the nation, and that it should seek in some fashion to promote national growth and the general welfare of the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Monarchy - a government in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of a monarch who reigns over a state or territory, usually for life and by hereditary right; the monarch may be either a sole absolute ruler or a sovereign - such as a king, queen, or prince - with constitutionally limited authority. ”

“ To determine the point at which evils, so formidable to human freedom and advancement, begin, or rather at which they begin to predominate over the benefits attending the collective application of the force of society, under its recognised chiefs, for the removal of the obstacles which stand in the way of its well-being; to secure as much of the advantages of centralized power and intelligence, as can be had without turning into governmental channels too great a proportion of the general activity—is one of the most difficult and complicated questions in the art of government. ”

“ The political life of the country and its governmental apparatus, therefore, are based not on the popular will but on the needs of the Communist regime in maintaining power and in attempting to remold Polish society along Communist lines. ”

“ The exercise of political power remains the exclusive prerogative of the Communists who exert and maintain control through the mechanism of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) which was created in 1946 by the forced marriage of once bitter adversaries - the Communists and the Social Democrats. As in the case of the Soviet Communist Party, political power is highly centralized within the top echelons of the ruling SED, while responsibility for implementing policy rests with the party apparatus and the various governmental ministries and agencies. ”

“ It brings the agency, activity, energy, and patronage of government all to bear, with united force, on the means of general intelligence, and on the adoption or rejection of political opinions. It so completely perverts the true object of government, it so entirely revolutionizes our whole system, that the chief business of those in power is directed rather to the propagation of opinions favorable to themselves, than to the execution of the laws. ”

“ The Riksdag is vested with the power to remove the government or an individual member of the Council of State immediately by a vote of no confidence. The only defensive move open to the government in such a case is to announce new elections within a week. The implementation of these reforms puts Sweden in step with the growing number of democracies in Western Europe which have embraced the idea of a directly elected unicameral legislature more responsive to the electorate. ”

“ While retaining its time-honored culture, Japan rapidly absorbed Western technology during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After its devastating defeat in World War II, Japan recovered to become the second most powerful economy in the world and a staunch ally of the US. While the emperor retains his throne as a symbol of national unity, actual power rests in networks of powerful politicians, bureaucrats, and business executives. ”

“ May I never behold the day when the people of this country, setting on the ruins of their greatness, their hearts full of grief and sorrow, will, with wistful eyes, look back on times gone by, and scrutinize the pages of their history, and say: — here we ought to have resisted, and there we ought to have stood firm and so we ought to have stemmed the current of centralizing power, and all would be well now! ”

“ Great Britain, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing parliamentary democracy and in advancing literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one-fourth of the earth's surface. ”

“ Though the habit, general in past times, of regarding the powers of governments as inherent, has been, by the growth of popular institutions, a good deal qualified; yet, even now, there is no clear apprehension of the fact that governments are not themselves powerful, but are the instrumentalities of a power. ”

“ To a philosophical observer of the Republic, at the end of the hundred years, I should say that the important facts are not its industrial energy, its wealth, or its population, but the stability of the federal power, and the integrity of the individual States. ”

“ Even so, the Indian Government needs to restore the early momentum of reform, especially by continuing reductions in the extensive remaining government regulations. The government will also have to deal with rising government expenditures and higher debt servicing which could create a debt trap by the turn of the century. Even if a series of weak coalition governments come to power in the next few years and are unable to push reforms aggressively, parts of the economy that have already benefited from deregulation will continue to grow. ”

“ Thus, hand in hand, will walk—as they have always walked—the federalist and the capitalist, the centralist and the monopolist—the strong government protecting the money power, and the money power the political standing army of the government. ”

“ New and Old Conceptions of Government.—To draw such a distinction between Government and people as if two separate spheres of power, a stronger and higher, and a weaker and lower, negotiated and came to terms with each other, is a remnant of transmitted political sentiment, which still accurately represents the historic establishment of the conditions of power in most States. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Civil power, properly organized and exerted, is capable of diffusing its force to a very great extent; and can, in a manner, reproduce itself in every part of a great empire, by a judicious arrangement of subordinate institutions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Since I am upon this head, of the alterations which time has produced, or may produce in politics, I must observe, that all kinds of government, free and absolute, seem to have undergone in modern times, a great change for the better, with regard both to foreign and domestic management. The balance of power is a secret in politics, fully known only to the present age ”

“ The task of establishing this system and affirming the power of this great political body must rest upon that lofty authority which may direct the policies of our governments and keep their principles of conduct uniform, an authority whose name alone will calm our storms. ”

“ Civil authority and even State control could, in days gone by, only be sustained by plenty of pomp and show. The populace were awed by giant insignia and much parade of power to enforce the authority held. ”

“ Thus the will of the people, the will of the prince, the public force of the State, and the particular force of the government, all answer to a single motive power; all the springs of the machine are in the same hands, the whole moves towards the same end; there are no conflicting movements to cancel one another, and no kind of constitution can be imagined in which a less amount of effort produces a more considerable amount of action. ”

“ Every enlargement of the powers of the government which may be made, every measure which may be adopted to aggrandize the dominant combination which may control the government for the time, must necessarily enlarge, in a greater or less degree, his patronage and influence. With their enlargement, his power to control the other departments of the government, and the organs of public opinion, and through them, the community at large, must increase, and in the same degree. ”