Dictator

“ If you choose a hundred partisans of dictatorship, you will discover that each one of the hundred believes himself capable of being, if not sole dictator, at least of assisting very materially in the dictatorial government. The dictators would be those who, by one means or another, succeeded in imposing themselves on society. ”

“ We may, if we please, admit the conclusion that the nation accepted the king's action as that of a divinely constituted dictator; a theory which involves the assumption, which is altogether groundless, that the nation saw, or thought they saw, the existing circumstances to be such as demanded a dictatorship. ”

“ I do not approve of there being two Dictators at the same time, a thing wholly unprecedented, nor of there being a Dictator without a Master of the Horse, nor of the censorial powers being entrusted to one individual and that for the second time, nor of the supreme authority being placed in the hands of a Dictator for six months unless he has been created to wield executive powers. ”

“ Every year of a dictatorship diminishes the autonomous vitality of a community, no dictatorship is proof against the degeneration of the dictator through impunity and presumption, and no dictator has ever provided an efficient successor. ”

“ He was far before his age; and the fact which so strongly attests the virtue and patriotism of the man, is, that he became arbitrary and a dictator to establish, if possible, not a despotism, but a free and tolerant government. ”

“ This second-hand dictator has the best reasons in the world for abusing his power. If he could hope to succeed his master, and wear the crown in his turn, he might set an example, or make a show, of all the virtues. ”

“ A dictator once established by what is or is alleged to be public choice never permits an expression of public will which will displace him, and he goes out only through a new revolution because he alone controls the machinery through which he could be displaced peaceably. ”

“ I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship. The government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. ”

“ They have been prone to overlook the tyranny of their own organization and inheritance, and have come to accept a more liberal and humane dictator and one of their own seeking—but a dictator none the less. ”

“ Every man the least conversant with Roman history knows, how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man, under the formidable name of a dictator, as well against the intrigues of ambitious individuals, aspiring to tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community, threatening the existence of the government, as against foreign enemies, menacing the destruction and conquest of the state. [10] A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. ”

“ Then the name and the power became odious—the name to all the citizens, no doubt, but the power simply to the nobility, who grudged the supremacy of one man. The kings were abolished, and an oligarchy was established under the name of a Republic, with its annual magistrates—at first its two Consuls, then its Prætors and others, and occasionally a Dictator, as some current event demanded a concentration of temporary power in a single hand for a certain purpose. ”

“ "Everybody here is a dictator of something or other. They're all office holders. That's what keeps them contented. But I'm the Supreme Dictator of all, and I'm elected once a year. This is a democracy, you know, where the people are allowed to vote for their rulers. A good many others would like to be Supreme Dictator, but as I made a law that I am always to count the votes myself, I am always elected." ”

“ Those who assume the right of giving away the reins of government in any case, must be sure that the herd, whom they hand on to the rods and hatchet of the dictator, will lay their heads on the block when he shall nod to them. ”

“ Even so, whenever a ruler makes himself a dictator, all the wicked dregs of the nation — I do not mean the pack of petty thieves and earless ruffians [44] who, in a republic, are unimportant in evil or good — but all those who are corrupted by burning ambition or extraordinary avarice, these gather round him and support him in order to have a share in the booty and to constitute themselves petty chiefs under the big tyrant. ”

“ Our super-government exists under such extra-legal conditions that it is common to designate it by an energetic and strong word—a Dictatorship.
I can honestly state that at the present time we are law-makers; we are the judges and inflict punishment; we execute and pardon; we, as the chief of all our armies, ride the leader’s horse. We rule by indomitable will because we hold in our hands the fragments of a once strong party now subject to us. We possess boundless ambition, burning greed for merciless revenge, and bitter hatred.
From us emanates an all-embracing terror. ”

“ We find ourselves compelled to call you to the colours. A wicked enemy has treacherously attacked us, for the purpose of outwitting our peaceable preparations. At this great hour I have been appointed Dictator. ”

“ The people at first accepted the dictatorship for the sake of the safety of the city, but they have since fallen away when they found that we could not instantly meet their expectations of material well-being. The people are tired of dictatorship, and now in their credulous despair they lend ear to the mischievous words of their own enemies! ”

“ He himself becomes a dictator and proceeds by ordinance to remake the mechanism of government, to reform the basic laws that determine the relation of the classes, to remodel the defensive forces of the republic, and to bring about an international grouping or league of powers.... ”

“ And as time rolled on, and comparative tranquillity began to be restored to the hitherto distracted kingdom, right-thinking men confessed that it was much better, in times of popular ebullition, to be ruled by a strong and vigorous, if severe, hand, than by one weak, as it were, as water, who would allow every puffed-up agitator and brewer of sedition to become a dictator. ”

“ To appease the tumult, the dictator issued a decree declaring that all their vestments were red. There was not one vestment of that color in the Quinze Vingt. The poor men were laughed at more than ever. Complaints were again made by the community. The dictator rushed furiously in, and the other blind men were as much enraged. ”

“ Nevertheless his countrymen, conceding all to his fortune, and accepting the bit, in the hope that the government of a single person would give them time to breathe after so many civil wars and calamities, made him dictator for life. ”

“ We must wait, I think, to judge the man. Only it is right to bear in mind one fact, that, admitting the lawfulness of the coup d'état, you must not object to the dictatorship. And, admitting the temporary necessity of the dictatorship, it is absolute folly to expect under it the liberty and ease of a regular government. ”

“ In your consular authority there was afterwards discerned that salutary dictatorial prerogative, which under the auspices of a genius like yours, accomplished such glorious purposes—yet less glorious, let me add, than the restoration of liberty would prove.
"It is not possible, general, that you, the first among that order of mankind, which surveys every age and every country, can desire that a revolution, marked by an unexampled series of stupendous victories and unheard of sufferings, shall give nothing to the world but a renovated system of arbitrary government. ”

“ It is perfectly obvious, likewise, that when, in those days, men spoke thus of a dictatorship, and of dictatorial power, they attached no suggestion of political guilt either to the persons who bestowed such power, or to the persons who severally accepted it,—the tacit understanding being that, in every instance, the public danger required and justified some grant of extraordinary power ”

“ Under this last development, also, we find leadership, aristocratic authority of the ablest, nay, even the monarchical control of the party king. He is a dictator out of office. He has power, without the annoyance or restraints of office. He is the product of a long process of natural selection. ”

“ Their fatal wants are order and economy, combined with the will and the means of selecting the best men—these belong to the emperor, not to the constitutional king or the president—and most of all, the habit of implicit subjection to the commands of an absolute dictator. ”

“ It is not a principle of government, it is a terrible but transient dictatorship, exercised by the multitude,—a dictatorship that ceases, and that ought to cease as soon as the multitude has accomplished its work of destruction. ”

“ They greatly regretted the attempt of one part of the people to establish a dictatorship over another, and considered that this showed a lamentable lack of confidence in "unserem Volke"—"our people." "Wir wollen Demokratie und keine Diktatur," they concluded; "we want a democracy and no dictator." ”

“ During several years, before the eyes of the whole human race, a picture of the practice of dictatorship is unrolled—a dictatorship ruling over the whole world, determining everything, regulating everything, penetrating everything, and confirming its existence by 20,000,000 corpses on the fields of Europe and Asia. ”

“ But "dictatorship" is a great word. And great words must not be used in vain. A dictatorship is an iron rule, with revolutionary daring and swift and merciless in the suppression of the exploiters as well as of the thugs (hooligans.) ”

“ No successor can be more comprehensive, as a glance at the table of contents will show. The tragedy, pathos, corruption, humour, and absurdities of the military dictatorship and of reconstruction, the topsy-turvy conditions generally, domestic upheaval, negroes voting, Black and Tan Conventions and Legislatures, disorder on plantations, Loyal Leagues and Freedmen’s Bureaus, Ku Klux and Red Shirts, are presented with a vividness akin to the camera’s. ”

“ The fundamental distinction between true representative government and dictatorship is that in the former every representative of the people, in whatever office, confines himself strictly within the limits of his defined powers. ”

“ What kind of power can the democratic opposition mobilize that will be sufficient to destroy the dictatorship and its vast military and police networks? The answers lie in an oft ignored understanding of political power. ”

“ As previously discussed, the dictators' ability to threaten or apply sanctions—punishments against the restive, disobedient, and noncooperative sections of the population—is a central source of the power of dictators. ”

“ The usual transition and natural issue of popular anarchy, when it has lasted long enough to exhaust its own fearful violence, is a perpetual dictatorship or despotism in some shape or other, but devoid of a higher and diviner sanction. ”

“ Now, that gods and men may perceive that they to avoid a scrutiny as to their own conduct, attempt even things which are impossible, and that I willingly meet the charge, and face the accusations of my enemies, I divest myself of the dictatorship. ”

“ The reasoning really involved was, in fact, a very simple one. The destruction of an old system of government makes some form of dictatorship the only alternative to chaos. It therefore gives a chance to the one indisputable holder of power in its most unmistakable shape, namely, to the general of a disciplined army. A soldier accordingly assumed power in each of the three first cases, although the differences between the societies ruled by the Roman, the English and the French dictators are so vast that further comparison soon becomes idle. ”

“ dictatorship does not necessarily mean the abolition of democracy for the class that exercises the dictatorship over other classes; but it does mean the abolition (or very material restriction, which is also a form of abolition) of democracy for the class over which, or against which, the dictatorship is exercised. ”