Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States

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Little, Brown,, 1859 - 524 pages

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Page 68 - He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.
Page 276 - In the discussions to which this interest has given rise, and in the arrangements by which they may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper for asserting as a principle in which the rights, and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.
Page 448 - Oh, say! can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Page 142 - The proposed Constitution, therefore, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation it is federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the government are drawn it is partly federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers it is national, not federal; in the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in...
Page 276 - that the powers have an undoubted right to take a hostile attitude in regard to those states in which the overthrow of the government may operate as an example.
Page 328 - Audacious ; but that seat soon failing, meets A vast vacuity ! all unawares Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep...
Page 59 - American forest is wont to grow, with tall straight trees towering toward the light, but with intervals between the low oaks that were scattered profusely over the view, and with much of that air of negligence that one is apt to see in grounds, where art is made to assume the character of nature. The trees, with very few exceptions, were what is called the "burr-oak," a small variety of a very extensive genus; and the spaces between them, always irregular, and often of singular beauty, have obtained...
Page xxxi - The vulgar in America speak much better than the vulgar in Great Britain, for a very obvious reason, namely, that being much more unsettled, and moving frequently from place to place, they are not so liable to local peculiarities either in accent or phraseology.
Page 25 - Then fill to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting.
Page 492 - The inspectors of these articles at that place, were Messrs. Ebenezer and Samuel Wilson. The. latter gentleman (invariably known as " Uncle Sam") generally superintended in person a large number of workmen, who on this occasion, were employed in overhauling the provisions purchased by the Contractor for the army. The casks were marked EA — US This work fell to the lot of a facetious fellow in the employ of the Messrs.

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