Synonyms:
usurpation
Meaning: wrongfully seizing and holding (an office or powers) by force (especially the seizure of a throne or supreme authority); "a succession of generals who ruled by usurpation"
Synonyms:
trespass, encroachment, violation, intrusion, usurpation
Meaning: entry to another's property without right or permission
Usage examples
In what does our security consist against usurpation from that quarter?
I have proved the right of the poor; I have shown the usurpation of the rich.
Usurpation may rear its crest in each State, and trample upon the liberties of the people, while the national government could legally do nothing more than behold its encroachments with indignation and regret.
This mode of reasoning appears sometimes to turn upon the supposition of usurpation in the national government; at other times it seems to be designed only as a deduction from the constitutional operation of its intended powers.
I repeat here what I have observed in substance in another place, that all observations founded upon the danger of usurpation ought to be referred to the composition and structure of the government, not to the nature or extent of its powers.
If the proposed construction of the federal government be found, upon an impartial examination of it, to be such as to afford, to a proper extent, the same species of security, all apprehensions on the score of usurpation ought to be discarded.
Not so with the tariff law of 1816: though sustained by men from all sections of the Union, and notably by so strict a constructionist as Mr. Calhoun, there were not wanting those who saw in it a departure from the limitation of the Constitution, and sternly opposed it as the usurpation of a power to legislate for the benefit of a class.
They would be obliged to act, and in such a manner as would leave no doubt that they had encroached on the national rights. An experiment of this nature would always be hazardous in the face of a constitution in any degree competent to its own defense, and of a people enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority.