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Use enact in a sentence

Definition of enact:

  • (verb) order by virtue of superior authority; decree;
  • (verb) act out; represent or perform as if in a play;

Sentence Examples:

This last was evidently the view which prevailed; and so far as I know, no such law has in the civilized world yet been enacted, though there is doubtless a much stronger social prejudice against women entering ordinary employments in some countries than in others.

And yet, though the scene is enacted night after night without a break, there is hardly a case on record of the transport being surprised upon these roads by the coming of daylight, and none whatever of the rations and ammunition failing to get through.

When the law was enacted altering the mode of succession to the presidency, it may be supposed that the proceeding was deemed somewhat ungracious towards those aged presbyters who might have soon expected, as a matter of right, to obtain possession of the seat of the moderator.

And though all these grievances had been already redressed, and even laws enacted for future security against their return, the praise of these advantages was ascribed, not to the king, but to the parliament, who had extorted his consent to such salutary statutes.

Where a general and rigid law is enacted against arbitrary imprisonment, it would appear that government cannot, in times of sedition and faction, be conducted but by temporary suspensions of the law; and such an expedient was never thought of during the age of Charles.

The uncompromising manner in which she declined the proposed honor, threw her guardian, who had strengthened himself to enact the part of Cupid's messenger, by a somewhat liberal repast, into a state of astonishment which threatened alarming disturbance to his laboring digestive functions.

For three months civil guarantees were suspended, and by a so-called "law of residence," enacted some years before and now put into effect, the Government was authorized to expel summarily any foreigner guilty of fomenting strikes or of disturbing public order in any other fashion.

Yielding to the fancy of the moment, while standing upon this elevated point, remembering the vivid historical tableaux which had been enacted upon the landscape outspread before us, imagination peopled the scene once more with myriads of grim, warlike, contending forces arrayed against each other.

Of this failure, too, the Welsh were reminded daily, not only by their wasted country and ruined homesteads but by fierce laws enacted against their race and a renewal on both sides of that hatred which the previous hundred years of peace had greatly softened.

More fearful catastrophes have been enacted within hail of the lights at Cape Race and Cape Ray, hard by to the west, and more millions sterling of cargo and ship have been shattered and lost here than upon any other corresponding stretch of coast in the world.

Though its mediocrity of intellect makes it incompetent to oversee and regulate the countless involved processes which make up the national life; it nevertheless has quite enough intellect to enact and enforce those simple principles of equity which underlie the right conduct of citizens to one another.

It is I suppose partly because the power of beauty being relative, a high pitch of expectancy requires a proportionate augmentation of excellence, and partly because the tincture of contrariety in our nature ever inclines us to enact the perverse critic, when called on to be the implicit votary.

Laws should be enacted providing that in case of personal injury to a workman arising out of and in the course of employment, his employer shall be liable for adequate compensation and shall not set up contributory negligence or the negligence of a fellow servant as a defense.

It would have been as simple a plan, and would have answered just as well, to have enacted that "a hundred" should always be interpreted to mean five, which would have effected the same reduction in all pecuniary contracts, and would not have been at all more shameless.

Even if a statute be enacted or ratified by the people directly, under the modern initiative and referendum, and a citizen claims that the statute deprives him of some right guaranteed by the constitution, the people should not be the judge; much less should a majority.

Day by day she felt the want of some fresh interest, some fresh excitement, and it was this craving probably, more than innate depravity, which plunged her into those disgraceful and licentious excesses that were nightly enacted in the sunken gardens behind her palace.

The doctrine may be advanced from the bench, enacted by the Legislature, and enforced with all the varied agony of torture, and still the slave cannot believe, and will not believe, "That there is no one instance" in which the master's power is usurped.

The popularity of this piece depended principally upon the circumstances of the time: the tocsin, a nation armed with poniards, the hatred of the kings and the priests, all these offered a reproduction between four walls of the tragedy which was being publicly enacted.

Now it is the proper business of the public assembly to determine concerning war and peace, making or breaking off alliances, to enact laws, to sentence to death, banishment, or confiscation of goods, and to call the magistrates to account for their behavior when in office.

A law created by themselves in this way can be no interference with their local rights of self-government; because in helping enact these laws, either through congressional action, or by legislative ratification of amendments, each State has arisen above and beyond itself into a higher national realm.

If the conscience of one state became enlightened and a strict corporation law was enacted, the result was simply to drive the irregular concerns into some other state which was willing to sell its privileges for the small fee of incorporation, and ask no questions.

Courts were instituted, laws enacted, and a militia enrolled, and a delegate was sent to the Continental Congress; but finding that Virginia still claimed their allegiance, they yielded their pretensions to autonomy, and were organized for the present as a county of the mother state.

He was far from possessing the subtle genius or the expansive views of his brother; but, called as he was to play a prominent part in one of the most complicated and imposing dramas ever enacted by man, he, nevertheless, always acquitted himself with honor.

The purpose of this communication will be to present to your view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment and the measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentions of the Legislature as signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted.

As to the case of Jack, there had recently been enacted, on the public square of this southern city, a tawdry little tragedy in brown and coffee color, having to do with the fascinations of a certain damsel known in her own circles as the "gold-tooth girl."

This scene was enacted in accordance with the Elizabethan age, when the nobility were permitted to take seats on the stage with the actors, the latter being obliged to step around and over that part of the audience in order to make their entrances and exits.

The other class of detectives who enact the role of Paul Pry on breaches of the moral law, as, for example, the working up of testimony in divorce cases, is mostly a despicable, unreliable, corrupt being, whose methods are villainous, and whose existence is a misfortune.

Are we quite sure that it is really to reign, to make ordinances that are not executed, to enact with great effort, and as a supreme victory, one law more, which is doomed to sleep in the bulletin of laws at the side of thirty thousand of the same kin?

That this life of present-day dissipation should be enacted in scenes where every palace, and every street, every monument, and, indeed, every name, recalled a glorious past, may not impossibly have heightened the enjoyment of the drama, but most unquestionably it vulgarized the actors.

Of course, the mere abolition of imprisonment for debt would not to my mind be a sufficient protection of the poor unless side by side of it were enacted a homestead law greatly enlarging the existing exemptions from execution of the tools and chattels of a working man.

Twilight was fast settling over the valley; for the high mountains which surrounded the cup of land in which this living drama was being enacted, effectually shut out the sun as the day declined, and Lucius remarked hopefully that it would soon be dark.

If they, or either of them, took this course after the weighing process, it would be bringing the Royal Beam into contempt, and such profanation could not be contemplated; but the sacredness of contract had been affirmed by local ordinances or customs before this measure was enacted.

Another restrictive tendency is shown in the bringing forward, recently, of a Bill for the enacting of a law that mining property should only be acquirable by citizens of the Republic, and this, although it has been shelved, is likely to be brought forward in future years.

Gray contrived to be tardy that morning on purpose, in order to set an example of exact and cheerful submission to the law, and to give a practical illustration, in her own case, of the strictness with which, when once enacted, such laws ought to be enforced.

Let us but turn to any point of space, and we shall find at each point, according to its remoteness, the actual scenes of the past being enacted, in fact it may be said that throughout infinite space every event in past eternity is now indelibly recorded.

And somehow the magic atmosphere of the old tale, mingled with the enacting, as it were, of one of its chief circumstances, left on my mind a very strong and singular impression which, when the desire of literature came upon me, I yearned to put into words.

If we are to have capable and honest officials to enact laws and enforce them, the voters must see to it that such men are nominated and elected and compelled by the pressure of a vigorous and alert public opinion to the faithful performance of their duties.

It became, therefore, necessary for them to provide a mode of enacting or establishing this change, which would commend itself to the confidence of the people, by its conformity with their previous ideas of constitutional action, and be at the same time consonant with reason and truth.

There is no mode in which the question of constitutional power to enact a law can be determined, without the influence of considerations of policy or expediency, so effectually, as by confining the final determination to the special operation of the law upon the facts of an individual case.

And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid that after the said feast no clothier shall use any warping bar that shall contain any greater length than three yards from one pin to another upon pain to forfeit for every such default ten shillings.

In the name, then, of all that is courteous and manly, I, as a student of medicine, most indignantly protest against such scenes as were enacted at the College of Surgeons on the evenings of Thursday and Friday last, and indeed on several occasions during the week.

It is a lovely tranquil spot, where no sound reaches but the rustling of leaves and the gurgling of crystal water, and yet here, tradition says, was enacted in the long ago one of those tragedies that inspire poets, painters, and dramatists for all time.

He would further have the levying of postage rates made on the basis of the average cost of handling and carriage for the country as a whole, and, finally, postal laws should be enacted so definite in character as to be easy of interpretation and susceptible of uniform enforcement.

His name is associated with many of the important measures enacted into law by the State legislature, among them being the binding twine factory law, which act is responsible for the establishment of a plant for the manufacture of binder twine at the State penitentiary.

They accordingly met by their deputies, in General Assembly, at Providence, elected a Governor, and enacted several laws, one of which prohibited any person from purchasing land of the Indians, without the approbation of the Assembly, on penalty of forfeiting the same to the colony.

Her husband pleaded a severe headache as an excuse for not accompanying her; and, that her amusement might not be disturbed by any disagreeable suspicions, he actually retired to bed and enacted the part of a sick man so well that he eluded even her penetrating glance.

That such connections exist commonly, is a sufficient proof that they are not abhorrent to nature; but it seems, indeed, as if marriage (and not concubinage) was the horrible enormity which cannot be tolerated, and against which, moreover, it has been deemed expedient to enact laws.

Wrapped at last in the toga of an undisputed manhood, it took its place among the empires of the earth, the son of a king, mightier than all; free to enact new laws, to promulgate new systems of economy, social and political, free to worship and to think.

An officer was sleeping in the room above that in which this revolting scene was being enacted, but he did not consider it necessary to intervene, though he must certainly have heard the cries of the young girl and the noise made by the German soldiers.

Little tableaux were enacted which exuded the purest patriotism; one sang national hymns, and when they visited the classes, particularly those of history, an occasion was always found to produce some tirade on the excellence of Republican government and the patriotic virtues which derived from it.

The scenes that are enacted when it is discovered, after the ceremony, that the diamond engagement ring is not yet paid for, and that the mahogany furniture in the new flat so joyously selected by the young bride-elect, was bought upon the installment plan!

It is a marvelous thing to think of the madness with which the minds of those in authority at that time were kindled; first, to create causes of wrong to the consciences of the people, and afterwards to enact laws for the natural fruit of that frantic policy.

Indeed, it is of so much value that those Marxian Socialists who protest against all compromise with capitalistic parties must have forgotten that it is through the capitalistic parties, and through compromises of Socialists with capitalistic parties, that these measures of political reform have been enacted.

They predicted that any attempt to interfere with them would lead to results in comparison with which the scenes enacted during the war of the rebellion would sink to insignificance; but, as the results have thus far shown, they had reckoned without their host.

The World's Columbian Exposition is a great national undertaking, and Congress should promptly enact such reasonable legislation in aid thereof as will insure a discharging of the expense and obligations incident thereto and the attainment of results commensurate with the dignity and progress of the nation.

This contention was founded on the wording of the Act of Anne, which, after prescribing the postage which "every single letter or piece of paper" not being of the weight of one ounce was to pay, enacted that "a double letter" should pay twice that amount.

The English retainers of Earl Henry had raised the cry of revenge, and the Italian populace excited by the fearful tragedy that had been enacted in the very presence of the virgin and child, began to run together and join the parties of attack or defense.

Of these rehearsals twelve were in full costume; and when she was about to enact Isabella, the Hungarian Queen, in "Mustapha," the page who bore her train was tutored so to move as to aid in the display of grace and majesty which was to charm the town.

It was now enacted that all proceeds arising from the sale of these lands should be placed into the hands of the receiver-general, by whom, after expenses were paid, they were to be apportioned equally among the several county and city municipalities in proportion to population.

He was allowed to take no part in affairs, and, having heard of the awful tragedy of his eldest half-brother, enacted ten years before his own birth, he had no inclination to confront the wrath of that terrible parent and sovereign before whom all Spain trembled.

A state law should be enacted providing that all moving pictures should be shown in well-lighted halls, and the posters and advertisements outside all theaters and throughout the city should be censored and passed upon by the same committee which censors the moving pictures.

This enacts that whatever a child gains by and through property, of which his father allows him the control, is acquired, according to the old practice, for the father alone; for what unfairness is there in property derived from the father returning to him?

He knelt penitently before the king, humbly assuring his Majesty that he had been preparing this device, and many others, to please and surprise him; but that, through the bungling of some, and the bashfulness of others, he was obliged to enact the parts himself.

And this can be accomplished in no better way than through a study of the object of the laws which the secret nostrum manufacturers are now endeavoring to prostitute for their own advantage, and the teaching of the public what these laws were enacted for.

Fanciful, nervous, weary of it all as she was, she devoted herself to her duties; and then, on this fifth of August, in the afternoon, she had a waking vision, perfectly distinct, and so vivid that, disembodied and apart, she could see herself enacting it.

Mortals, alias mortal minds, make the laws that govern their bodies, as directly as men pass legislative acts and enact penal codes; while the body, obedient to the legislation of mind, but ignorant of the law of belief, calls its own enactments "laws of matter."

It would have been as simple a plan, and would have answered the purpose as well, to have enacted that "a hundred" should always be interpreted to mean five, which would have effected the same reduction in all pecuniary contracts, and would not have been at all more shameless.

They were deemed so sacred, and of such vital importance to the city, that severe edicts were enacted to preserve them; some regulating the planting of trees, some the abstraction of water, and one exacting a penalty of an ounce of gold for every ounce of the crystal fluid.

The chiefs enact strict laws, and, though possessed of but little actual power either of wealth or retinue, exact the utmost deference, and are exceedingly ceremonious, being always followed by a drummer, who taps his drum with masterly skill born of long and continued practice.

To know how consistently to construct an ideal character of any one of these kinds, at any given height or depth in the historic gamut of humanity, and to be able to embody and enact it with the harmonious truth of nature, is the task of the consummate actor.

Lulled by the humming woof and warp of such reflections, his mind nightly passed into the unconsciousness of sleep; and quickened by subsequent visions, the brain enacted these imaginings with an added gloom and that tremendous appearance of reality proper to the domain of dreams.

If government itself be not to blame, for want of good faith towards this miserable race, is it not highly culpable for not having, by the strong arm of physical power, enforced the salutary laws, which from time to time, have been enacted for their protection?

He also quoted in vindication of the soundness of his Democracy a speech of Jefferson Davis declaring that, if the inhabitants of a Territory should refuse to enact laws to protect and encourage slavery, the insecurity would be so great that the owner could not hold his slaves.

A comparison of a few of the best attempts to express the idea shows, on the one hand, the definite purpose which is its inspiration and, on the other hand, an inescapable element of indefiniteness which persists in all instances where the idea has been enacted into policy.

We must avow that these delicate reformations should be matured by time, and carried into effect with circumspection: it is requisite that, induced by publish wish, and as it were enacted by public opinion, they should be previously agreed upon, and looked for with hope before being established.

He had established an economy, which, though regular, was not at all severe, by enacting a body of laws suited to the age and comprehension of every individual; and each transgressor was fairly tried by his peers, and punished according to the verdict of the jury.

That they have assumed to themselves a power to make Laws contrary and repugnant to the Laws of England, and directly prejudicial to Trade, some of them having refused to send hither such Laws as they had enacted, and others having sent them but very imperfectly.

The rest of the program consisted of two stage performances, enacted by amateurs, the first one a light comedy, and the second a series of propagandist tableaux, depicting the sudden emancipation of the worker by the Soviet Power, heralded by an angel dressed all in red.

This financial proposition was far from being alluring, for the laws enacted by a national democratic rule of four years had ruined many of the principal industries of this section, and the larger cities required a license fee of twenty dollars per week from all canvassing agents.

In answer to his complaint that the auditors meddle in judicial proceedings in the military department, he is informed that they must observe the laws already enacted for such matters; and is ordered to punish severely anyone who shall obstruct the course of justice in the islands.

James I. being in Lincolnshire shortly after, and hearing of it, ordered a gallows to be erected where the fight occurred, and enacted that in the future any persons slain in an encounter of this kind should be deemed murdered, and the perpetrators of the crime hanged.

Percy chose one square pew, and Reba another, to be peculiar personal property, in which to set up housekeeping, and many an imaginary comedy or tragedy they enacted in those pews, many an odd treasure came to be stored there with nobody to say, "Do take that rubbish off!"

This cruel tragedy was enacted more than a century ago; but there are few who even now can read the record without having their eyes flooded, through the conflicting emotions of sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the tyrant who could perpetrate such crimes.

Its affairs were conducted by deputies, who assembled at stated intervals for this purpose, transacting their business under a common seal, enacting laws which they were careful to transmit to the nobles and even the sovereign himself, and enforcing their measures by an armed force.

They had introduced much questionable matter, and made numerous statements open to refutation: the advantage was eagerly seized by the royalists; and, notwithstanding the penalties recently enacted on account of unlicensed publications, several answers, eloquently and convincingly written, were circulated in many parts of the country.

Neither the extent of the awful tragedies enacted during the sweeping away of homes nor the exact death tolls could be known for days until the mass of wreckage, houses and uprooted trees which were strewn on the level lowlands south of the city were uncovered.

It were to be wished that more writers possessed of some literary skill, who have borne a part in the wonderful drama involving men and events enacted in this country during the century now drawing to a close, had given us their sincere personal impressions in autobiographic form.

This measure is called for, because these reconstructed Legislatures, in defiance of the rights of the freedmen, and the will of the nation, embodied in the amendment to the Constitution, have enacted laws nearly as iniquitous as the old slave codes that darkened the legislation of other days.

For a long time the government has paid enormous subsidies to shipbuilding and manufacturing corporations, and now a high tariff has been enacted, which will still further increase the cost of living for the agricultural classes, comprising, as they do, two thirds of the country's population.

How far these positions have any foundation in the nature of the rights and relations of separate, equal, and independent Governments, or in the provisions of our own Federal compact, or the laws enacted under and in pursuance of the authority of that compact, will be presently investigated.

On the evening that this comedy was about to be enacted, there reclined under the celebrated oak, known as Herne's Oak, in a small clear space between some ferns, two of those beings called fairies who had for time immemorial taken up their quarters in that delightful retreat.

And that point is, that they will administer, as law, no statute, that is contrary to natural right, unless its language be so explicit and peremptory, that there is no way of evading its authority, but by flatly denying the authority of those who enacted it.

At the end of ten minutes my face was moist with sweat, and a wave of utter exhaustion swept through me as I saw that, after all my struggle, nothing in that minutely enacted little drama had struck a responsive chord in either his imagination or his memory.

Those existing at this time were for the most part a legacy of the old Spanish government, and it was quite obvious that laws which had been enacted by a despotic government for the control of a subject colony were not suited for a free and independent republic.

They felt that at yonder spot, where the adversary knelt by the side of his fallen foe, a scene was being enacted which had nothing in common with the ordinary circumstances of a duel; and, respecting the young doctor's request, they remained reverentially at a distance.

Even in the dark the boy's cheek flushed at the mere remembrance of him; equally devoid of courage and modesty, of unbelieving disposition, keeping buffoons and scoundrels about him who enacted their scurvy and disgraceful tricks in the very face of the court, and even at public audiences!

In this the clergy engaged in the first place neither to meet in Convocation nor to enact or execute new canons without the king's authority, and, secondly, to submit all past ecclesiastical legislation to examination with a view to the removal of everything prejudicial to the royal prerogative.

Armed with complete authority, the generals proceeded to remove many of the ordinary civil officers and to replace them with their own appointees, to compel order by means of the soldiery, to set aside court decrees and even to close the courts and to enact legislation.

If my earliest success had been scored as a villain of melodrama, it would be believed that I was competent to enact nothing but villains of melodrama; it happened that I made a hit as a comedian, wherefore nobody will credit that I am capable of anything but being comic.

How continually, while one of those small private tragedies that I have spoken of is being enacted within, the actors are called upon to meet some other tragedy from without, so that external energy counteracts inward emotion, and holy sympathy with another's sufferings stifles all personal pain.