oppugnancy

We see, as to Calhoun, that if he had but given the resources of southern slavery against the implacable oppugnancy of free labor, roused for decisive combat, the sure and marvellous vision with which he searched the innermost nature of money, he would have had to acknowledge that the proud structure of southern society was wholly builded upon sands.

O surer than suspicion's hundred eyes Is that fine sense, which, to the pure in heart, By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness.

Let it be said that her powers of antagonism at times were not sufficiently restrained—how, without such oppugnancy, could she have stood forth for unpopular truths?

But these peculiar tribulations rankled neither severally nor even in their sum more distressfully than did the trouble at the studio, where daily the tension of ill-feeling between actress and director grew more taut, as Lucinda's earlier misgivings ripened into articulate dissatisfaction with Nolan's methods and their fruits, and as that sensitive artistic soul reacted deplorably, in terms of begrudged civility at best, and at other times of stubborn Celtic oppugnancy.

Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters Should lift their bosom's higher than the shores, And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong.