Coalition

Coalition, in Politics, is applied to the union of two parties, or, as generally happens, portions of parties who agree to sink their differences, and act in common. Pitt the elder, when he took office in 1757, coalesced with the Whig aristocracy represented by the Duke of Newcastle. The ministry always spoken of, however, as the Great Coalition was formed in 1782, when Fox, the leader of the reformers, took office along with Lord North, the leader of the opposite party. When Lord Derby's ministry resigned in 1853, there was a short coalition between the Whig party under Lord John Russell, and the more moderate of the Conservative party under Lord Aberdeen. The arrangement made between Conservatives and Liberal Unionists in 1886 can scarcely be called a coalition, inasmuch as the main responsibility of government rests on the former, while the latter give them a general support. The term is also used of alliances between separate states.