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[[Image:Lord Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton.jpg|144px|thumb|right|Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.]]
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[[Image:Lord Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton.jpg|thumb|right|Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.]]
'''[[w:John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton|John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton]]''' ([[10 January]] [[1834]] – [[19 June]] [[1902]]) was an English historian, commonly known simply as '''Lord Acton'''.
'''[[w:John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton|John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron Acton]]''' ([[10 January]] [[1834]] – [[19 June]] [[1902]]) was an English historian, commonly known simply as '''Lord Acton'''.
== Quotes ==
== Quotes ==
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[[File:John Acton, 1st Baron Acton by Franz Seraph von Lenbach.jpg|144px|thumb|right|There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.]]
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[[File:John Acton, 1st Baron Acton by Franz Seraph von Lenbach.jpg|thumb|right|There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.]]
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[[File:Eugène Delacroix - La liberté guidant le peuple.jpg|144px|thumb|right|The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class.]]
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[[File:Eugène Delacroix - La liberté guidant le peuple.jpg|thumb|right|The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class.]]
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[[File:Ingres, Napoleon on his Imperial throne.jpg|144px|thumb|right|Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.]]
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[[File:Ingres, Napoleon on his Imperial throne.jpg|thumb|right|Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.]]
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[[File:Martin, John - Satan presiding at the Infernal Council - 1824.JPG|144px|thumb|right|There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.]]
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[[File:Martin, John - Satan presiding at the Infernal Council - 1824.JPG|thumb|right|There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.]]
* '''There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness.''' They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.
* '''There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness.''' They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.
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=== The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877) ===
=== The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877) ===
:[http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/lordacton/freedominantiquity/mpintro.htm ''The History of Freedom in Antiquity'' (28 February 1877)]
:[http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/lordacton/freedominantiquity/mpintro.htm ''The History of Freedom in Antiquity'' (28 February 1877)]
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[[File:Statue of Liberty close.JPG|144px|thumb|right|At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own…]]
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[[File:Statue of Liberty close.JPG|thumb|right|At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own…]]
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[[File:Genius of Liberty Dumont July Column.jpg|144px|thumb|right|By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.]]
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[[File:Genius of Liberty Dumont July Column.jpg|thumb|right|By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.]]
* '''Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime...'''
* '''Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime...'''
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=== The History of Freedom in Christianity (1877) ===
=== The History of Freedom in Christianity (1877) ===
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[[File:Rome-Capitole-StatueConstantin.jpg|144px|thumb|right| [[w:Constantine the Great|Constantine]] declared his own will equivalent to a canon of the Church … the empire employed its refined civilization …to make the Church serve as a gilded crutch of absolutism.]]
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[[File:Rome-Capitole-StatueConstantin.jpg|thumb|right| [[w:Constantine the Great|Constantine]] declared his own will equivalent to a canon of the Church … the empire employed its refined civilization …to make the Church serve as a gilded crutch of absolutism.]]
:[http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/lordacton/freedominchristianity/mpintro.htm ''The History of Freedom in Christianity'' (28 May 1877)]
:[http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/lordacton/freedominchristianity/mpintro.htm ''The History of Freedom in Christianity'' (28 May 1877)]
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[[File:Joan of arc burning at stake.jpg|144px|thumb|right|Christianity, which in earlier times had addressed itself to the masses, and relied on the principle of liberty, now made its appeal to the rulers, and threw its mighty influence into the scale of authority.]]
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[[File:Joan of arc burning at stake.jpg|thumb|right|Christianity, which in earlier times had addressed itself to the masses, and relied on the principle of liberty, now made its appeal to the rulers, and threw its mighty influence into the scale of authority.]]
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[[File:Santi di Tito - Niccolo Machiavelli's portrait headcrop.jpg|144px|thumb|right|Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.]]
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[[File:Santi di Tito - Niccolo Machiavelli's portrait headcrop.jpg|thumb|right|Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.]]
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[[File:Giordano Bruno Campo dei Fiori.jpg|144px|thumb|right|Atrocious deeds were done, in which religious passion was often the instrument, but policy was the motive. Fanaticism displays itself in the masses; but the masses were rarely fanaticised; and the crimes ascribed to it were commonly due to the calculations of dispassionate politicians.]]
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[[File:Giordano Bruno Campo dei Fiori.jpg|thumb|right|Atrocious deeds were done, in which religious passion was often the instrument, but policy was the motive. Fanaticism displays itself in the masses; but the masses were rarely fanaticised; and the crimes ascribed to it were commonly due to the calculations of dispassionate politicians.]]
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[[File:Tyburn tree.jpg|144px|thumb|right|[[w:Tyburn|Tyburn tree]] may be a useful thing; but it is better still that the offender should live for repentance and reformation. The principles which discriminate in politics between good and evil, and make states worthy to last, were not yet found.]]
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[[File:Tyburn tree.jpg|thumb|right|[[w:Tyburn|Tyburn tree]] may be a useful thing; but it is better still that the offender should live for repentance and reformation. The principles which discriminate in politics between good and evil, and make states worthy to last, were not yet found.]]
* [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]] declared his own will equivalent to a canon of the Church. According to [[w:Justinian I|Justinian]], the Roman people had formally transferred to the emperors the entire plenitude of its authority, and, therefore, the emperor’s pleasure, expressed by edict or by letter, had force of law. Even in the fervent age of its conversion the empire employed its refined civilization, the accumulated wisdom of ancient sages, the reasonableness and subtlety of Roman law, and the entire inheritance of the Jewish, the pagan, and the Christian world, to make the Church serve as a gilded crutch of absolutism. '''Neither an enlightened philosophy, nor all the political wisdom of Rome, nor even the faith and virtue of the Christians availed against the incorrigible tradition of antiquity. Something was wanted, beyond all the gifts of reflection and experience — a faculty of self government and self control, developed like its language in the fibre of a nation, and growing with its growth.''' This vital element, which many centuries of warfare, of anarchy, of oppression, had extinguished in the countries that were still draped in the pomp of ancient civilization, was deposited on the soil of Christendom by the fertilising stream of migration that overthrew the empire of the West.
* [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]] declared his own will equivalent to a canon of the Church. According to [[w:Justinian I|Justinian]], the Roman people had formally transferred to the emperors the entire plenitude of its authority, and, therefore, the emperor’s pleasure, expressed by edict or by letter, had force of law. Even in the fervent age of its conversion the empire employed its refined civilization, the accumulated wisdom of ancient sages, the reasonableness and subtlety of Roman law, and the entire inheritance of the Jewish, the pagan, and the Christian world, to make the Church serve as a gilded crutch of absolutism. '''Neither an enlightened philosophy, nor all the political wisdom of Rome, nor even the faith and virtue of the Christians availed against the incorrigible tradition of antiquity. Something was wanted, beyond all the gifts of reflection and experience — a faculty of self government and self control, developed like its language in the fibre of a nation, and growing with its growth.''' This vital element, which many centuries of warfare, of anarchy, of oppression, had extinguished in the countries that were still draped in the pomp of ancient civilization, was deposited on the soil of Christendom by the fertilising stream of migration that overthrew the empire of the West.
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=== The Study Of History (1895) ===
=== The Study Of History (1895) ===
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[[File:Nuclear artillery test Grable Event - Part of Operation Upshot-Knothole.jpg|144px|thumb|right|At every step we are met by arguments which go to excuse, to palliate, to confound right and wrong, and reduce the just man to the level of the reprobate.]]
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[[File:Nuclear artillery test Grable Event - Part of Operation Upshot-Knothole.jpg|thumb|right|At every step we are met by arguments which go to excuse, to palliate, to confound right and wrong, and reduce the just man to the level of the reprobate.]]
:[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1906acton.html Inaugural lecture on ''The Study Of History'' (11 June 1895)], included in [http://books.google.com/books?id=32kMAAAAYAAJ ''Lectures on Modern History'' (1906) - PDF file at Google]
:[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1906acton.html Inaugural lecture on ''The Study Of History'' (11 June 1895)], included in [http://books.google.com/books?id=32kMAAAAYAAJ ''Lectures on Modern History'' (1906) - PDF file at Google]