Acton, John E.E. Dalberg

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The Right Honourable  The Lord Acton  KCVO, DL
Member of Parliament for Bridgnorth
In office 25 July 1865 – 1866 Serving with John Pritchard
Preceded by	Henry Whitmore
Succeeded by	Henry Whitmore
Member of Parliament for Carlow Borough
In office 19 May 1859 – 25 July 1865
Preceded by	John Alexander
Succeeded by	Thomas Osborne Stock
Born	10 January 1834 Naples, Two Sicilies
Died	June 19, 1902(1902-06-19) (aged 68) Tegernsee, Bavaria German Empire
Birth name	John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
Nationality	British
Political party	Liberal
Alma mater	Oscott College
Occupation	Historian, politician
Religion	Roman Catholic

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, KCVO, DL (10 January 1834 – 19 June 1902), known as Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Bt from 1837 to 1869 and usually referred to simply as Lord Acton, was an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer. He was the only son of Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton^[1] and a grandson of the Neapolitan admiral John Acton.^[2]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 Politics 2.2 Religion and writings 3 Personal life 4 Death and legacy 5 Notable quotes by Lord Acton 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Early life

Lord Acton's grandfather, who in 1791 succeeded to the baronetcy and family estates in Shropshire, previously held by the English branch of the Acton family, represented a younger branch which had transferred itself first to France and then to Italy. However, by the extinction of the elder branch, the admiral became head of the family. His eldest son, Richard, married Marie Louise Pelline, the only daughter and heiress of Emeric Joseph Wolfgang Heribert, 1st Duc de Dalberg, a naturalised French noble of ancient German lineage who had entered the French service under Napoleon and represented Louis XVIII at the Congress of Vienna in 1814. After Sir Richard Acton's death in 1837, she became the wife of the 2nd Earl Granville (1840).^[1] Comtesse de Dalberg was heiress of Hermsheim in Germany. She became Acton's mother. John Dalberg-Acton was born in Naples.^[2]

From an ancient Roman Catholic family, young Acton was educated at Oscott College under Dr (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman until 1848 and then at Edinburgh where he studied privately. At Munich, Acton resided in the house of Döllinger, the great scholar and subsequent leader of the Old Catholic party, with whom he became lifelong friends. He had endeavoured to procure admission to Cambridge, but for a Roman Catholic this was impossible at that time. Nonetheless, Döllinger had inspired in him a deep love of historical research and a profound conception of its functions as a critical instrument. He was a master of the principal foreign languages and began at an early age to collect a magnificent historical library, with the object—which, however, he never realized—of writing a great "History of Liberty." In politics, he was always an ardent Liberal.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Career

Although not a notable traveller, Acton spent much time in the chief intellectual centres of Europe and in the United States and numbered among his friends such men as Montalembert, Tocqueville, Fustel de Coulanges, Bluntschli, von Sybel and Ranke. In 1855, he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Salop.^[1] A year later, he was attached to Lord Granville's mission to Moscow as British representative at the coronation of Alexander II of Russia.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Politics

In 1859, Sir John Acton settled in England, at his country house, Aldenham, in Shropshire. He returned to the House of Commons that same year as a parliamentary member of the Irish Borough of Carlow and became a devoted admirer and adherent of Gladstone. However, he was not an active member, and his parliamentary career came to an end after the general election of 1865, when, having headed the poll for Bridgnorth, a scrutiny of the ballot led to his losing his seat. He contested Bridgnorth again in 1868 but to no avail.^{[citation needed]}

Acton took a great interest in America, considering its Federal structure the perfect guarantor of individual liberties. During the American Civil War, his sympathies lay entirely with the Confederacy, for their defense of States' Rights against a centralized government that, by all historical precedent, would inevitably turn tyrannical. His notes to Gladstone on the subject helped sway many in the British government to sympathize with the South. After the South's surrender, he wrote to Robert E. Lee that "I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo," adding that he "deemed that you were fighting battles for our liberty, our progress, and our civilization."^{[citation needed]}

In 1869 Acton was raised to the peerage by Queen Victoria and became the first Baron Acton. He was an intimate friend and constant correspondent of Gladstone, and the two men had the very highest regard for one another. Matthew Arnold used to say that "Gladstone influences all round him but Acton; it is Acton who influences Gladstone."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Religion and writings

Meanwhile, Acton became the editor of the Roman Catholic monthly paper, The Rambler, in 1859, on John Henry (later Cardinal) Newman's retirement from the editorship. In 1862, he merged this periodical into the Home and Foreign Review. His contributions at once gave evidence of his remarkable wealth of historical knowledge. But though a sincere Roman Catholic, his whole spirit as a historian was hostile to ultramontane pretensions, and his independence of thought and liberalism of view speedily brought him into conflict with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. As early as August 1862, Cardinal Wiseman publicly censured the Review; and when in 1864, after Döllinger's appeal at the Munich Congress for a less hostile attitude towards historical criticism, the pope issued a declaration that the opinions of Catholic writers were subject to the authority of the Roman congregations, Acton felt that there was only one way of reconciling his literary conscience with his ecclesiastical loyalty, and he stopped the publication of his monthly periodical. He continued, however, to contribute articles to the North British Review, which, previously a Scottish Free Church organ, had been acquired by friends in sympathy with him, and which for some years (until 1872, when it ceased to appear) actively promoted the interests of a high-class Liberalism in both temporal and ecclesiastical matters; he also did a good deal of lecturing on historical subjects.^{[citation needed]}

In 1870 came the great crisis in Roman Catholicism over Pope Pius IX's promulgation of the doctrine of papal infallibility. Lord Acton, who was in complete sympathy on this subject with Döllinger, went to Rome in order to throw all his influence against it, but the step he so much dreaded was not to be averted. The Old Catholic separation followed, but Acton did not personally join the seceders, and the authorities prudently refrained from forcing the hand of so competent and influential an English layman. It was in this context that, in a letter he wrote to scholar and ecclesiastic Mandell Creighton, dated April 1887, Acton made his most famous pronouncement:

"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it. "^[3]

Thenceforth Acton steered clear of theological polemics. He devoted himself to reading, study and congenial society. His one notable publications being a masterly essay in the Quarterly Review of January 1878 on "Democracy in Europe;" two lectures delivered at Bridgnorth in 1877 on "The History of Freedom in Antiquity" and "The History of Freedom in Christianity" — these last the only tangible portions put together by him of his long-projected "History of Liberty;" and an essay on modern German historians in the first number of the English Historical Review, which he helped to found (1886). After 1879 he divided his time between London, Cannes, and Tegernsee in Bavaria, enjoying and reciprocating the society of his friends. In 1872 he had been given the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Munich University; in 1888 Cambridge gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, and in 1889 Oxford the Doctor of Civil Law; and in 1890 he was made a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.^{[citation needed]}

In 1874, when Gladstone published his pamphlet on The Vatican Decrees, Lord Acton wrote during November and December a series of remarkable letters to The Times, illustrating Gladstone's main theme by numerous historical examples of papal inconsistency, in a way which must have been bitter enough to the ultramontane party, but demurring nevertheless to Gladstone's conclusion and insisting that the Church itself was better than its premises implied. Acton's letters led to another storm in the English Roman Catholic world, but once more it was considered prudent by the Holy See to leave him alone. In spite of his reservations, he regarded "communion with Rome as dearer than life".^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Personal life

In 1865 Acton married Countess Marie Anna Ludomilla Euphrosina von Arco auf Valley, daughter of the Bavarian Count Maximilian von Arco auf Valley, by whom he had six children^[4]:

1. Hon. Mary Elizabeth Anne Dalberg-Acton (1866–1951), married Lt-Col. Edward Bleiddian Herbert and had issue.
2. Hon. Annie Mary Catherine Dalberg-Acton (1868–1917)
3. Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton (1870–1924)
4. Hon. John Dalberg Dalberg-Acton (1872–1873)
5. Hon. Elizabeth Mary Dalberg-Acton (1874–1881)
6. Hon. Jeanne Marie Dalberg-Acton (1876–1919)

[edit] Death and legacy

Lord Acton became ill in 1901 and died on 19 June 1902 in Tegernsee. He was succeeded in the title by his son, Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 2nd Baron Acton. His extensive library, formed for use and not for display and composed largely of books full of his own annotations, was bought immediately after his death by Andrew Carnegie and presented to John Morley, who forthwith gave it to the University of Cambridge.

Acton's reputation for learning gradually spread abroad, largely through Gladstone's influence. The latter found him a valuable political adviser, and in 1892, when the Liberal government came in, Lord Acton was made a lord-in-waiting. Finally, in 1895, on the death of Sir John Seeley, Lord Rosebery appointed him to the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Cambridge. His inaugural lecture on The Study of History, afterwards published with notes displaying a vast erudition, made a great impression in the university, and the new professor's influence on historical study was felt in many important directions. He delivered two valuable courses of lectures on the French Revolution and on Modern History, but it was in private that the effects of his teaching were felt most. The Cambridge Modern History, though he did not live to see it, was planned under his editorship.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Notable quotes by Lord Acton

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• “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”^[5]
• "Great men are almost always bad men."
• “The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.”
• “There is no worse heresy than the fact that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”
• “There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.”
• “The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.”
• “Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.”
• "The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future."
• “[History is] not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.”
• “And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
• "The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks."
• "The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern."
• "Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought."
• "There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men."
• "Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin."^[6]
• "Socialism means slavery."
• "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 differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition."
• "There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success."

[edit] See also

• Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty
• Alex Callinicos
• William Ewart Gladstone

[edit] References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

[edit] External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about: John Acton

• Mondo Politico Library's presentation of Lord Acton's speech, The History of Freedom in Antiquity (full text - formatted for easy on-screen reading)
• Tocqueville-Acton Centre for Studies & Documentation
• Mondo Politico Library's presentation of Lord Acton's speech, The History of Freedom in Christianity (full text, formatted for easy on-screen reading)
• Lectures on Modern history by Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton Acton at Project Gutenberg
• Acton Bio, The Online Library of Liberty
• Lord Acton's Hundred Best Books
• Chronology from the Acton Institute
• Power Corrupts - Select Quotes A series of quotes related to one made famous by Lord Acton.
• Lord Acton, The History of Freedom and Other Essays. See original text in The Online Library of Liberty.
• Lord Acton, Historical Essays and Studies, edited by John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence (London: Macmillan, 1907). See original text in The Online Library of Liberty.
• Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History, ed. John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence (London: Macmillan, 1906). See original text in The Online Library of Liberty.
• Lord Acton, Letters of Lord Acton to Mary, Daughter of the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone, with an Introductory Memoir by Herbert Paul, Second edition with additional letters (London: Macmillan, 1913). See original text in The Online Library of Liberty.
• Lord Action, Lectures on the French Revolution. See original text in the Online Library of Liberty: Liberty Fund edition or Macmillion, 1910 edition.
• Lord Acton's introduction to Machiavelli's Il Principe.
• Acton-Creighton Correspondence in The Online Library Of Liberty.
• Archival material relating to John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton listed at the UK National Register of Archives
• Lord Acton, Nationality (1862)

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by John Alexander	Member of Parliament for Carlow Borough 1859 – 1865	Succeeded by Thomas Osborne Stock
Preceded by Henry Whitmore John Pritchard	Member of Parliament for Bridgnorth 1865 – 1866 With: John Pritchard	Succeeded by Henry Whitmore John Pritchard
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baron Acton 1869 – 1902	Succeeded by Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton
Baronetage of England
Preceded by Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton	Baronet (of Aldenham) 1837–1902	Succeeded by Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton

Persondata
Name	Acton, John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	10 January 1834
Place of birth	Naples, Two Sicilies
Date of death	19 June 1902
Place of death	Tegernsee, Bavaria German Empire