About
the Author
John
Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton -- First Baron Acton of Aldenham
-- was born in Naples, Italy on January
10, 1834. The son of a beknighted Englishman and a Rhenish
Countess, Lord Acton studied history at the University of Munich:
he was not permitted to attend Cambridge because he was
a Catholic.
Lord
Acton was elected to the House of Commons in 1859 and was
offerred a peerage in 1869. He was appointed Regius
Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University in
1895. Extremely well read, and having an intellect that
is revered to this day, it is he who authored the now often
quoted statement that "power
tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
About the Speech
In
this speech, Lord Acton provides an illuminating history
of the interplay between the sources of governmental power,
the scope of governmental power, and the choice of who
should
exercise governmental power. He makes clear the important
point that democracy - a system in which power is thought
to have its origins in the people - is no guarantee of
liberty. He effectively submits that, in the absence
of a moral code that sets limits on the scope of governmental
power,
even
a
government
whose rulers are selected from among the governed (i.e.,
a republic) and whose powers are said to have their origins
in the governed (i.e., a democracy) will eventually devolve
into the worst, and most deeply entrenched, absolutism.
Ultimately,
he argues that Jesus, by his words, gave mankind an understanding
of the division of power that places limits
upon the scope of the power
left
to the government
of a free and just society:
"But
when Christ said: 'Render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are
God’s,' those words, spoken on His
last visit to the Temple, three days before
His death, gave to the
civil power, under the protection of conscience,
a sacredness it had never enjoyed, and bounds
it had never acknowledged;
and they were the repudiation of absolutism
and the inauguration of Freedom."
This
speech is a must read for any person who seeks to develop
an understanding of the various ways in which individual
freedom has been justified and defended, and its origins
explained.
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