John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

His works consistently emphasised the importance of limiting governmental and institutional power in favour of individual rights and personal liberty.[3][4]

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton studied at St Mary's College, Oscott and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Training under Ignaz von Döllinger is recorded. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is history. Places of work recorded in the authority are London. Employment is recorded with University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. Positions recorded include Regius Professor of History, Cambridge University and member of the 19th Parliament of the United Kingdom. Works named in the authority record are Lectures on Modern History. Distinctions recorded are Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and Royal Victorian Order.

The only son of Sir Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton, 7th Baronet, and grandson of the Neapolitan admiral and prime minister Sir John Acton, 6th Baronet[6] (who succeeded to the baronetcy and estates held by another branch of the Acton family in Shropshire in 1791), Acton was known as Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Baronet, from 1837 to 1869. His grandfather was part of a younger line of the family that had moved to France and Italy, but after the extinction of the elder branch he became the patriarch. Acton's father, known as Richard, married Marie Louise Pelline, the only daughter of Emmerich Joseph, 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).[7] Marie Louise Pelline de Dalberg was heiress of Herrnsheim in Germany. She became the mother of John Dalberg-Acton who was born in Naples. His father died in Paris when he was three. He was raised as a Roman Catholic, and was educated at Oscott College, under the future-Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, until 1848. He then studied privately at Edinburgh. He was denied entry to the University of Cambridge because he was a Catholic, and subsequently went to Munich where he studied at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) and resided in the house of Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, the theologian and forerunner of the Old Catholic Church, with whom he became lifelong friends. Döllinger inspired in him a deep love of historical research and a profound conception of its functions as a critical instrument in the study of sociopolitical liberty.[8] He was a master of the principal foreign languages, and began at an early age to collect a magnificent historical library, which he intended to use to compose a "History of Liberty". In politics, he was always an ardent Liberal.

People • Illustration — Portrait of John Acton by Franz Seraph von Lenbach, c. 1879. During his extensive travels, Acton spent much time in the chief intellectual centres of Europe, reading the correspondence of historical personalities. Among his friends were Montalembert, Tocqueville, Fustel de Coulanges, Bluntschli, von Sybel and Ranke. In 1855, he was appointed deputy lieutenant of Shropshire. A year later, he was attached to Lord Granville's mission to Moscow as British representative at the coronation of Alexander II of Russia.

In 1859, Acton settled in England, at his country house, Aldenham, in Shropshire. He was returned to the House of Commons that same year as member for the Irish borough of Carlow and became a devoted admirer and adherent of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. However, Acton was not an active MP, and his parliamentary career came to an end after the general election of 1865, when he headed the Liberal ballot for Bridgnorth near his Shropshire home. Acton nearly defeated Conservative leader Henry Whitmore, but Whitmore successfully petitioned for a scrutiny of the ballots, and thus retained his seat. After the Reform Act 1867, Acton again contested Bridgnorth, this time reduced to a single seat, in 1868 but to no avail. Acton took a great interest in the United States, considering its federal structure an ideal guarantor of individual liberties. During the American Civil War, his sympathies lay entirely with the Confederacy, for their defence of States' Rights against a centralised government that he believed would inevitably turn tyrannical. His notes to Gladstone on the subject helped sway many in the British government to sympathise 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."[9] Acton's stance on the Confederacy was shared by most English Catholics at the time, both liberal and Ultramontane.[10] The editors of the Ultramontane Tablet denounced Abraham Lincoln as a dangerous radical, and John Henry Newman, when asked for his opinion on the matter, stated that slavery was not "intrinsically evil" and that the issue had to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. In 1869, Queen Victoria raised Acton to the peerage as Baron Acton, of Aldenham in the County of Shropshire. His elevation came primarily through the intercession of Gladstone.[11] The two were intimate friends and frequent correspondents. Gladstone was particularly concerned to elevate Acton's standing as he headed out to Rome to resist the Pope's plan to have Papal Infallibility confirmed at the Vatican Council. Both Acton and Gladstone opposed this scheme and it was thought that, if Acton were a British Peer, it would strengthen his position in Rome. Matthew Arnold said: "Gladstone influences all round him but Acton; it is Acton who influences Gladstone." Acton was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order as a Knight Commander (KCVO) in the 1897 Birthday Honours.[12][13] He was also a strong supporter of Irish Home Rule.[14]

• Illustration — Franz von Lenbach: Portrait of Lady Acton, 1889 On 1 August 1865, Acton married Countess Marie Anna Ludomilla Euphrosina von Arco auf Valley (1841–1923), daughter of the Bavarian Count Maximilian von Arco auf Valley, with whom he had six children: • Mary Elizabeth Anne Dalberg-Acton (1866–1951), married Lt-Col. Edward Bleiddian Herbert and had children. • Annie Mary Catherine Dalberg-Acton (1868–1917) • Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 2nd Baron Acton (1870–1924) • John Dalberg Dalberg-Acton (1872–1873) • Elizabeth Mary Dalberg-Acton (1874–1881) • Jeanne Marie Dalberg-Acton (1876–1919) His nephew was Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley (1897–1945), a German count and political activist, and assassin of socialist Bavarian minister-president Kurt Eisner in 1919. When his cousin Maria, Duchess of Galliera died in 1888, Acton inherited the dormant title of Marquess of Groppoli.

• Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. • Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority. • There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. • History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.[22] • Universal History is... not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.[23] • There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success. [said of Oliver Cromwell][24] • The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.[25] • 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.[27] • Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.[28] • Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.[29] • The wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection but in the improvement of the world... History is the true demonstration of Religion.[30]

• The Civil War in America: Its Place in History (lecture; 1866). • The Rise and Fall of the Mexican Empire (lecture; 1868). • Letters from Rome on the Council (1870). • The War of 1870 (lecture; 1871). • The History of Freedom in Antiquity (address; 1877). • The History of Freedom in Christianity (address; 1877). • Introductory note to L.A. Burd's edition of Machiavelli's Il Principe (1891). * • Introductory note to G.P. Gooch's Annals of Politics and Culture (1901). Posthumous • Letters of Lord Acton to Mary, Daughter of the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone (1904). • Lectures on Modern History (1906).[31] • The History of Freedom and Other Essays (1907). • Historical Essays and Studies (1907). * * Articles • "Mill on Liberty," Part II, The Rambler (1859–60). • "The Roman Question," The Rambler (1860). • "The State of the Church," The Rambler (1860). • "Hefele's 'Life of Ximenes'," The Rambler (1860). • "The Political System of the Popes," Part II, Part III, The Rambler (1860–61). • "Döllinger's 'History of Christianity'," The Rambler (1861). • "Notes on the Present State of Austria," The Rambler (1861). • "Political Causes of the American Revolution," The Rambler (1861). • "Cavour," The Rambler (1861). • "The Catholic Academy," The Rambler (1861). • "Döllinger on the Temporal Power," The Rambler (1861). • "Mr. Goldwin Smith's Irish History," The Rambler (1862). • "The Protestant Theory of Persecution," The Rambler (1862). • "Nationality," Home and Foreign Review (1862). • "Secret History of Charles II," Home and Foreign Review (1862). • "Confessions of Frederick the Great," Home and Foreign Review (1863). • "The Waldensian Forgeries," Home and Foreign Review (1863). • "Ultramontanism," Home and Foreign Review (1863). • "Mediæval Fables of the Popes," Home and Foreign Review (1863). • "The Munich Congress," Home and Foreign Review (1864). • "Conflicts with Rome," Home and Foreign Review (1864). • "Material Resources of the Papacy," The Chronicle (1867). • "Fra Paolo Sarpi," The Chronicle (1867). • "The Case of Monte Cassino," The Chronicle (1867). • "Döllinger on Universities," The Chronicle (1867). • "The Ministerial Changes in Italy," The Chronicle (1867). • "Secret History of the Italian Crisis," The Chronicle (1867). • "The Secret Bull," The Chronicle (1867). • "Reminiscences of Massimo d'Azeglio," The Chronicle (1867). • "The Next General Council," The Chronicle (1867). • "Ranke," The Chronicle (1867). • "M. Littré on the Middle Ages," The Chronicle (1867). • "Mr. Goldwin Smith on the Political History of England," The Chronicle (1867). • "Nicholas of Cusa," The Chronicle (1867). • "Maurice of Saxony," The Chronicle (1867). • "The Acta Sanctorum," The Chronicle (1867). • "The Queen's Journal," The Chronicle (1868). • "Ozanam on the Fifth Century," The Chronicle (1868). • "The Massacre of St. Bartholomew," The North British Review (1868). • "The Pope and the Council," The North British Review (1869). • "The Vatican Council," The North British Review (1870). • "The Borgias and their Latest Historian," The North British Review (1871). • "Wolsey and the Divorce of Henry VIII," Quarterly Review (1877). • "Sir Erskine May's 'Democracy in Europe'," Quarterly Review (1878). • "George Eliot's Life," The Nineteenth Century (1885). • "German Schools of History," English Historical Review (1886). • "Wilhelm von Giesebretch," English Historical Review (1890). • "Döllinger's Historical Work," English Historical Review (1890).

He also worked under the name Lord Acton. The authorities additionally record the headings Lord Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Baronet, John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton and John Dalberg-Acton. His recorded language was English. His recorded confession was Catholicism. He was the child of Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton and Marie Louise von Dalberg. He married Maria Anna Ludomilla Euphrosina von und zu Arco auf Valley. 4 children are recorded: Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 2nd Baron Acton, Elizabeth Mary Catherine Dalberg-Acton, Mary Elizabeth Anne Dalberg-Acton and Annie Mary Catherine Georgiana Dalberg-Acton.

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton worked in history. He was employed by University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. Recorded positions include Regius Professor of History, Cambridge University, member of the 19th Parliament of the United Kingdom and member of the 18th Parliament of the United Kingdom. He belonged to Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He worked at London.

One work is recorded as notable: Lectures on Modern History.

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