Power Tends To Corrupt: Lord Acton's Study of Liberty 9781501757426

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Power Tends to Corrupt

POWER

TENDS TO

CORRUPT

Lord Actolls Study of Liberty

CHRISTOPHER LAZARSKI

NIU PRESS- DeKalb, IL

© 2012 by Northern Illinois University Press

Published by the Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, Illinois 60115

All Rights Reserved Design by Shaun Allshouse

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lazarski, Christopher. Power tends to corrupt : Lord Acton's study of liberty I Christopher Lazarski. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7580-465-1 (cloth bound) -ISBN 978-1-60909-079-1 (e-book) 1. Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Baron, 1834-1902-Political and social views.

2. Liberty. I. Title. JC223.A35L39 2012 320.01'1 dc23 2012014675

To America and all noble souls-particularly the parish of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion, Memphis, TN; International Creative Management, NYC; Georgetown University, Washington, DC; and the Hoover Institution, CA-with gratitude for the kindness I received during my years on American soil (June 21, 1983-September 25, 1995).

Contents Preface

ix

Introduction

3

1-Acton's Life and Mission

14

PART ONE-THE FOUNDATION OF LIBERTY

2- Liberty's Ancient Roots From Ancient Israel to the Fall of the Roman Empire

37

3-A Bumpy Road to Success Liberty in the Middle Ages

60

4- The Great Reversal Modern Infatuation with Power

81

PART TWO-ANGLO-AMERICAN LIBERTY

5-English Liberty The Birth of Mature Liberty

105

6- The High Point of Liberty Colonial America and the Foundation of the Republic

125

7-The American Experience Between the Union's Founding and the Civil War

145

PART THREE-THE LIBERTY OF REVOLUTIONARY DREAMS

8- The French Revolution A Triumph of Revolutionary Tyranny

175

PART FOUR-CIVIC VERSUS CIVIL LIBERTY

9-Acton's Ideal Polity and Its Alternatives Conclusions-Acton's Legacy and Lessons Notes

273

Selected Bibliography Index

313

307

227 262

Preface Anyone beginning a large research project can understand my feelings of confusion and even hopelessness when I attempted to write the first page of this book. After a few years of research that were less rather than more intensive (a full-time teaching position and various administrative duties allowed me to proceed at only a moderate pace), I realized I could no longer postpone writing ifi were to avoid the (mis)fortune of my own hero, Lord Acton. Acton had always put off the writing of the history of liberty for the sake of more complete research, until-tired and dejected-he deserted the idea entirely. Although I had read the majority of Acton's work and the literature on him and had reread my notes again and again, I had no clue as to his thought (except that he was a liberal and he loved freedom) or, even more, how to begin to find it. He wrote so many essays, reviews, and letters, all of which fascinated me with their originality, erudition, and extraordinary insights. At the same time, his works confused me with their inconsistencies, esoteric references and themes, incomprehensible allusions, gaps, and contradictions. How would I make it all coherent and intelligible? Would I be able to write on Acton's theory ofliberty, the aim of my original project? Initially, I shunned the thought of re-creating Acton's history of liberty. First, I did not want to pretend that I could have succeeded in carrying out the project that had proved too challenging for Lord Acton. Second, I did not believe that his original grand design for the history of liberty was viable, nor did I think myself worthy of attempting it. Third, I did not want to be seen as merely the most recent enthusiast who entertains an idea of reconstructing Acton's original history of liberty as if he had written it.* However, if not through the history of liberty, how would I approach my topic, which was too broad and too complex to understand in its entirety? How would I distinguish the fundamental from the secondary in Acton's thought, placing his ideas in some coherent order? I did not cherish any preconceived thesis as to his thought, nor did I harbor any hidden agenda, except for a sincere desire to comprehend him. * In 1955, G. E. Fasnacht and, a few years later, George Watson attempted to "reconstitute The History ofLiberty from Acton's notes": George Watson, Lord Actons History ofLiberty: A Study of His Library, with an Edited Text of His History of Liberty Notes (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995), 49.

x Preface

There I was, at the end of my sabbatical in the summer of2007, going back and forth to the Lauinger Library at Georgetown University, impatiently awaiting an "illumination" as to the essence of Acton's thoughts. I finally realized that I would not comprehend Acton without applying some principle of division. I had to separate his ideas into smaller units, sort them out, and then, step-by-step, analyze each. The best solution seemed to proceed in chronological order, reviewing Acton's output according to what he wrote about freedom in each period of Western civilization, from antiquity until his own time. I hoped that using the Cartesian method of division and analysis then gradual reconnection and synthesis would allow me to understand Acton's theory of liberty from its most basic to its most complex elements. With this plan ofhow to proceed, I was at last able to write the first page of what now is chapter 2. The remaining pages and chapters would gradually emerge and, before I realized it, I had produced Acton's history of liberty. Although not as he designed it, Power Tends to Corrupt is the history of liberty according to Acton, with his theory of freedom being pushed to second place. My first encounter with Lord Acton was not encouraging. I had to write a short paper on his editorship of the Cambridge Modern History for a graduate course on methodology, which I took at Georgetown University. At that time, I viewed him as a rigid figure, rather passe, who still dreamed about the possibility of scientific history. Because of that belief, I thought of him as a kind of positivist historian who had entertained an idea of ultimate history. I was not aware then of how much Acton would have hated to be linked with positivism. I was fortunate, however, to take a course with Father James Schall which, in retrospect, was the initial impulse leading toward this book. In this course, we read Acton's two essays on liberty, another on nationality, and various other pieces of his writing. Acton overwhelmed me with his erudition. I instantly knew that I had touched a great mind, even if I could not fully grasp the meaning of his thoughts. Furthermore, Acton's passion for freedom attracted me as well. I had left my native Poland because of Soviet domination and Communist oppression, both factors making me painfully aware of the paramount importance of liberty. My admiration for Acton's mind and his love of freedom inspired me to return to studying him years later, when I undertook the project that was ultimately to result in this book. Father Schall once more played a decisive role in my adventure with Lord Acton when, around 2003, he strongly encouraged me to pursue this

Preface xi project, provided me with invaluable advice, and continued to support me in occasional e-mails. I am eternally grateful to this magnificent teacher. Dr. Andrzej Sulima Kaminski, another outstanding Georgetown University professor, contributed decisively to the writing of this book in another way. He awoke me from the slumber to which I had surrendered at Lazarski University, the place of my permanent employment since 1996. He reminded me (as frankly as could still be deemed civil) of the importance of research and writing. This will be the second book that owes its existence to the jolt Andrzej gave me at some point in 2002. I do not know how to express my gratitude for his straightforwardness and caring. Dr. James Collins is yet another Georgetown professor to whom I owe a great deal of appreciation. Jim generously extended his hospitality to me during my sabbatical in Washington, DC. I am thankful not only for his room and board (his exquisite dinners could hardly be termed "board"), but for the dinner discussions with him, which I enjoyed so much. Listening to him was like being back in his classroom and benefiting from his numerous insights on modern Europe. I hope he will not be entirely disappointed with the way that Acton (and, indirectly, I myself) treats his beloved France, or with Acton's unequivocal condemnation of absolutism, to which Jim has a much more nuanced approach. I also would like to thank my friends who kindly agreed to read earlier versions of this work, especially Dr. Andrzej Bryk and Dr. Andrzej Nowak, both of Jagiellonian University; Dr. Wojciech Falkowski of Warsaw University and the Sorbonne; and Dr. Jan Szeminski of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as well as numerous colleagues who read various parts of the manuscript. I am grateful for all their insights, remarks, and advice. I am especially indebted to Dr. Barbara Pendzich and Curtis Murphy, a PhD candidate, who put much work into editing this book and sharing their thoughts about its content. Curtis in particular deserves thanks in this respect. They all have made this book better, while its deficiencies naturally remain my responsibility. Peter Kracht, Editorial Director of the University of Pittsburgh Press, deserves my particular thanks in view of the kindness he extended to me and the support he lent while I was searching for a publisher. I could not have managed to sail through the mysteries of scholarly publishing in America without his invaluable advice. I owe similar thanks to Amy Farranto, an editor at the Northern Illinois University Press, for guiding me through the process of reviewing and preparing the manuscript for publication (editing, cutting and re-editing, and editing once more ... ). I could not have

xii

Preface

succeeded in surmounting these hurdles without her kind assistance and advice. My special gratitude goes to my wife, Jola, who patiently tolerated my preoccupation with this book at the cost of family life. This gratitude also applies to my two sons, Phil and Max, to whom I very sparingly lent my free moments and with whom I could have been much more generous in sharing my time. Finally, I would like to thank Lazarski University, first for the sabbatical in 2007 that greatly hastened my research and writing and, second, for tolerating in recent years my semi-presence in the life of our academic community.

Power Tends to Corrupt

From Selected Writings of Lord Acton Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.-Acton's letter to Mandell Creighton, AprilS, 1887 Liberty ... resembles the camel, and enjoys more definitions than any other object in nature.-"Review of Bright's History of England" Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.-"The History of Freedom in Antiquity" If happiness is the end of society, then liberty is superfluous. It does not make men happy.-Add. Mss. 5954, 232-33 Why democracy? It means liberty given to the mass. Where there is no powerful democracy, freedom does not reign.-Add. Mss. 4945,92 Idea of equality leads to imperialism.-Add. Mss. 5446, 185

Introduction

[The] History of Liberty-a history of the last 200 years .... But although practically beginning then, theoretically 2000 years earlier. Indeed it is the unity, the only unity of the history of the world-and the one principle of a philosophy of history. [A] philosopher divided government into two kinds, the bad and the good, that is, those which exist and those which do not exist. Christianity is the gospel of the poor. Civilisation is the gospel of the rich. 1

L 0 R D A C T 0 N I S 0 F T E N C A L L E D a historian, or even the historian, of liberty. Indeed, among his many interests and pursuits, liberty was a lifelong passion and the central theme of his writing. True, his longterm project, "The History of Liberty;' was never realized and turned into "the greatest book that never was written;' as one observer termed it. 2 In a period of nearly fifty years as a scholar and journalist, he wrote on a large variety of issues but produced not a single book. Yet in almost everything he wrote, and Acton did produce hundreds of smaller works (articles, essays, book reviews, and letters), freedom was either the focus or the idea unifying all the other topics. Whatever his declared subject matter (history, politics, philosophy, and religion; the Church, the state, and church-state relations; absolutism, nationalism, democracy, or liberalism; or the problems of evolutionary development versus revolution, etc.), freedom always figured as the reference point. Other themes either served to illuminate the various tenets of freedom or were included as elements of freedom's history. Thus,

4

POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT

without risk of exaggeration, we could claim that all of Acton's research and writing aimed, in one way or another, at liberty. 3 If liberty is Acton's central idea, how does he understand and define it? Acton does not address the philosophic problem of freedom as opposed to determinism or the degree to which individuals depend on forces beyond their control. No, his focus is limited to political liberty: he is concerned with individuals as members of a political community and their freedom in such a polity. Thus the question narrows to political freedom. What is political liberty, then, according to Acton? What makes a polity free or unfree? How do its members become citizens or subjects? How does he view liberty's role in human history? Is not the past a record of varying forms of servitude rather than freedom? These are fundamental questions that we can expect that Acton, liberty's disciple and its chronicler, must answer. To these major questions we can also add other, no less essential issues: How does he see liberty's origins and growth? What are its basic ingredients and do they change with time? What is the role of religion and political authority vis-a-vis civil freedom? How does liberty relate to such principles and ideas as equality, property, democracy, suffrage, national independence, or happiness? Do these factors contribute to or impede its development? What does Acton mean by "mature liberty;' a term he often employs in his writing? What kind of liberal is he and what type of liberalism does he profess? Is his concept of freedom universal, or is it limited only to the West? Let us consider just one more question: how does Acton respond to these and similar queries? Simple and straightforward answers are rare in his writing. He does not respond to some questions, perhaps treating the answers as self-evident. His ideas, therefore, must be inferred from his writing. In the case of other questions, Acton replies indirectly or in a somewhat confusing and contradictory manner. In these cases, his views, scattered in various works and written at different points in his life, must be carefully examined and compared-and their inconsistencies explained. With other queries, his answers are so complex, so laden with hidden meanings, that they require additional elaboration and exegesis, often substantially lengthier than his original account. Acton's answers to questions about liberty are anything but simple, and thus the need for a book that fully exposes the complexity of his views on the topic. Such a book on Acton's thought must meet one crucial prerequisite. Since he had no opportunity to make any definite statements about his beliefs or clarify his thoughts, he needs a reviewer who centers on the spirit of his

Introduction

5

message and views his writings in their entirety, rather than one who might focus only on his omissions, self-contradictions, and oblique language. The current work undertakes to present Acton's legacy in its entirety. It searches for the core consistency in his concept of liberty and in his presentation of liberty's history. If Acton's writings provide no easy answers or recipes with regard to liberty, they are, at the same time, fascinating in their originality. Acton was one of the best -educated men of his time; his erudition was legendary. And even though his friends sometimes referred to him as a walking encyclopedia, his knowledge was not limited to myriad facts. He possessed a rare talent for reaching beneath the surface and grasping the hidden springs that move reality. He noticed that which we, ordinary men and women, often overlook: the causes of freedom's flourishing or perishing, and the reasons an individual or society enjoys liberty or only its illusion. In mental power and political wisdom he was certainly on a par with Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), who was born a generation before him. He also shared many principles and ideas with Tocqueville. But while students of politics can immerse themselves in Tocqueville's teachings by reading Democracy in America, the closest parallels with regard to Acton's output are his two essays on liberty: "The History of Freedom in Antiquity" and "The History of Freedom in Christianity:'4 Tocqueville wrote two volumes on democracy in one region of the world, while Acton produced two essays on liberty in Western civilization, from ancient Israel to the French Revolution. As a result, his writing is dense and compact, demanding careful study rather than ordinary leisure reading. 5 While Tocqueville had a profound impact on Acton's thinking, he was not his only intellectual mentor. Acton himself points to Edmund Burke ( 1729-1797) as his tutor, whom he considers to be a "teacher for Catholics" or, even, "of mankind:' In spite of differences between them, which-with the exception of their views on the French Revolution-were secondary, Burke made a firm impression on Acton's thought that remained obvious throughout his life. 6 The third person who shaped Acton's way of thinking was Father Professor Ignaz von Dollinger (1799-1890), the German theologian and historian under whom Acton began his career as a historian. This trio had the greatest and most lasting influence on his intellectual development. They all advanced his liberal way of thinking, molding him into a liberal of a singular kind: one who links a fervid love for liberty with an appreciation for Christianity as a liberating force from state omnipotence, all the while maintaining a severely critical attitude toward the doctrinaire threads

6

POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT

of continental liberalism. Dollinger also endowed him with a passion for reconciling the Catholic Church with science, progress, and liberalism. Acton was a prolific writer at the beginning of his career. Possibly the most productive decade of his life began when he assumed the co-editorship of Rambler, a journal of liberal Catholics (1858). If not for two lecture series offered at Cambridge University a few years prior to his death, we might well have said today that Acton wrote only a few articles beyond his early output. 7 During that early time, he produced several of his important essays-used extensively in this book-such as "Political Thoughts on the Church'' (1859); "Political Causes of the American Revolution'' (1861); "Expectation of the French Revolution'' (1861); "The Protestant Theory of Persecution'' (1862); "Nationality" (1862); "The Civil War in America: Its Place in History" (1866); and "Mr. Goldwin Smith's Irish History" (1862), technically a book review but in fact a long essay on history and politics. 8 Without these and other early works, the re-creation of Acton's theory and history of liberty would have faced serious obstacles. Acton's highly productive early years coincided with his proclivity to sweeping generalizations and-originally-apologetics for Catholicism, as well as a missionary zeal in the struggle for reconciliation of the Church with liberalism and the modern world. After his studies in Bavaria (18501854), young Acton was full of ideas that were, in his mind, destined to transform England. Munich was one of the continental centers for Catholic thought and modern learning in general, and Acton's aim was to transfer that which he had studied in Germany to the English Catholics, ossified in their traditional beliefs, and to the British public at large, entrenched in its anti-Catholic bias. This was his main goal as an editor of Rambler and, later, of the Home and Foreign Review (1862-1864). The setbacks and failures Acton experienced in this mission opened a new, mature period in his life. He grew increasingly disillusioned with the role of the Catholic Church, and he quarreled with Catholic authorities who questioned and even denied the orthodoxy of his faith. Acton scholars do not pinpoint the exact time of this transformation, but it probably occurred in the late 1860s, not long after his unsuccessful fight against the dogma of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council (1869-1870). 9 In addition to being radically more critical of the Church, the mature Acton stressed the importance of moral judgment for the past and the need for a universal code to provide the foundation for such a judgment (both issues largely beyond the scope of this book). 10 Uncompromising in these respects, the mature Acton did not change his other views on, for example, the role of Christianity, conscience, progress,

Introduction

7

and civilization in the growth of liberty. He even softened some of his earlier opinions and revised his critical evaluation of American democracy at the time of the Civil War. It seems that this general outlook remained unchanged in his old age (roughly a decade before his death). Another side effect of these early disillusionments was his gradual departure from theological issues and a significant decline in his literary productivity in general. In this, the mature Acton did not differ from the older Acton, except for the brief period of his professorship at Cambridge University. Though still concerned with many topics, each worthy of a separate book, in the second half of the 1870s Acton increasingly became aware of liberty as the theme that eclipses all others in gravity yet excludes none. 11 On the contrary, this subject embraces and unifies all issues and topics within human history. This role of liberty, best visible in modern history, stretches back to the dawn of human civilization. 12 Finally, Acton found the focus that would reconcile his various interests with his passion for liberty. The following, written by one of Acton's contemporaries in the early 1880s, illustrates well his fascination with this idea: Twenty years ago, late at night, in his library at Cannes, he expounded to me his view of how such a history of Liberty might be written, and in what wise it might be made the central thread of all history [italics CL]. He spoke for six or seven minutes only; but he spoke like a man inspired, seeming as if, from some mountain summit high in the air, he saw beneath him the far-winding path of human progress from dim Cimmerian shores of prehistoric shadow into the fuller yet broken and fitful light of the modern time. The eloquence was splendid, but greater than the eloquence was the penetrating vision which discerned through all events and in all ages the play of those moral forces, now creating, now destroying, always transmutting, which had moulded and remoulded institutions, and had given to the human spirit its ceaselessly-changing forms of energy. It was as if the whole landscape of history had been suddenly lit up by a burst of sunlight. I have never heard from any other lips any discourse like this nor from his did I ever hear the like again. 13

Acton does not merely point to liberty as the central thread and the unifying principle in history. He also makes an allusion as to why freedom is destined to play such a paramount role. Liberty can be the axis of human past because it is a providential idea, supported and protected by the divine will. For this reason, liberty inevitably grows and matures in time, in spite of

8

POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT

all the drawbacks and defeats. Liberty's progress is, however, not a straight movement leading toward the ultimate, perfect freedom. The fallen nature of humankind precludes such perfection, and Acton, as a devout Christian, did not entertain any illusions about human perfectibility. No, liberty's development is a long process in which we-men and women-are not spared the adversities and passages of servitude. Perhaps, due to such painful experiences and reversals of fortune, we learn to distinguish more clearly between good and evil and, therefore, are better able to understand the nature of liberty. Through small improvements, we acquire more elevated forms of liberty. 14 Providence assists us in this process and, at the same time, prevents the worst-the utter destruction of liberty. Freedom requires tender care and cultivation in order to flourish, yet, as Acton claims, it eludes annihilation, even under the most adverse conditions. Paradoxically, efforts to eradicate it lead to contrary results. For example, such fundamental enemies ofliberty as corruption and the venality of judicial offices, transmuted into the last line of defense against arbitrary power, allowing the remnants of freedom to persevere. Liberty is therefore a potent idea, which plays the same role in human history that Tocqueville so forcefully attributed to equality. According to Acton, however, freedom precedes equality in the divine order of values and is therefore superior to it. Protected by providence, liberty and equality exist in a tense relation throughout history, and we will have the opportunity to observe this tension in subsequent chapters of this book. 15 The subject of providential care over liberty leads us to introduce some other preliminary information, especially Acton's core notion of liberty and its intimate links with morality and conscience. In the inaugural lecture at Cambridge University, Acton said that liberty has two hundred definitions, the most popular of which include democracy (France), federalism (USA), national independence (Italy), and the reign of the fittest (Germany). None of these, however, seemed sufficient. For Acton, liberty is the paramount principle in politics: "Liberty is not a means to an end. It is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, but for security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of private life." Authority that does not recognize this principle-setting other political goals, such as happiness or equality, as higher-delegitimizes itself and turns into sheer force. 16 In another definition of liberty, Acton stresses the role of the individual: "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,

Introduction

9

custom and opinion:' The individual is here at the center, and individual rights are supreme. Here Acton presents himself as a seemingly typical liberal, no different from any other, especially in that he also emphasizes the rights of minorities a few lines later. 17 Yet the difference is, in fact, striking. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), the spokesman for liberalism in Acton's time, stressed the rights of others as the only just restraint on the unlimited freedom of an individual. Acton instead emphasizes morality and conscience. Liberty, for him, is not the right to do what one wishes. It is not a license but a summons to do what one ought. This, in turn, implies a crucial role for conscience, for the voice of God within us, who, as Acton believes, tells us what we should do. This knowledge of our moral duties and the freedom to do right (i.e., the freedom of conscience) equals liberty. 18 The link between freedom, morality, and conscience is perhaps the best explanation for Acton's belief in the special care of providence for freedom and the leading role of liberty in human history. Freedom of conscience is not only essential for Acton's notion of liberty but also a sign of what Acton terms the mature phase of liberty. A polity that recognizes and safeguards freedom of conscience approaches what Acton calls "mature liberty" (see chapter 9 for a detailed explication of this term). In short, Acton links mature liberty with the coming of the liberal age. While liberty has its roots in antiquity and slowly progresses throughout history, it comes of age with the legal equality of individuals, their increasing participation in power, and the emergence of a balanced authority. Acton points to England after the Glorious Revolution (see chapter 5) and to the American Revolution (chapter 6) as watersheds in the process of the maturation of liberty. While freedom of conscience is "the first of liberties;' self-government is the next, and both are indispensable for liberty itself. 19 Acton rejected the doctrinaire approach of classical liberalism, which derived natural rights from the abstract concept of the state of nature. Moreover, he disapproved of the greatest happiness principle of utilitarianism, predominant in the liberalism of his own day. Freedom, according to Acton, originates in local communities with individuals who manage their own affairs and gradually build up larger, ascending communities, from parish to state. Thus, the ideal that Acton sought is freedom of citizens, that is, civic freedom (see chapters 6, 7, and 9). Though largely coinciding with civil freedom, both terms are not necessarily identical. Civil freedom implies liberties provided by a liberal regime, which otherwise may have an omnipotent government, unchecked by intermediate authorities, and passive "citizens" who exercise their citizenship every few years at the ballot box. Civic liberty usually

10

POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT

(though not necessarily) includes civil liberties, but it always demands active individuals-citizens-who exercise their right to self-rule in their localities and who, correspondingly, enjoy a limited government, well balanced by various checks on authority. This book uses both terms in their meaning as just defined. 20 The distinction between civil and civic freedom is not merely a semantic issue. It helps us to understand Acton's idea of liberty as well as his ideal of liberty. This difference is also a sign of a deeper disparity in the perception of the roots of liberty, which has a bearing on our understanding of freedom up to the present. The structure of this book tries to reflect this disparity in the comprehension of freedom. Part One presents liberty's common background, in antiquity and the Middle Ages, showing how early modern Europe served as the foundation for the future divide in the course traversed by liberty. Part Two centers on the development of Anglo-American liberty, which largely coincides with the concept of civic freedom. Part Three, drawing on the centralization of power evident in early modern Europe, links the resistance against royal absolutism with the birth of continental liberalism, as exemplified by the most celebrated event in this process, the French Revolution. Part Four further exposes the differences between Anglo-American and continental, doctrinaire liberalisms and between civic and civil liberty. It also presents Acton's own ideal of liberalism and of his best practical regime, as well as its variegated opposites. As mentioned, Acton's grand project of writing a book on liberty never materialized. His ambition was to deliver a scientific history of liberty, based on archival research and the most recent scholarship. Reading one book a day and laboriously producing tens of thousands of notes, he still could not catch up with the historiographic output of his time. He procrastinated and began to refer to his project jokingly as the "Madonna of the Future" -an ever-postponed work that was not even attempted. Finally, overwhelmed by the greatness of the task and dejected by the towering obstacles, he abandoned the project altogether. 21 The only remnants of this effort are his two essays on liberty mentioned before and thousands of index cards with his notes, now stored at Cambridge University Library. These essays are essential in retracing Acton's views on freedom; the notes play a lesser and somewhat equivocal role in that task. 22 Keeping Acton's experience in mind, the current work is not an attempt to re-create his original design of the history of liberty. Ultimate history is entirely beyond human capacity, and no serious historian now entertains such a notion. Presenting the history of liberty-a de facto synthetic review

Introduction

11

of the history of the West, from antiquity to the present-is also beyond the capacity of one ordinary individual. Such a project, drawing on the most recent results of archival research and historical production, would require the coordinated effort of a team of distinguished scholars, and even then the effect might not be satisfactory, as The Cambridge Modern History (bearing Acton's formal editorship) proved. The current work is an attempt to re-create Acton's concept of liberty, that is, his theory of political liberty and his vision of the progress of liberty throughout the history of Western civilization. As a rule, the present author does not confront Acton with current scholarship. Such a task would entail a return to Acton's original project and, again, require a group of historians and political thinkers, not just one individual. On the other hand, the author does not find anything in Acton's writing that modern scholarship would entirely contradict. While Acton's abandonment of his history of liberty was a great loss for political thought and historical scholarship on the West in general, the two essays on freedom that he did manage to write provide an outline of the whole project and thus allow us to imagine its structure and content. Together with a lengthy book review on Thomas Erskin May's Democracy in Europe, these works are an indispensable guide to Acton's legacy. 23 They were all written in the span of two years (1877-1878), when Acton achieved maturity as a writer. These articles can therefore verify (usually) or falsify (rarely) his earlier opinions. The review of May's book is also helpful for Acton's perspective on the nineteenth century. A similar role can be ascribed to his two series of lectures on the French Revolution and on modern history, prepared and offered in the final years of his life (1895-1900) and published after his death. 24 In addition to filling in gaps in his earlier output, they either corroborate or negate the views held by young Acton. Altogether, these works make the current project viable. Acton's biography is beyond the scope of his study of liberty, but a brief sketch of his life can help us understand the origins and development of his beliefs, passions, and lifelong causes (chapter 1). There is, however, more to the story of Acton than his theory and history of liberty, and the reader should be aware of this fact. In particular, he had what amounted to a lovehate "affair" with the Catholic Church. This part of Acton's life certainly had an impact on his views regarding freedom, yet this relationship could not be illuminated properly in the narration of his history of liberty. Acton's insistence on making moral judgments in history is a similar case-beyond the scope of this book, yet essential for understanding why he failed to

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realize his lifelong project on liberty. A biographical sketch should remedy these and other such deficiencies. I did not conduct primary research on Acton's life, and in general, I used Rolland Hill's recent book, Lord Acton, the best and the most thorough of Acton's biographies. Personally acquainted with Acton's descendants, Hill had access to his private papers as well as to family accounts and stories. In addition, he conducted an imposing amount of research using primary as well as secondary sources. He was therefore able to shed new light on Acton's life and reveal many unknown stories about him, especially those relating to his personal life. Still, while writing even a short biography of Acton, I encountered some inconsistencies in dates, names, and family relations as narrated by different authors. Straightening out those inconsistencies and contradictions will require the work of a future biographer.

***

Acton's teaching is neither easy nor popular today. He is remembered by his most quoted maxim: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely:' His message is thus reduced to a simple rule that power brings risk while arbitrary power is evil-hardly a revelation in to day's world. The rest of his teaching is for the most part unknown: his penetrating mind is no longer appreciated, his wisdom forgotten. His onetime reputation as an "apostle of liberty;' whose admirers included Friedrich von Hayek, Karl Popper, and Isaiah Berlin, has largely waned. 25 Even some in the academic community see Acton as not much more than a "Victorian historian'' who may interest only specialists or crackpots. There is no doubt that Acton condemns arbitrary authority, from antique tyrants, Roman emperors, and power-hungry popes to modern absolute rulers. Yet there is also no doubt that he reserves his sharpest criticism for the follies and misconceptions of democracy, seeing the deviations of this form of government as the foremost threat to liberty in his time and in the future. In this he is as uncompromising as the Jewish prophets-whom he recalled in his essay on freedom in antiquity-who dared to face the king and tell him, regardless of the consequences, that he had sinned and had to mend his ways. However, Acton's censure of democracy (and for that matter, some facets ofliberalism as well) is not a hostile attack. Rather, it is friendly criticism. This quintessential liberal-and, as this book aims to prove, democrat at heart-virtually identifies the cause of liberty with liberalism and regards

Introduction

13

limited democracy as the best practical regime. But because he cares for freedom above all else, he is not squeamish about exposing the unpleasant truths behind liberalism and democracy. Like Tocqueville, who warned the democrats against the threat of equality in slavery, Acton cautions against the illiberal seeds in liberalism and the menacing potentials dormant in democracy. Should we not listen to Acton's warnings? Should we not make an effort to understand the challenges to freedom in this liberal age and find the will to confront them? Acton has a fascinating story to tell us.

Acton's Life and Mission

All governments in which one principle dominates, degenerate by its exaggeration. The weight of opinion is against me when I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong. I never had any contemporaries, but spent years in looking for men wise enough to solve the problems that puzzled me, not in religion or politics so much as along the wavy line between the two. 1

F 0 R AN 0 R D IN A R Y READER unacquainted with Lord Acton, he may appear to be the epitome of an English and Victorian aristocrat: aloof and condescending, untroubled by the problems of ordinary men and women, shielded from poverty or prejudice, privileged in every way, and disposed to take advantage of every opportunity open to his class. In fact, Acton might have been aloof and a little condescending, but he was certainly not a typical British lord, particularly if we are imagining the current stereotype in popular culture. Born in Naples, of a German-French mother, raised by an Italian grandmother and educated partly abroad, he did not belong to the traditional English nobility and was somewhat alienated from the English social and political elite. Until the end he looked like a "continental gentleman;' with manners that remained "rather foreign;' as

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15

Queen Victoria noticed in 1893. He was not even legally British when he was born and had to confirm his British nationality, fixing his last name on this occasion as Dalberg Acton. 2 Although not a commoner, he gained only the entry level of the peerage at the age of 35, when he became the First Baron Acton. Because of his Catholicism he was not admitted to British universities and thus spent his formative years in Munich. Though not poor, he was not particularly wealthy either. John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, First Baron Acton, was born on January 10, 1834. His family on his father's side belonged to the gentry. Since the fourteenth century they had lived in Aldenham, near Bridgnorth, located in Shropshire (England's West Midlands county bordering Wales). In the seventeenth century, one of his ancestors was made a baronet by King Charles I. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Actons converted to Catholicism. Acton's grandfather John Francis Edward Acton made a staggering career in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, eventually becoming its long-term prime minister (1780-1804). In spite of belonging to a junior branch of the Actons, the grandfather inherited the family title and the 6,000-acre estate in Aldenham when the senior branch died out (1791). Acton's father, Sir Richard Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton, the seventh baronet of Aldenham, managed to squander much of his father's fortune on gambling and died when his son was only three years old (1837). The family of Acton's mother, the Dalbergs, traced their origins to the High Middle Ages (although the family tree goes as far back as Abraham), and for centuries were in service of the Bishops of Worms, electors in the Holy Roman Empire. Since the fifteenth century, they had enjoyed the privilege of being knighted first during the imperial coronation ceremony, which illustrates their high rank among the nobility of the empire. Acton's maternal grandfather, Emmerich Joseph Duke Dalberg, made a diplomatic career in the service of Napoleon I and later Louis XVIII, but he lost much of his great fortune on failed investments and a bank crash. Acton's mother, Marie Louisa, inherited the duke's estate in Herrnsheim in the Rhineland, which later became Acton's property and his second place of residence. 3 According to Hill, Acton had a lonely childhood. His mother, widowed at the age of 23, remarried rather quickly (1840) to George Leveson-Gower, a British liberal politician and the future Second Earl Granville. This turned out to be a very happy marriage, but Marie Louisa devoted herself mostly to her younger husband. Left at Aldenham under the care of his paternal grandmother, Nanna, little Johnny only occasionally visited his mother and stepfather at their London home. When he was eight (1842), his mother sent him to school in Paris. Nine months later, the boy was transferred to

16

ACTON'S LIFE AND MISSION

a Catholic boarding school in Oscott, England, where he studied for five years. The tone of the letters he sent from Oscott is sad. 4 Acton was finally taken from boarding school at the age of 14. He spent the next two years in Edinburgh in intensive private tutoring, in order to remedy his mediocre achievements at Oscott. In addition to studying math, Greek, Latin, and history, he began to immerse himself in the writings of Edmund Burke and of the liberal politician and historian Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859). At this time, Acton described himself as being "primed to the brim with Whig politics:' Rejected by Cambridge and Oxford universities, Acton had to look for college education elsewhere, and in doing so he encountered Father Professor Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger. 5 At the time he met Acton in 1850, Father Dollinger was a German theologian and professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Munich. Originally a conservative Catholic, he became increasingly liberal in his religious and political views. In 1848 Dollinger participated in the Frankfurt Assembly, an abortive attempt to unify Germany from below. There he managed to link his lingering conservatism with a defense of religious liberty and a tolerance for Catholics, Jews, and Poles. He had a spacious apartment in Munich with a huge library of about 35,000 books, and like many German professors, he provided room and board for students in order to supplement his modest income. Acton became one of these resident-students, and soon a beloved one. For behind a stern look, Dollinger hid a kind heart, and he took good care of the lonely and disoriented student that Acton was at the time. Acton's biographers stress the close personal relationship between the professor and the student. At first, they developed a father-son kind ofbond, which later changed into friendship, although Dollinger always remained "the Professor" for Acton. 6 In Munich Acton found not only the father he had never had but, owing to close contact with his relatives Count Maximilian von Arco-Valley and his Italian wife, Anna, he also discovered the warmth of family life. The count and countess had many children, and Acton became like their ninth child, spending weekends with them in their palatial home. He developed a close attachment to Countess Anna, who became like a second mother to him. At last he found, as Hill puts it, "a family and a real home:' Fifteen years later he would marry Marie, one of Arco-Valley's daughters (1865). Their villa at Tegernsee, a village about 30 miles south of Munich, would become his third residence, which he would visit regularly with his family, keeping a small library where he could work. 7 Acton did not register at the university as a regular student; he took only a few courses there during his stay in Munich. Instead he followed Dollinger's

Actons Life and Mission

17

instruction, and his second father also became his chief tutor. Originally Acton's schedule, planned from 8 a.m. until10 p.m., was still remedial: Latin and Greek texts, German, as well as history and literature. Later he focused on history as his major field, especially medieval, modern, and ecclesiastical. His interests also included political thought and theological issues. Burke was applied as an antidote to Macaulay, whom Dollinger disliked. Acton certainly acquainted himself with Tocqueville during the Munich period. These three thinkers-Burke, Tocqueville, and Dollinger himself-became Acton's main intellectual sustenance during this period. 8 The rigorous study schedule Dollinger imposed on Acton, as well as his personal example, transformed Acton, who then acquired his famous thirst for books, as both a reader and a collector. We can probably trace his habit of reading a book a day and making meticulous notes on index cards or in notebooks to this period in his development. Acton's huge library at Aldenham, which later in his life comprised approximately 70,000 volumes, originated from his acquisitions in Munich. Dollinger, however, seems also to have been responsible for Acton's initial lack of focus, his interest in a large variety of subjects and themes, and his inability to center on just one or even a few. Moreover, while encouraging Acton to study primary sources in historical research and arousing his scholarly curiosity, the professor probably failed to teach his pupil when to stop researching and when to begin writing. 9 All that Acton wrote in his life was therefore casual, unfinished, or for teaching purposes, but nothing that he, or that posterity, would consider complete. In the fall of 1854, Acton returned from Munich to the family estate at Aldenham. Heavily indebted and decreasing in value, the estate still allowed Acton to live comfortably for the next quarter century. 10 He did not have to labor for a living, yet he worked very hard during the next two decades. Before we move to his editorial and literary work and his quarrels with Rome, which were the main arenas of his public activity in subsequent years, let us first note his foreign trips and his brief flirtation with active politics in the late 1850s and 1860s. While still studying under Dollinger in Munich, Acton often traveled with his mentor throughout Europe during summer vacations. Gertrude Himmelfarb, in her seminal intellectual biography of Acton, states that Dollinger used these opportunities to introduce "his protege to the intellectual elite of the Continent, . . . thus contributing to Acton's later reputation as the man who knew everyone worth knowing:' Hill merely mentions that they "visited friends, worked in archives, [and] did some sightseeing:' Further, Hill neither confirms nor denies whether Acton met

18

POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT

Alexis de Tocqueville during one of these journeys, as another of Acton's biographers claims. 11 In the summer of 1853, Acton took a trip to America, in the company of the British delegation to the New York Industrial Exhibition. He was then 19 and cocky, and the diary that he wrote on this occasion belies both his age and overconfidence. America did not produce a favorable impression. According to Acton, the Yankees were selfish, not very intelligent, practical, and preoccupied with money. Although they were "very likely to speak ... without being called upon;' they kept silent at the dinner table, quickly devouring their food. They did not appreciate science and knowledge for their own sake but only for practical reasons. He thought that even Harvard College had surrendered to the ubiquitous air of utilitarianism. This "oldest and principal University in the United States" was just "a couple of red brick buildings of rather tumbledown appearance, and two small edifices of stone:' It had neither a good library nor well-paid professors. Its 600 students, who "pass for the most dissipated students in the Union;' spent $80 a year in tuition. Harvard was maintained by private funds, while "the state, instead of contributing anything, claims a tax of700 dollars a year:' 12 Ten years later, Acton would hold an entirely different view of America, and in spite of some doubts aroused by the American Civil War, he would reconfirm his admiration for the United States in the concluding chapter of his Lecture on Modern History. Acton's two other important foreign trips in the 1850s were to Russia and to Rome. In the first, Acton joined the official British delegation in which his stepfather was to represent Queen Victoria at the coronation of Tsar Alexander II (1856). This time Acton performed the function of a young attache, keeping busy with various organizational tasks and, at the same time, finding himself at home in the world of the high international aristocracy. It is doubtful that his journey influenced his future negative views of Russia. At least there is no trace of such an impact in his correspondence. 13 In 1857 he went to Rome with Dollinger. They were well received by authorities of the Papal States and had an audience with Pope Pius IX. Acton met the pope on two other occasions, the second time with his family and the third in private. The professor was happy with his access to manuscripts in the Vatican archives, and neither had a premonition of Dollinger's future apostasy or Acton's near excommunication from the Catholic Church. Still, at least in retrospect, Acton judged this journey as "an epoch of emancipation'' from Rome. Dollinger was shocked by the low level of scholarship among Roman theologians, Acton by the misgovernment of the Papal States, and both seemed to sense what Martin Luther had experienced during his visit to

Actons Life and Mission

19

Rome. Certainly the trip helped Acton become less enthusiastic about the papacy and the Catholic Church. 14 Between 1859 and 1866 Acton was a member of the British Parliament, his only firsthand experience with practical politics. He reluctantly agreed to run from Carlow, a Catholic county 50 miles south of Dublin, giving in to pressure on the part of his stepfather. Granville wanted to win over some Catholic votes for the Whigs, and "Johnny:' as he wrote in one of his letters, seemed a perfect candidate for this task. His stepfather advised him to spend about £700, which could win him a seat even without bribery. The Catholics also supported him, thinking that he, wellborn and connected, could effectively work for their emancipation. The endorsement of Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, the leader of the British Catholic Church and the president of Oscott when Acton had studied there, virtually prejudged the results of the election. This is an interesting case in itself, one that illustrates how the principle of representation worked in practice in the homeland of constitutionalism nearly two centuries after the Glorious Revolution. In Carlow, out of around 9,000 inhabitants (85 percent of whom were Catholic), only 236 met the property requirement of eight pounds per household and were eligible to vote. With the direct support of the local clergy and the expenditure of about £500 on legitimate agitation, and without appearing once in person, Acton won the seat 117 votes to 103. During his term in Parliament, he spoke only three times in the House of Commons. While representing Carlow, he entered into acute conflict with the British Catholic hierarchy and had no chance to stand for reelection. Acton was apparently relieved, but the liberals in his own borough in Bridgnorth insisted that he represent them in the 1856 election. He won again, this time by a majority of just one vote. However, his victory was illusionary, for he was unseated the next year due to ballot scrutiny. Acton returned to Parliament in 1869, this time as a member of the House of Lords when, on the recommendation of his friend and admirer Prime Minister William E. Gladstone, Queen Victoria elevated him to the rank ofbaron. 15 Upon returning from studies in Munich, Acton became a self-appointed missionary whose task was to reconcile the Catholic Church with modern science and liberalism, to educate traditional English Catholics suffering from centuries of discrimination, and to dispel anti-Catholic prejudices in England. In the spirit of Dollinger's teaching (and reaching further back, of the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas), Acton strongly believed that science, which reflects the truth about the natural world, cannot disagree with Christianity, a revealed religion. God, the author of the creation and the

20

POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT

source of revelation, cannot deceive or be mistaken about the natural order. Therefore, the Church has nothing to fear from science. Nor should it be afraid of liberalism, for freedom, as understood by Acton, is at the center of both Christianity and liberalism (see chapters 2-4). English Catholics needed to leave behind their besieged fortress mentality and their sense of intimidation in order to rejoin the rest of the Catholic community, raise their own intellectual level, and fight against anti-Catholic bigotry. Until the First Vatican Council, Acton devoted most of his energy to this mission and contributed substantial funds to it. However, as Hill puts it, "time would prove that in his youthful optimism Acton underestimated the enormity of the challenge:' 16 After the French Revolution, this besieged fortress mentality characterized the entire Catholic Church, and not only its English branch. The forces of modernity began to undermine the centuries-old symbiosis between church and state, and the former could no longer rely on the protection of the latter. On the contrary, the Catholic Church, associated with the ancien regime, was under assault by liberal governments as well as the forces of nationalism. In Italy, this trend put the papacy in a particularly difficult situation in 1848. Initially supportive of Italian unification and liberalization policies in the Papal States, Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) had to escape from Rome in 1848. The city was in revolt, and the pope sought protection in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. When he returned from exile two years later, backed by French bayonets, he turned against modernism and tried to preserve as much of his ecclesiastical and political power as he could. In practice, this meant the preservation of his supreme, arbitrary authority in the Church and his temporal power in the remnants of the Papal States. This set the pope on a collision course with liberals within and outside the Church as well as with Italian nationalists. The more subtle matters of the agreement between science and faith, the similarities in the appreciation ofliberty on the part of the Church and the liberals, and the need for freedom in historical research and writing-with which Acton was much preoccupied-were oflittle or no importance in this struggle between these two fundamental foes. In Great Britain, the pope's new hard-line policy resulted in placing ultramontanists (supporters of the superiority of papal power) at the head of the Catholic Church in England and in the reestablishment of the Catholic hierarchy. Cardinal Wiseman, whom the pope named head of the new metropolitan see of England-the archbishopric of Westminster (1850)-and his successor, Archbishop Henry E. Manning (1865), were busy rebuilding the Church and defending it against an Anglican backlash. This meant that their time was spent protecting the persecuted Catholics

Actons Life and Mission

21

in Ireland and uniting diverse segments of the Church: the old nobilitydominated English Catholics, new converts from the Anglican Church (the Oxford Movement), and the predominantly poor Irish faithful. They did not share Acton's concerns and priorities and viewed his writing at first with astonishment and irritation, then with increasing indignation, and finally with censure. For his part, Acton began to regard Wiseman and Manning, as well as the pope himself, as representing everything he abhorred in the Church: uncontrolled, arrogant power; collusion with arbitrary civil governments; a betrayal of the fundamental message of Christianity; and fear of science and progress. The clash between church authority and Acton was thus inevitable. 17 To fulfill his mission, Acton decided to join Rambler, a journal whose aims largely coincided with his own. Established ten years earlier (in 1848), Rambler expressed the ideas current among the converts from the Oxford Movement, who believed that Catholicism must keep up with the development of science, adjust to the new circumstances of life wrought by industrialization and democratization, and be, in general, intellectually respectable. This challenge facing Catholics was common throughout Europe, and similar efforts of liberal Catholics were undertaken in France and Germany, among other countries. However, the problem was particularly acute in England, where a Catholic encountering a Protestant was "like a barbarian meeting a civilized man:' a phenomenon that even ultramontanists recognized. 18 Although promising to distance itself from theological and political issues, Rambler could not avoid them, because of its interest in religious and political thought, and in the Catholic liberal movement on the continent of which Dollinger was a prominent figure. Rambler's founder and editor, John Moore Capes (1813-1889), was able to maintain good relations with Wiseman, who supported the new converts, but the situation became aggravated in 1856 when Richard Simpson (1820-1876) began to act as an interim editor. Simpson was a former Anglican priest as well as a distinguished Shakespearian scholar, and he had a broad interest in philosophy, history, literature, and music. His keen mind, sharp pen, and liberal convictions, together with "an incorrigible irreverence and sense of the comic;' made him Acton's kindred spirit, a fact confirmed in their extensive correspondence. Under Simpson's editorship, the journal ceased to represent the converts and instead turned into an organ of liberal Catholics. 19 When Acton became Rambler's co-owner and co-editor in early 1858, the journal's conflict with Wiseman and other English ultramontanists was already well underway. Although Rambler always maintained its

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independence, holding that its contributors had the right to discuss freely whatever had not been settled by Rome, under Simpson's editorship the journal moved more boldly into the areas of biblical scholarship and the scientific challenges to creationism. Rambler also began to pay more attention to the Catholic liberal movement on the Continent and to Protestant biblical criticism. Simpson further stressed the importance of historical development and tradition over dogmatic scholasticism in church teaching. And above all, he reserved the right for his journal "to ridicule what is ridiculous:' 20 Acton held similar views to those of Simpson, but his own contribution to Rambler's early tension with church authorities seems minor. In a book review written in the summer of 1858, he casually inserted the observation that St. Augustine was "the father of Jansenism;' a French heresy akin to Calvinism that lasted from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century. Dollinger later clarified Acton's slip by saying that Augustine's paternity of Jansenism was symbolic rather than direct, and certainly not in the sense of Luther's fathering Lutheranism, but this did not calm the controversy. Wiseman wanted to silence Simpson, temper Acton, and in general, teach Rambler a lesson. To avoid church censure, Acton and Simpson agreed to resign from their positions as co-editors. John Henry Newman (18011890), a distinguished convert from the Oxford Movement and a future cardinal, consented to take over the editorship temporarily, in order to save . the journal. Newman held views similar to Acton and Simpson (as well as Dollinger) but was cautious and, certainly, much more diplomatic. However, this did not help, for a few months later he himself stepped into trouble by publishing an article "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine:' For this, Newman was denounced and remained suspect in Rome until Pius IX's death. 21 He was raised to the office of cardinal by Pius's successor (1879), but his ideas were not fully vindicated until the Second Vatican Council, nearly a hundred years later. Newman gave up his editorship of Rambler in the spring of 1859, even before the publication of his article on consulting the laity. The arrangement was that Acton would be the sole editor, Simpson would be specifically kept away from editing and writing about theology, while Newman's disassociation with Rambler would be kept confidential. But Acton was elected MP that same year, he often traveled abroad, and in addition was occupied with his mother's illness and then her death (March 1860). Simpson again became the de facto editor and gave Newman much reason for anxiety. An irritated Newman, who did not want to be Rambler's censor, finally made his disassociation from the journal public. Rambler's circulation was never

Actons Life and Mission 23 large, probably no more than one thousand copies. News of Newman's break with the journal lowered its readership by about 40 percent. 22 The last straw for Rambler was its position on the temporal power of the papacy. By 1860, the Papal States were reduced to the region of Rome in which the pope remained the nominal sovereign only because of the presence of French troops. It was only a matter of time before that enclave would join the rest of Italy. The crucial question was how the pope could preserve his independence from civil authority when this incorporation finally occurred. The position of the Church was to defend the pope and his temporal authority, and all Catholics were expected to rally behind their spiritual leader. In England, Archbishop Manning, who increasingly substituted for the aging and ill Wiseman, treated this as a question of dogma. 23 Despite formal Catholic opinion, Acton decided to embrace Dollinger's view. In a lengthy review of Dollinger's book Kirche und Kirchen, Papstthum und Kirchenstaat (1861), he repeated his professor's thesis that temporal power was not essential for the papacy. Popes lived without such power for the first seven centuries of Christianity, and this did not preclude the Church from spreading the faith. The papacy did play an important role in limiting imperial government in the Middle Ages; therefore, it contributed to the establishment of basic rights and freedoms. Acton would later develop this idea in other essays (see chapter 3). The papacy also prevented Catholicism from dissolving into separate national churches where civil and spiritual powers act in unison. Such was the case in the Byzantine Empire and the Protestant countries after the Reformation, where unity of powers led to despotism. Acton only hinted that temporal power in the early modern period corrupted the papacy, while stressing that after the Council of Trent, papal power became more spiritual, gradually relinquishing what was not essential. Since the papacy had played such an important role in the preservation of the universal Church and the separation of secular and spiritual authority, it should enjoy liberty in exercising its mission. Modern states such as Italy and France were too omnipotent to tolerate papal independence. Austria had to be ruled out for similar reasons. Completely Catholic Spain would also not be the best seat for the leader of a universal Church. For this reason, Germany, because of its religious diversity, political division, and the crisis of German Protestantism, seemed the best place for the pope's residence. 24 Since earlier warnings and unfriendly advice to close down Rambler had gone unheeded, in December 1861 Wiseman condemned the journal and its contributors in a pastoral letter. The letter accused the journal of irreverence for things sacred, a habit of lecturing "the clergy on the difficulties of faith;'

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and constant attacks on the Church. It also stated that these attacks were particularly painful because they came from the Church's own children. Other English bishops had already condemned the journal in the fall of that year. As a result, Rambler formally closed down in May 1862, but it continued under another name, the Home and Foreign Review. The new journal retained Rambler's editors (although Simpson worked behind the scenes), contributors, and even its equivocal motto-Seu vetus est verum diligo, sive novum (I seek the truth, whether it is old or new). Its most important alteration was a switch from bimonthly to quarterly publication, a change that Acton had always wanted in order to lend the journal a more scholarly character.25 Tactically withdrawing, Acton was nonetheless unrepentant. As Josef Altholtz, the American historian of the Victorian age noticed: "The intellectual battlefield between Liberal Catholicism and Ultramontanism, was ... neither philosophy nor science, but history:' This put Acton-thehistorian at the forefront of battle. He loved his Church, he appreciated its impact on the growth of freedom in antiquity and during the Middle Ages, and he had no difficulty in believing its dogmas. But as a historian, he had no intention of sacrificing the truth of the past for the glory of the Church, or-as he suspected-for its immediate interests as determined by the ecclesiastical authorities at any given moment. 26 Even saints and popes had committed sins, and there was no reason to hide their transgressions. The same principle applied to the Church as an institution. In matters other than faith, the men and women of the Church, as well as the Church itself, fell under the same scrutiny as anyone and anything else. The more Acton researched the early modern period, the more he discovered that his beloved Church had abandoned its original mission of freeing individuals and their communities from state omnipotence. In exchange for protection, the Church surrendered its independence and lent support to arbitrary civil power. In fact, it became the chief advocate of absolutism and its most privileged servitor. To Acton's astonishment, this was not the worst case of the Church's betrayal of its mission. "A practice sanctioned by the theory that much wrong may be done for the sake of saving souls" was far worse. This practice extended from the massive persecution of religious dissenters to the approval of lies, perjuries, and assassinations in the struggle against Protestantism. At a certain point, the Church's misconduct in the modern period became Acton's obsession, and he began to suspect crimes for which he had no proof. For example, he claimed that the slaughter of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's Day was a premeditated act; or he charged that Pope St. Pius V and St. Charles Borromeo approved of the principle that "the murder of a heretic was

Actons Life and Mission 25 not only an innocent but a meritorious action:' Claiming to defend the Church's goodness, ultramontanism was trying to hide shameful deeds in the ecclesiastical past and present, while Acton, exactly for the same reason, felt the duty to expose them, both sides believing with equal force in the righteousness of their cause. 27 Although in the early 1860s Acton's view of the Church was not as radically negative as it was at the end of that decade, his writings were sufficiently offensive to provoke the quick reaction of ecclesiastical authorities. In the summer of 1862, Wiseman again condemned Acton's journal, which "under another name" showed "the absence for years of all reserve or reverence in its treatment of persons or of things deemed sacred, ... and its habitual preference of uncatholic to catholic instincts ... tendencies and motives:' The journal's reply, written not by Acton but on the basis of his materials and theses, was respectful of Wiseman, personally, and of the Church's infallible teaching, generally. However, the author restated Rambler's previous position on the relationship between religion and science: only "a false religion fears the progress of all truth; a true religion seeks and recognizes truth wherever it can be found:' Suppressing it, in the name of a higher good (be it the church, the people, peace, or order), is a sign of "either a timid faith which fears the light, or a false morality which would do evil that good might come:' Principles should never be sacrificed for the sake of what appears to be expediency. 28 The short life of the Home and Foreign Review came to an end when a papal brief from December 21, 1863, addressed to the archbishop of Munich was published in March the following year. Although vague in language, the brief rejected freedom of scholarly investigation. In other words, it condemned the principal premise of liberal Catholicism. Subsequently, Acton and his collaborators decided to close the quarterly down rather than submit to ecclesiastical censorship. Acton explained the reasons for their decision in his essay "Conflicts with Rome;' published in April in the final issue of the journaF9 If there remained any illusion as to whether the liberal Catholic movement could be tolerated by the church authorities, the papal encyclical Quanta Cura and the Syllabus Errorum, published in December 1864, left no room for doubt. Among the propositions that Pius IX condemned, the last was, in Altholtz's words, "an almost perfect statement of the Liberal Catholic creed;' that "the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and come to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization:' 30 The fall of the Home and Foreign Review was not the end of Acton's journalistic efforts. The next venture in which he was involved was the weekly Chronicle, launched in March 1867. Thomas F. Wetherell, an Oxford

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convert and Acton's assistant in editing Rambler and the Home and Foreign Review, became the editor. Unlike its predecessors, the Chronicle was not Catholic but secular, representing Gladstonian liberalism and promoting social and religious reforms, lighter in its tone, and more fitting for "idle readers;' as Acton put it. Too liberal for Catholics and too Catholic for liberals, the Chronicle failed to attract enough readers. Since Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, Dollinger's pupil and liberal MP, failed to fulfill his promise of financing it, and Acton, who paid the salary for its editor, was not able to support the whole enterprise, the Chronicle shut down in February 1868, less than a year after its launch. 31 Acton's last direct attempt at Catholic and liberal journalism was financing and writing for the North British Review, a quarterly that was revived in 1869 owing to funds mainly provided by the Liberal Party. Hill characterizes the journal as attaining "a remarkable breadth of intellectual vision encompassing the literary, the religious, and the political, comparable to the best in Victorian periodical journalism:' For Acton, it was a forum where he could comment on the First Vatican Council. He could also influence the way in which the journal reported on foreign affairs: "Catholic, non-nationalist, and prophetically critical ... ofPrussianized Germany:' The journal was, however, a short-lived venture. As Altholtz stresses, Acton and Simpson came to the conclusion that Catholic-liberal journalism was pointless after the Vatican Council. The serious health problems of its editor, Wetherell, was the final blow to the Review: the January 1871 issue was its last. 32

***

The climax of Acton's public activity as a lay Catholic and a liberal were the seven months he spent in Rome around the time of the Vatican Council (November 1869 to May 1870), fighting unsuccessfully against the dogma of papal infallibility. By 1870 his view of ecclesiastical authority was at its lowest, and he was open about this in his published writing. The prospect of the further strengthening of papal power aroused in him the worst premonitions. His notion of what papal infallibility meant was not narrow, as ultimately defined by the general council and shaped by subsequent tradition, but very broad, as promoted by the ultramontanists. For Acton, papal infallibility meant not only that the pontiff cannot err when he speaks ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals that are widely upheld in the Church. It also meant that the pontiff holds unlimited spiritual as well as temporal authority, the latter power extending not only to the Papal States but all over the globe. Such a broad notion of infallibility was clearly

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indefensible in theology and history and was dangerous in politics. No wonder he vehemently opposed it. Together with Dollinger and other antagonists of the dogma, Acton pointed to examples of popes' decisions in the past that were blatantly wrong or criminal, such as condemning a true belief as heretical and vice versa, declaring a heretical belief true, and approving or instigating torture, persecution, and even murder. Were these practices now to receive an official sanction and become a part of Catholic teaching? Furthermore, how would this exalted notion of infallibility be received by modern governments? Were Catholics papal subjects first, and could they, in such circumstance, be considered loyal subjects to civil authorities? 33 The great majority of the bishops who came to Rome for the council were in support of papal infallibility. Their opponents were disorganized, stood against the proposed dogma for varying reasons and with different determinations, and did not know one another. The newly elevated Baron Acton set out to remedy these deficiencies. In Hill's words, "he acted as a kind of chief whip encouraging and warning his allies in multiple languages and inspiring them with confidence, a most unusual role for a thirty-sixyear-old layman:' He also used his influence on Prime Minister Gladstone to exert political pressure on Rome. However, this was an illusory power because the Foreign Office listened to its accredited envoy in Rome, Odo Russell, who recommended neutrality. 34 Finally, Acton participated in an attempt to put the pressure of public opinion on the council. He sent confidential information, which he was able to collect in Rome, to Dollinger who then composed anonymous letters commenting on the council. Since the council's proceedings were confidential, those comments, published by Allgemeine Zeitung in Augsburg, created a sensation. The letters were translated into many languages and republished; in English, they were printed as the Letters from Rome on the Council by Quirinus (1870). 35 Acton's direct, intransigent, head-on opposition to the dogma was, however, entirely futile: the great majority of the bishops finally voted for it, and all recognized it afterward. The council narrowed down the notion of infallibility though, so that it became dogmatically and politically innocuous, a far cry from Acton's fears or the ultramontanists' hopes. Yet in this he also earned no merits, for he wanted to defeat the dogma, not merely to moderate it. Still, while commenting on Pius IX's determination and astuteness in the question of the dogma on infallibility, Lord Clarendon, the British minister of Foreign Affairs, wrote: "How right Odo [Russell] has been throughout in declaring that the Pope would end by having his own way in all things. He has stood alone against all the representation of the

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Catholic powers and all the opposition bishops plus Acton, who is worth them all put together:' 36 In the aftermath of the council, Dollinger was forced out of the Church because he refused to recognize the new dogma. Unwillingly, he joined the Old Catholic Church, which rejected not only the council but also some other Catholic dogmas and practices, such as transubstantiation, Immaculate Conception, and priestly celibacy. As a layman, Acton avoided this lot, even though he continued to defy the Church. In September 1870, immediately after the council, Acton wrote a circular letter addressed to an anonymous German bishop who once belonged to the minority group that opposed papal infallibility. He accused the bishops of timidity and faintheartedness. During the council, they were strongly against the dogma, predicting dire consequences for the Church in the case of approval, but afterward, they all kept silent and quietly accepted it. He then listed various dogmatic, historical, and political arguments against infallibility, which the bishops themselves had raised. A year later, this work was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in Rome, "the only product of his pen awarded this distinction;' as Hill puts it. In October 1870, Acton published a lengthy article titled "The Vatican Council;' in which he reiterated his usual arguments against infallibility and provided a detailed account of the council's proceedings. Yet another act of defiance against the new dogma was Acton's signature at the declaration issued by the Munich Conference (1871), which had founded the Old Catholic Church in Germany. Since he was neither present at the conference nor did his support for the Old Catholic Church extend to the point of schism, he distanced himself from this declaration when he learned more about the conference. Moreover, he advised Dollinger to take the same position toward the new "Old" Church. 37 Acton's last anti-infallibility venture took place a few years later, in 1874, when he wrote a series of letters to the editor of the London Times. The letters were provoked by a pamphlet titled The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance, produced by his friend Gladstone. Although Acton was against its publication, he himself was largely responsible for it. Gladstone simply used the ammunition against infallibility that his friend had delivered to him in their correspondence during the council. Now Acton felt obliged to react. In his first letter to the Times (November 9), Acton dismissed Gladstone's main point that the new dogma put civil loyalty of the Catholics in doubt. In contrast to his own earlier statements, he now claimed that papal infallibility changed little. Popes had amassed enormous power even before the Vatican Council and could have excommunicated anyone who denied

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their "authority to depose Princes:' England therefore had nothing to fear from its Catholic subjects. Nothing had changed in this respect. Gladstone's argument would have been more just and powerful had he exposed what was really wrong in the Church, a perverted morality that justified crime for the sake of religion. He then provided a list of examples of such crimes, beginning with "the author of the first Crusade;' Urban II (1088-1099), who "decided that it is no[t] murder to kill excommunicated persons:' The remaining three letters, especially the second, were written in response to a Catholic outcry demanding that he prove his accusations. Acton's letters amounted to a brief review of the skeletons in the closet of the Catholic Church. Still, he maintained, this could not hurt either the Church or faith: "Nothing which the inmost depths of history shall disclose in time to come can ever bring to Catholics just cause of shame or fear. I should dishonour and betray the Church if I entertained a suspicion that the evidence of religion could be weakened ... by a knowledge of the facts with which I have been dealing, or of others:'38 It seems that John Paul II's apologies for sins committed in the Church's name, which the pope pronounced in 2000, could have made Acton proud of his Church. At least, they vindicate his position on church history. 39 The remarks published in the Times belittling the significance of papal infallibility gave Archbishop Manning, soon to become a cardinal, occasion to challenge Acton's Catholic orthodoxy and to denounce him in Rome. In November, the archbishop wrote three letters to Acton asking him ever more specific questions about his adherence to the Vatican decrees, especially his acceptance of the dogma on infallibility. Acton's first two replies were increasingly evasive and ambivalent, while in the third response he courteously denied that the archbishop had a right to ask him, a layman, dogmatic questions on which he had not previously commented in public. Only his bishop had the right to test his beliefs. In a separate letter to the latter, Acton made a profession of faith, which satisfied the bishop in spite of its somewhat ambivalent remarks on the most recent dogma. But the threat of excommunication hung over Acton for some time until Rome decided to put this question to rest. 40 The period of late 1874 to early 1875 was one of the most difficult in Acton's life, and the mental distress he suffered during this time affected his health permanently. This experience taught him, however, to be less partisan and more careful in the future. As Himmelfarb puts it: "Although Acton continued his frank examination of Church history ... he was never again seriously troubled by the ecclesiastical authorities:' With time, his previous transgressions tended to appear less and less significant, while his faith seemed

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more and more ordinary. Manning's successor, Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, warmly congratulated Acton on his appointment to Cambridge University in 1895 and expressed confidence in Acton's "fidelity to the Church:' Acton returned the courtesy and performed small favors for the cardinal. At last he was considered a respected Catholic and a faithful son of the Church. 41 Acton's biographers emphasize that he entered a phase of dejection, even depression, in the period following the Vatican Council. His high hopes had come to naught, his Church had turned against him, his mission had failed, and he himself suffered from a "feeling of emptiness:' The most active and productive period of his life was now over. Yet this feeling of emptiness also had a positive side. No longer pressured by his busy daily routine, he could spend more time with his family. He seemed a loving husband (although his marriage experienced some problems later, in the early 1890s), and he was certainly a good father to his four surviving children.42 Furthermore, he could finally focus on his most beloved subject-the history of freedom. Since he never abandoned his lifelong habit of reading a book a day and making meticulous notes, the project had good prospects for completion. However, in the decade of the 1870s he was able to produce only two essays on this subject-the "History of Freedom in Antiquity" and the "History of Freedom in Christianity;' both presented to the public in 1877. In the next decade he did not write anything on the project. In general, he produced very little throughout the entire period between 1870 and 1895. Thus we must ask, why did he not write the history of liberty, and also, why did he produce almost no output during this quarter century? Acton's biographers stress several reasons for his inactivity and apathy. Beyond those already mentioned in the Introduction (the extraordinary quality of scholarship that his history ofliberty was to obtain and his inability to stop researching and begin writing), the third most important reason was the strict moral code he applied to history. As early as the late 1860s, Acton began to develop stern ethical standards, which he projected back onto the past, believing it the historian's duty to exercise moral judgment, or as he put it, to be a "hanging judge:' In the following two decades this code grew into a "frantic" moral rigorism, as some called it. 43 But was it really frantic? Was it not a carefully developed concept of ethical standards, indispensable to his view of liberty? Let us recall Acton's general notion of freedom and the intimate links between liberty and morality it entails. First, according to Acton, freedom is nothing else but the right to do what one ought, and history teaches us

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how to distinguish between good and evil. The history of freedom must therefore be a record of the moral and immoral acts of humankind. By analyzing the advancement of freedom throughout the ages and observing the various forces, trends, and persons who were supportive or inimical to liberty, historians exercise moral judgment over the past, by necessity. Second, in spite of his critics, Acton maintained that there exists a universal moral code, based on both the Decalogue and natural law. "Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity;' as he stated in his inaugural address at Cambridge. This moral law is known to everyone (at least in the West), regardless of time. This, on the one hand, allowed past perpetrators to be aware of their crimes and, on the other, permits historians to evaluate past events and historical figures. Third, Acton insisted that certain categories of crime-such as murder, assassination, torture, and persecution, especially those committed for religious and political motivations-are evil beyond doubt, and that they ought to be exposed and unequivocally condemned. When asked by a student whether one should not take into consideration the morality prevailing at a given epoch, he emphatically answered: "I make no allowance for that sort of thing:' 44 Fourth, he believed that the judgment of history ought to grow progressively in severity, the more elevated the position held by the perpetrator. Crimes committed in the name of religion were particularly odious and deserve especially strong condemnation. Fifth, according to Acton, a historian exposing and condemning past crimes performs an act of justice. Ordinary men and women, the readers of history, understand this well and expect such acts from historians. Sixth, he stressed that historians, not the readers of history, are to blame for evading moral judgment. They hide behind the fa