ACTON (OF ALDENHAM), JOHN EMERICH EDWARD DALBERG ...

born Jan. 10, 1834, Naples died June 19, 1902, Tegernsee, Bavaria, Ger. English Liberal historian and moralist, the first great modern philosopher of resistance to the evil state, whether its form be authoritarian, democratic, or socialist. A comment that he wrote in a letter, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," today has become a familiar aphorism. He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1837, and he was raised to the peerage in 1869.