"The North has used the doctrines of Democracy to destroy self-government. The South applied the principle of conditional federation to cure the evils and to correct the errors of a false interpretation of Democracy."  Lord Acton to R.E. Lee

Acton is famous for his remark, often misquoted: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Acton took a great interest in America, considering its Federal structure the perfect guarantor of individual liberties. During the  War, his sympathies lay entirely with the Confederacy, for their defense of States' Rights against a centralized government that, by all historical precedent, would inevitably turn tyrannical. His notes to Prime Minister Gladstone on the subject helped sway many in the British government to sympathize with the South. 

Photo: THE ‘REAL LIBERATORS’