Lord Acton Quotes About Democracy

Quotes about: Democracy

• It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.

  Lord Acton

  Freedom, Equality, Democracies Have

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.9, VM eBooks

• Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.

  Lord Acton

  Government, Democracy, Majority

• Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.

  Lord Acton

  Enemy, Victory, Democracy

• The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

  Lord Acton

  Party, Democracies Have, Majority Rule

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.103, Jazzybee Verlag

• The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.

  Lord Acton

  Democracy, Vices, Morality

• The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.

  Lord Acton

  Democracies Have, Majority Rule, Evil

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.103, Jazzybee Verlag

• Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.

  Lord Acton

  Democracy

• I saw in States' rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.... Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.

  Lord Acton

  Fighting, Rights, Civilization

• Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.

  Lord Acton

  Numbers, Democracy, Aristocracy

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.42, Jazzybee Verlag

• The form of government and the condition of society must always correspond. Social equality is therefore a postulate of pure democracy.

  Lord Acton

  Government, Democracy, Social

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.253, Jazzybee Verlag

• Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.

  Lord Acton

  Mother, Country, Powerful

• The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.

  Lord Acton

  Fate, Government, Hands

• The true natural check on absolute democracy is the federal system, which limits the central government by the powers reserved, and the state governments by the powers they have ceded.

  Lord Acton

  Government, Democracy, Limits

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “Lectures on the French Revolution”, p.33, Jazzybee Verlag

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