| Lord Acton made his reputation as a historian and polymath, essayist and Catholic journalist, yet his works betray a strongly philosophical bent. In notes and writings towards his never-published History of Freedom , Acton reveals the contours of a philosophical liberalism that avoids many of the problems facing other modern species of liberalism. His view of liberty developing out of the historically conditioned phenomenon of conscience allows a more communitarian anthropology than those grounding rival individualist liberalisms. Acton's work combines enthusiasm for revolution with Burkean caution about the possibilities of reform. He reconciles the radical and conservative elements in Whiggism in his analysis of the dialectical tension between revolution and constitution. Acton's definition of liberty as the security of conscience, and his explication of the genius of American federalism in creating a political order in which such security is maximized, set him apart from his contemporaries, and establish him as a political philosopher. |
