At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success. No obstacle has been so constant, or so difficult to overcome, as uncertainty and confusion touching the nature of true liberty. If hostile interests have wrought much injury, false ideas have wrought still more; and its advance is recorded in the increase of knowledge, as much as in the improvement of laws.
We need to recognized that RINOs, especially those elected from hopelessly leftist states and congressional districts, and even the last honest 1960's-style liberals like Joe Lieberman, may well be among the auxiliaries with whom alliance is needed for freedom to advance, all the while remembering Acton's warning about possible disaster from such alliances.
Any politician who cannot defend the most vulerable and inncocent in America today, the unborn, I say, are not sincere friends of freedom.
Also, Lord Acton loved America's federalist form of government and states rights. Yet he supported the Confederacy during the Civil War.