Might makes right

Might makes right is an aphorism with several potential meanings (in order of increasing complexity):

The idea of "woe to the conquered" can be found in Homer and the hawk parable in Hesiod's Works and Days and in Livy, in which "vae victis", Latin for "woe to the conquered", is first recorded.

The first known use of might makes right in the English language was in 1846 by the American pacifist and abolitionist Adin Ballou (1803–1890), who wrote, "But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. 'Might makes right,' and hoary folly totters on in her mad career escorted by armies and navies." (Christian Non-Resistance: In All Its Important Bearings, Illustrated and Defended, 1846.)

The phrase in reverse is echoed in Abraham Lincoln's words in his February 26, 1860, Cooper Union Address ("Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it") in his attempt to defend a policy of neutral engagement with those who practised slavery, perhaps to appear more nationally oriented and religiously convicted in hopes of winning the presidential election later that year (which he did).

The idea, though not the wording, has been attributed to the History of the Peloponnesian War by the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who stated that "right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."Montague coined the term Kraterocracy, from the Greek κρατερός krateros, meaning "strong", for government by those who are strong enough to seize power through force or cunning.

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