Government is a group of people who claim a territorial monopoly in violence, and claim superior authority over the lives of everyone in their claimed territory. They usurp the natural rights of individuals. That is evil.
Perhaps you should read the passage containing the "absolute power" quote, too.
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."
—Lord Acton