Forged by Sauron, to contain all of his rage, malice and will to dominate, the One Ring is what caused all of the problems in The Lord of the Rings. It had to be kept away from Sauron at all costs and ultimately destroyed. However, the one that would carry the ring to Mount Doom would, for a time, have the ability to wield immense power -- and, as the saying goes, power corrupts. That’s why the most powerful among them -- Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond -- all refused to even touch the One Ring for fear that it would corrupt them.
So, during the council of Elrond, a decision had to be made. Arguments arose, but ultimately, everyone agreed that Frodo would continue on as the Ringbearer. His unassuming personality and pure heart were the reasons that everyone agreed that he would make the journey to Mordor with the hope of preserving freedom on Middle-earth. Although he had the full faith of the Fellowship, he might not have been as pure with the Ring as everyone had hoped.
It’s clear that the ring was a burden for Frodo the whole time that he carried it, and the weight only got heavier the longer he bore it and the closer they traveled to Mordor. Slowly but surely, it was corrupting him. The first time that the One Ring started to really take hold of him was when he, Sam and Gollum laid eyes on Mordor’s Black Gate for the first time.
When they saw the impenetrability of the gate, Gollum offered to take the ring back and let Frodo slip off “to nice places” forgetting the whole thing. Frodo, however, didn’t take kindly to the suggestion. Here’s what he told Gollum in The Two Towers novel: “The desire of it may betray you to a bitter end. You will never get it back. In the last need, Sméagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command.” At that point, Frodo was warning Gollum to not get in the way, but it’s clear that the One Ring had started to co-opt Frodo’s thinking in a negative, power-grasping way.
Later, Frodo was about to enter the Sammath Naur in the cracks of Mount Doom, when Gollum tried to take the ring by force. At that point, though, Frodo was almost fully taken and used the power of the One Ring to command Gollum away from him. A passage from the Return of the King novel tells that Frodo appeared to Sam as “a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice. ‘Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.’”
There was no veiling Frodo’s power-filled warning to Gollum, but it didn’t make a difference in the end. Gollum again attacked Frodo in the bowels of Mount Doom, took the ring from his finger and fell into the fire. What happened was exactly what Frodo said would happen. True to his command, Gollum wound up casting himself into the fire. Although he accidentally fell, he still couldn’t escape the Ringbearer’s command.
This development prevents Gollum’s death from looking like a Disney Villain Death, where the character conveniently slips and falls over a cliff. It also means that Frodo did indeed use the power of the One Ring against Gollum. In the end, containing evil and resisting power was too much for even the meekest of hobbits. So, it’s a good thing that Gandalf, or another powerful individual, didn’t try to contain the One Ring because they surely would have used it and become the next Dark Lord or Lady of Middle-earth.