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Are you sure that "in due order" doesn't refer to the order in which they were given stations as Valar? Tolkien in one place makes reference to Manwe and Melkor being "coeval", so he apparently attributes weight to the relative age of a Vala. Tulkas is the "youngest" Vala, but he certainly wasn't the least powerful of them all.
Tolkien wrote that all of the Valar combined could not master Melkor in his original state. Either Tolkien didn't include Tulkas in this estimation, or Melkor had already become greatly diminished by the time Tulkas captured him. If the former is true and not the latter, then we have to attribute the greatest power of all the remaining Valar to Tulkas. Remember that much of the dissemination of Melkor's power was in the creation/corruption of the created world, so he had already become diminished from his original greatness. This is why Tolkien refers to all of Arda as "Morgoth's Ring".
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