Defects of the Reform Bill--Origin of Chartism--The "People's
Charter" Promulgated in 1838--The Riots of 1839 and 1842--The
Vengeance of the Government falls on O'Connor, Lovett, Collins,
Vincent, J. B. O'Brien, and Cooper--The Nonconformist Newspaper
Established by Mr. Miall--Mr. Sturge--Organization of the Complete
Suffrage Union--Character of the Chartists.
The old-fashioned Tories declare that the Reform Bill inscribed
"Ichabod" on the British Constitution. Though it ushered in a better
era, an experience of seventeen years has proved that power has not yet
departed from the privileged few.
A few examples of its defects are given. For instance, Glasgow, with a
population of 270,000, Manchester of 200,000, Birmingham of 160,000,
Leeds of 130,000, were allowed two members of Parliament each; while
Cricklade, with a population of 1,600, Shoreham of 1,500, Retford of
2,400, Wenlock of 2,400, were also allowed two members each. Finsbury,
Lambeth, Mary-le-bone, and Tower Hamlets, with an aggregate population
of 1,100,000, had two members each, whose eight votes were balanced by
the members from Huntingdon, Marlborough, Dorchester, and Truro, with an
aggregate population of 12,500. The entire metropolis, with more than
2,000,000 of inhabitants, received sixteen members, whose power in the
House was nullified by the sixteen members of eight boroughs, with a
total population of less than 24,000. Fifteen of the principal cities
and towns in the kingdom, containing 3,500,000 people and 160,000
electors, were allowed thirty-two representatives, while the same number
was assigned to twenty-seven boroughs, containing 170,000 inhabitants
and 6,900 electors.
The inequalities in the distribution of the suffrage are not less
striking. The number of males in the United Kingdom, of the age of
twenty-one years and upward, is about 7,000,000. The number of
registered electors is a little over 1,000,000. Thus, but about
one-seventh of the adult males is entitled to vote. The suffrage is most
unequally distributed amongst this one-seventh. The House of Commons
consists of 658 members, which gives an average of full 1,500 electors
to each member. But, 15 members are returned by less than 200 electors
each--50 by less than 300 each--100 by less than 500 each--and so on,
till careful calculations make it apparent that a clear majority of the
House is returned by 200,000 electors, or one-fifth of the entire body,
which body consists of only one-seventh of the adult male population.
In the distribution of members, reference was had to the supremacy of
the landlord interest. Thus, South Lancashire, which swarms with a
manufacturing population of more than 1,000,000, and has 25,000
electors, was balanced by aristocratic Lymington, with 3,300
inhabitants, and 150 electors, whom any lord can buy. West Yorkshire,
the seat of the woolen interest, with 1,200,000 people and 40,000
electors, was given the same weight in the House as any two of numerous
boroughs, with a joint population of 6,000, whose 400 or 500 electors
were the cowering vassals of some great landed proprietor. In Lancashire
and Yorkshire, whose skies are blackened with the smoke of their
manufactories, there is one member for every 55,000 inhabitants, while
rural Rutland has one for every 9,000, and corn-growing Dorset one for
every 13,000. Manchester and Salford, the center of the cotton interest,
with 300,000 people, send three members, and agricultural
Buckinghamshire, with less than half that amount of population, sends
eleven.[17]
[17] Entire precision has not been aimed at in the foregoing statistics,
"round numbers" being sufficiently accurate for my purpose.
The usual complexion of the House is alike caused by and aggravates the
evils that spring from unequal representation and partially distributed
suffrage. In the House previous to the present, there were 205 members
closely related to the peers of the realm; 153 officers of the army and
navy; 63 placemen; and 247 patrons of church livings. Of the 658
members, there were only about 200 who had not either title, office,
place, pension, or patronage. And the same is substantially true of the
present House.
These details, which might be multiplied indefinitely, will enable a
very ordinary arithmetician to answer the question, which the CHARTISTS
have rung in the public ear of England: "Does the Reformed House of
Commons represent the people of Great Britain, and Ireland?"
The meager fruits brought forth by the Parliament elected under the
reform bill, convinced a large mass of the enlightened working men, that
Labor must look for relief to a radical change in the constitution of
the popular branch of the legislature. They agreed upon a fundamental
law for Parliamentary reform, to which they gave the name of "The
People's Charter." Hence their name, "Chartists." The Charter, having
been adopted by large numbers of Workingmen's Associations throughout
the country, was ratified and promulgated in August, 1838, by 200,000
persons of the laboring classes, assembled from all parts of the
kingdom, at Birmingham.
The outline of the Charter was mainly the work of Mr. William Lovett, a
London cabinet-maker, one of God's nobility. It was perfected by Messrs.
D. O'Connell, Hume, Bowring, Roebuck, Wakely, P. Thompson, and Crawford,
then members of the Commons, who prepared the draft of an act of
Parliament embodying its provisions. The leading points in the Charter
are six, viz: Universal Suffrage, Voting by Ballot, Annual Parliaments,
Equal Electoral Districts, No Property Qualification of Representatives,
and Payment of Members for their Services. It is remarkable that these
identical reforms were proposed forty years before, in an elaborate
report by a committee of the "Friends of the People," of which the
illustrious Charles James Fox was chairman.
And this is the essence of Chartism. Its principles, which fall like
household words on the American ear, filled the heart of British
aristocracy with dismay and wrath. Nor were the terror and indignation
abated when their promulgation was followed by laying the "Great
Petition," in favor of the People's Charter, bearing one million two
hundred thousand names, on the tables of the House of Commons.
The Chartists were chiefly laboring men, dwelling in cities and towns.
They justly expected countenance and aid from liberal Whigs who had
protested against the aristocratic features of the Reform bill. They
received neither. The cause of national representation was regarded as
only the poor man's question, and as such it was left exclusively to the
poor. The poor, thus abandoned to fight the battle single-handed and
alone, nourished a fatal resentment against all above them. Far-sighted
and pure-minded men among them urged the superiority of intellectual and
moral means over brute force, in promoting their objects. Keen-eyed
demagogues were not wanting to fan their resentment, and remind them
that in their swart arms dwelt the physical strength of the country.
Deprived of political power, (for the great majority were non-voters,)
the mass lent a greedy ear to these wily counselors. Chartism being a
knife-and-fork question to the laboring poor, starving men were easily
induced to seize the pike and the torch under a promise of bread.
Preparations for a rising were made. It was attempted in 1839. A few
riots occurred, a few houses were gutted, a few wheat-ricks fired, a few
cart-mares shot, and some human blood shed. The vengeance of the
Government descended upon the deluded men--the military crushed the
embryo insurrection--the courts imprisoned and transported the
leaders--the noble principles of the Charter were involved in the stigma
which fastened upon a portion of its advocates--the middle classes, who
might have averted the disaster, were, for a season, frightened into a
renunciation of the principles they had maintained during the
discussions on the Reform Bill. A similar outbreak, stimulated by
similar causes, and followed by similar consequences, occurred in 1842.
Governmental vengeance fell alike on the men of peace and the men of
violence. Feargus O'Connor, a hot-headed bully and coward, who had
stigmatized the pacific doctrines as "moral-force humbuggery," was sent
to York Castle. William Lovett and John Collins, two noble specimens of
the working classes, spent a year in Warwick jail. The young and
brilliant Henry Vincent was lodged in a dungeon two years, for making
the Welsh mountaineers "discontented with the Government." J. Bronterre
O'Brien, a legitimate son of the land of Emmett, suffered twelve months
in Lancaster Castle. Thomas Cooper, who dropped the awl, took up the
pen, and wrote the celebrated poem, "The Purgatory of Suicides," was
imprisoned two years and a quarter in Stafford jail. Other less
conspicuous persons were incarcerated at home, or banished beyond the
seas.
The election of 1841 returned a large Tory majority to Parliament,
dissolved old party connections, and drove the radical reformers of the
middle and working classes once more together in opposition to the
common foe. _The Nonconformist_, a weekly newspaper, just then
established in London, and conducted with marked ability by Mr. Edward
Miall, took up the subject of a reform in Parliament, in a series of
articles which powerfully argued the right of the working men to the
franchise, and the necessity of an equalization of the representation.
These essays were subsequently printed in a pamphlet and widely
circulated. Their calm and cogent reasonings, their hearty and fervid
appeals, arrested general attention. Mr. Miall gave to his scheme the
name of "Complete Suffrage." It only remained for a practical man like
Joseph Sturge to give to what was so far but a happy theory, the form
and vitality of an organized movement.
After some preliminary meetings, Mr. Sturge, who had recently returned
to England from an investigation of the electoral system of the United
States, assembled a National Convention, or Conference, at Birmingham,
in April, 1842, composed of delegates favorable to the main points of
the "People's Charter," but opposed on principle and policy to all
resort to intimidation or force in the accomplishment of their objects.
Many of the best and brightest minds of the kingdom were present. During
its four days' session, the debates were animated; the feeling earnest
and warm; but the excitement glowed rather than flamed. The Chartists
were represented by Lovett, O'Connor, Collins, Vincent, and O'Brien,
while Sturge, Miall, Rev. Thomas Spencer, and Rev. Dr. Ritchie,
represented the Complete Suffragists. After full discussion, the six
points of the Charter were adopted, and an association, called "The
National Complete Suffrage Union," was formed.
The cause was now on a good foundation, and under wise control. The same
month of the Conference, Mr. Sharman Crawford, a judicious friend of the
non-voting millions, divided the House of Commons on a motion in favor
of complete suffrage. Among the sixty-nine members who voted with him
were Messrs. Bowring, Cobden, Duncombe, Gibson, Napier, O'Connell,
Roebuck, Strickland, Villiers, Wakely, and Ward, all of whom held
prominent positions in the House.
It would transcend my limits to detail the progress of the Complete
Suffrage movement since its organization in 1842. During these seven
years of Corn-Law and Irish agitation, so unfavorable for fixing the
public mind upon the question of an organic reform in Parliament, the
Complete Suffragists have discussed their great proposition before the
people, have returned several able advocates to the House, deepened the
conviction that a thorough reoerganization of the Legislature is a _sine
qua non_ to future radical reforms, and aroused a determination to place
that subject on the Parliamentary "cards" so soon as matters that now
occupy them are disposed of.
In the mean time, the Chartists proper have increased their numbers, as
their Monster Petition of many millions, presented to Parliament during
the last year, proves; and with the increase of numbers has come an
abatement of their belligerent spirit, as their law-abiding conduct on
that occasion shows; thus inspiring the hope of all good men, that when
the great battle between the laboring many and the governing few shall
be fought, Chartists and Suffragists will unite in a common struggle to
make the Commons House of Parliament the representative of the common
people of the realm.[18]
[18] One or two recent divisions in the House of Commons are no
criterion for determining the strength of the Free Suffragists and
Chartists. That subject is not now on the "cards."
It would be doing injustice to some of the clearest-headed men in
England to suppose that they for one moment regard the most radical
reform in Parliament as the final remedy for the enormous evils that
make one-eighth of the people of the realm absolute paupers, and
one-fourth of the entire population paupers in all but the name. They
look to the establishment of such a reform only as affording to the
depressed classes an essential means for remodeling, on a basis of
equality, the whole Governmental structure. They seek it, not as an end,
but as an instrument to attain an end--a John the Baptist to herald the
times and the men that shall make the crooked straight, the rough
smooth, the inequalities level.
Scarcely any body of men have been regarded with more unintelligent
horror, or subjected to more unreasonable denunciation, by the higher
classes of England, than the Chartists. And yet, no section of British
reformers are more worthy of admiration for the principles they avow, or
of sympathy for the persecutions they have endured. It has been my good
fortune to make the acquaintance of several of these men, to attend some
of their meetings, and read many of their publications. I have never
taken by the hand nobler members of the human family, nor listened to
speeches that glowed with more eloquent devotion to the rights of man,
nor perused papers more thoroughly imbued with the democratic sentiment,
and which inculcated lofty principles in a style of more calm and lucid
reasoning. Their publications dwell with emphasis upon the blessings of
peace, the superiority of moral over physical means in the attainment of
ends, the importance of education, of industry and economy, of
self-reliance without arrogance, and of an independent and manly bearing
in their intercourse with the world. Bad men are among them, who have
often imposed upon their ignorance or inflamed their passions, goading
them to violence and crime. But the mass are as far removed from the
state of barbarism and brutality, which their traducers have assigned to
them, as _they_ are from the utterance of truth or the practice of
charity.
It stirs the blood not a little to see such men as Lovett, Collins,
Vincent, O'Brien, and Cooper, suffer through long years, in dark and
filthy cells, for teaching the people to be "discontented" with a
Government that first denies them any voice in its administration, and
then taxes them down to the starvation point, that it may pamper a
bloated priesthood and an overbearing aristocracy at home, and build
navies and equip armies to scour the seas and scourge unoffending tribes
in the uttermost parts of the earth. However, those who know John Bull
best say the only way to manage him is to mingle a little threatening
with a good deal of blarney, when the conceited old bully, after a
fearful amount of bluster, will yield a point--as witness Catholic
Emancipation, Parliamentary Reform, and Corn-Law Repeal. Perhaps these
pacific counselors are right; though a James Otis, or a Patrick Henry,
with the cry of "No taxation without representation!" on their lips,
would recommend that the towers of Windsor, and the minarets of Lambeth,
be pitched instantly into the Thames.
A more particular notice of some of the persons who have acted prominent
parts in the transactions above detailed, will be given in the next
chapter.