Chartist Movement in Britain, 1838-1856, Volume 2

Gregory Claeys

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000558739
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Containing over 100 pamphlets, this edition provides a resource for the study of Chartism, covering the main areas of Chartist activity, including agitation for the Charter itself, the Land Plan, the issue of moral versus physical force and trade unionism.

Chartism; A New Organization of the People,

Embracing a Plan for the Education and Improvement of the People, Politically and Socially; Addressed to the Working-Classes of the United Kingdom, and More Especially to the Advocates of the Rights and Liberties of the Whole People as Set Forth in the 'People's Charter.' Written in Warwick Gaol.¹

DOI: 10.4324/9781003113218-15

1 First edn, 1840, 124 pp.; second edn, 1841.

BY WILLIAM LOVETT, CABINET-MAKER,² AND JOHN COLLINS, TOOL-MAKER.³

London: J. WATSON, 15, CITY-ROAD, FINSBURY; H. HETHERINGTON, 126, STRAND; AND J. CLEAVE, 1, SHOE-LANE, FLEET STREET. 1840.

2 William Lovett (1800-77), radical and Owenite bookseller.

3 John Collins (d. 1850), shoemaker and Sunday School teacher; member of the Birmingham Political Union in 1837; imprisoned with William Lovett for seditious libel 1839-40; delegate to the Complete Suffrage Movement conference in 1842; organised and preached to the Newhall Street Christian Chartist Church.

Preface

Being desirous of exerting the humble abilities God has given us towards procuring for our brethren equality of political rights, and placing them in such a social condition as shall best develope and preserve all their faculties, physical, moral, and intellectual, we have presumed to put forth the following pages for their consideration, containing our opinions of the best means of accomplishing those important objects. Believing that the proposed act of parliament, entitled 'The People's Charter,' is calculated to secure to all classes of society their just share of political power, and forming one of the most important steps to all social improvement, we are desirous of seeing the energies of all peacefully concentrated to cause that measure to be enacted as one of the laws of our country. Unhappily, the conflicting opinions entertained by some portion of the working-classes regarding the means of accomplishing that object have hitherto greatly retarded it; but we trust that experience, the great teacher of mankind, has led them to perceive that no other means are likely to be so effective as a peaceful combination of the millions, founding their hopes on the might and influence of intellectual and moral progress. Our feelings, at least, being in favour of such a description of organization, have induced us to set forth the advantages it would possess; – first, in causing great numbers to join us who are politically indifferent, or entertain erroneous notions respecting the objects and intentions of 'the Chartists;' and, second, of the mode of perfecting that union when formed, and preparing our brethren to enjoy all the social advantages of the political power they are now seeking to obtain. The reflecting portion of our brethren are beginning to perceive the great necessity for this intellectual and moral preparation; — not as set forth by those 'educationists' who seek to spread their own exclusive or sectarian notions, or by those who seek to train up the youthful mind of our country to be submissive admirers of 'things as they are;' but for establishing such a just and extensive system of education as shall ere long make our country intellectually great, politically free, and socially happy. Various propositions have been made at different times for educating the whole people, none: of which have been, nor deserve to be, adopted, on account of their exclusive or sectarian character. There is also so much evil to be apprehended from placing the education of our children in the hands of any government, especially of an irresponsible one, that it becomes one of the most important duties of the working and middle classes, to take the subject into their own hands, and to establish a just and liberal system of education, lest the power of educating their own children be taken from them by the arbitrary act of a corrupt and exclusive government. If, therefore, we should succeed in arousing the attention of the millions to the great importance of the subjects treated of in this pamphlet, we think we shall not have suffered twelve months' imprisonment in vain.

Contents

1. PREFACE Page. 207
2. Introduction 208
3. Proposed Rules and Regulations for the National Association of the United Kingdom 224
4. Ground Plan of a District Hall 237
5. Benefits of Organization 236
6. Importance of General Education, and the Modes to be pursued in the different Schools 251
7. Specimens of Lesson Cards 286

Introduction

The spirit which has awakened, pervades, and moves the multitude, is that of intellectual inquiry. The light of thought is illuming the minds of the masses; kindled by the cheap publications, the discussions, missionaries, and meetings of the last ten years: a light which no power can extinguish, nor control its vivifying influence. For the spark once struck is inextinguishable, and will go on extending and radiating with increasing power; thought will generate thought; and each illumined mind will become a centre for the enlightenment of thousands, till the effulgent blaze penetrates every cranny of corruption, and scare selfishness and injustice from their seats of power. Chartism is an emanation of this spirit: its aim is the regeneration of all, the subjugation of none; its objects, as righteous as those of its opponents are wicked and unjust, are to place our institutions on the basis of justice, to secure labour its reward and merit its fruits, and to purify the heart and rectify the conduct of all, by knowledge, morality, and love of freedom. Discord and folly have to some extent unhappily prevailed, for want of sufficient investigation, but still Chartism has already been led by knowledge beyond the crushing influence of irresponsible and vindictive persecutors; and though prejudice and faction may contend with it for a season, it is yet destined to become a great and efficient instrument of moral and intellectual improvement.

It will be well, therefore, for all those who seek the happiness and prosperity of their country — who seek to enjoy the fruits of honest industry, to extend their hands and exercise their hearts in acts of benevolence and humanity — to make wiser preparations to meet this growing spirit than are advised in the arming proclamations, or found in the acts of whiggery. Our rulers may exasperate by coercion, but they will find it powerless in conquering the minds and subduing the hearts of the millions; of men who, tracing their burthens to exclusive legislation, are determined to obtain their just share of political right at any sacrifice. Those who madly rule the destinies of England may adopt the same policy their equally insane predecessors pursued towards unhappy Ireland; and like them may succeed in widening the gulph between rich and poor, and severing those feelings of justice and humanity which ought to unite man with his brother man. They may extend their blue-coated gend'armerie from town to village; they may fortify with soldiery every workshop, and convert the peaceful hills and dales of England into one great arsenal, to keep the haughty and extravagant few in possession of unjust power and domination: but in the maddened attempt they will throw back the rolling tide of intellectual and civilizing refinement; they will generate a military, suspicious, cunning, and vindictive spirit in the people, which, with taxation, oppression, want, and misery, will afford abundant materials for the storm of a frenzied and desolating revolution.

But will the spirit of Christianity, philosophy, and justice permit of these results? Will those whose active charity has caused them to explore, midst dangers and death, the remotest tent and wildest glen to instruct the mind and humanize the savage heart, forbear to exercise their benevolence in favour of their care-worn brethren at home? Shall Christian eloquence be employed against every species of slavery, but such as is found in the fields, the factories, and workshops of Britain? Will those who esteem all mankind as 'brethren, and all the nations of the earth as one great family' — whose golden rules of Christian duty are based on principles of brotherly love, equality, and justice, permit these glorious principles to be outraged by men of wealth and power, merely because they profess to tolerate the teaching of principles they once persecuted and still scorn to practise? Will the followers of him who ever denounced extortion and injustice, and proclaimed that the poor and oppressed were the especial objects of his mission, remain silent spectators of oppression and injustice? Will the teachers and preachers of his inspired precepts be so far forgetful of their duty, as to side with the exclusive and oppressive few, whose ambitious projects and mercenary designs have converted earth's fruitful blessings and man's happiness into the curses of war, destruction, and misery? — with men who, not satisfied with the black record of the last hundred and fifty years of blood and human wretchedness, the curse of which still crushes us to earth,^* are still pursuing the steps of their fathers, in warring against the rights and liberties of humanity?

* The war of 1688 lasted nine years, and cost, at the time	36,000,000
Borrowed to support it, twenty millions, the interest on which, in one hundred and fifty-two years, at three and a half per cent, amounts to †	106,400,000
The war of the Spanish succession lasted eleven years, and cost	62,500,000
Borrowed to support it, thirty-two and a half millions: the interest, in one hundred and twenty-seven years, amounts to	144,462,500
The Spanish war, ending in 1748, lasted nine years, and cost	54,000,000
Borrowed to support it, twenty-nine millions: the interest, in one hundred and two years, amounts to	103,530,000
The war of 1756 lasted seven years, and cost	112,000,000
Borrowed to support it, sixty millions: the interest, in seventy-seven years, amounts to	161,700,000
The American war lasted eight years, and cost	136,000,000
Borrowed to support it, one hundred and four millions: the interest, in sixty-five years, amounts to	236,600,000

† The lowest rate of interest has been computated, and that from the conclusion of the war.

	£
The French revolutionary war lasted nine years, and cost	464,000,000
Borrowed to support it, two hundred and one millions: the interest, in thirty-eight years, amounts to	267,330,000
The war against Buonaparte lasted twelve years, and cost	1,159,000,000
Borrowed to support it, three hundred and eighty-eight millions: the interest, in twenty-five years, amounts to	339,500,000
	£3,383,022,500

Can Christians read of those scenes of blood and carnage which exclusive legislation has engendered without horror? Can their imagination depict the fraudulent means by which fathers, husbands, and brothers have been torn from their families and homes, to bleed and die midst hecatombs of victims, without feeling the virtuous desire to remove the unholy and brutalizing cause? But these, say the advocates of exclusiveness, are the acts of days past, of scenes conscientiously lamented, and never to be renewed by any government. Friends of peace and humanity, trust not these deceitful boasters; hug not the specious deception to your hearts, but rather let the violated rights, the burning cottages, the slain, unburied, brute-devoured victims in Canada be their answers. Nay, refer them to ominous truths nearer home, and let the formidable answers to our supplications for justice,' in the shape of rifle-brigades, mortars, rockets, and bludgeon men, convince you of the improved feelings of exclusive and class legislation.

The black catalogue of recorded crimes which all history developes, joined to the glaring and oppressive acts of every day's experience, must convince every reflective mind that irresponsible power, vested in one man or in a class of men, is the fruitful source of every crime. For men so circumstanced, having no curb to the desires which power and dominion occasion, pursue an intoxicating and expensive career, regardless of the toiling beings who, under forms of law, are robbed to support their insatiable extravagance. The objects of their cruelty may lift up their voices in vain against their oppressors, for their moral faculties having lost the wholesome check of public opinion, they become callous to the supplications of their victims.

Irresponsible, except to their own order, and equally extravagant and regardless, are those who now hold the political power of England. The working classes, therefore, having long felt the evils resultin...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents Page
• Address to the Fathers and Mothers, Sons and Daughters, of the Working Classes, on the System of Exclusive Dealing. And the Formation of Joint Stock Provision Companies, Shewing how the People may Free Themselves from Oppression (1839)
• 'The Right of Englishmen to Have Arms: As Shown in a Speech Delivered at the National Convention, on Thursday, 9th April 1839'(1839)
• Our Rights: or, The Just Claims of the Working Classes, Stated, in a Letter to the Rev. T. H. Madge, Curate of Kettering (1839)
• Common Sense, Under a Government 'Pro Tempore,' Addressed to a Body of Gentlemen, Deputed from Certain Large Districts for National Purposes (1839)
• The Female Chartists' Visit to the Parish Church. A Sermon, Addressed to the Female Chartists of Cheltenham, Sunday, August 25th, 1839, on the Occasion of their Attending the Parish Church in a Body (1839)
• A Chartist's Reply to 'A Few Words to the Chartists', 'by' One Styling Himself 'A Friend' (1839)
• The Ballot. Some Objections Answered, with a Modification as Prayed of Parliament (1839)
• An Address to that Portion of the People of Great Britain and Ireland Calling Themselves Reformers, on the Political Excitement of the Present Time (1839)
• Manifesto of the General Convention of the Industrious Classes (1839)
• The Way to Universal Suffrage (1839)
• Political Monopoly Hostile to the Spirit and Progress of Christianity (c. 1840)
• The Question 'What is a Chartist?' Answered (c. 1840)
• A Few Hints about the Army (c. 1840)
• Chartism, Trades-Unionism, and Socialism; or, Which is the Best Calculated to Produce Permanent Relief to the Working Classes? A Dialogue (1840)
• Chartism; A New Organization of the People, Embracing a Plan for the Education and Improvement of the People, Politically and Socially; Addressed to the Working-Classes of the United Kingdom, and More Especially to the Advocates of the Rights and Liberties of the Whole People as Set Forth in the 'People's Charter.' Written in Warwick Gaol (1840)
• The Rights of Woman: Exhibiting Her Natural, Civil, and Political Claims to a Share in the Legislative and Executive Power of the State (1840)
• Class Legislation Exposed; or, Practical Atheism Identified with the Advocates of Property Qualification for Legislative Enfranchisement (1841)
• Anon, Chartism v. Whigism. A Letter to the Rev. R. S. Bayley, F.S.A. in reply to his Charges against the Chartists (1841)
• Feargus O'Connor, The Remedy for National Poverty and Impending National Ruin: or The Only Safe Way of Repealing the Corn Laws by Enabling Each Working Family to Produce a 'Big Loaf and a 'Cheap Loaf for Themselves, at Home! (1841)
• Chartism. Authentic Report of the Speech of Mr William Jones, upon Responding to the Toast of 'The People's Charter, and May it Soon Become the Law of the hand'; at a Soirée, held in the Queen's Theatre, Christian-St, Liverpool, on Monday, 21th September, 1841; in Celebration of the Release of James Bronterre O'Brien, and Feargus O'Connor, from their Dungeons (1841)
• The Radical Reformers of England, Scotland, & Wales, to the Irish People (c. 1841)
• Reconciliation between the Middle and Labouring Classes (1842)
• The People's Rights: and How to Get Them (1842)
• The Land & Its Capabilities. A Lecture and Repeal of the Union (1842)