statement, for if Attwood and Douglas felt that the nation as a whole would reject their panacea, it is easily conceivable that their enthusiasm for Radical reform would evaporate. But Place adds to his indictment. He declares that, having come to the conclusion that the Currency Scheme would not meet with universal approval or be universally comprehended, they smuggled it into the National Petition, hoping that their "tacking" would be unnoticed in the popular enthusiasm.[1] With all respect to Place as a shrewd politician and a contemporary observer, it must be confessed that he proves too much. He later on praises Douglas for his caution and moderation,[2] and it is permissible to hope, therefore, that Douglas was not such a reckless trickster as this sort of conduct implies. Furthermore, there was a sufficient fund of currency ideas in popular circles to make a project of currency reform seem less criminally absurd than Place thought it was.[3] The currency question was not res judicata by any means, and even Peel's currency theories could be called into question by reputable authority in the next generation.
Apart from class hatred and currency schemes, the Birmingham Union incurred the hostility of many of its new disciples by its moderation. It was this more than anything else that ruined the Union and eliminated it from the movement. When Attwood and his colleagues transformed a more or less local and harmless currency agitation into a national political movement, they found that they were not the only agitators in the field, and that their reputation was as nothing amongst those whom they aspired to lead, compared with that of mob-orators like Stephens, Vincent, or O'Connor. Hence from the very beginning they figured as generals of brigade rather than as commanders-in-chief. Throughout the whole Chartist array there was no commander-in-chief—no one with the authority of a Cobden or the capacity for organisation of a George Wilson.
The immediate cause of rupture between the northern extremists and the Birmingham Union, which occurred in November-December 1838, was the fiery campaign of J. R. Stephens, to whom the People's Charter seemed to give renewed fire and eloquence. From the beginning of September Chartist
