that they burked all discussion of the Charter in its old form. The New Bill of Rights embodied all the "six points" of the Charter, but the old Chartists bitterly resented the tactics which gave priority to this new-fangled scheme. Lovett came out of his retirement to move that the Charter and not the Bill of Rights should be the basis of the movement. He sternly reproached the Sturgeites for their lack of faith. O'Connor himself seconded Lovett's proposal and strove, though with little effect, to conciliate with his blandishments the stubborn spirit of his old adversary. But even their momentary agreement on a common policy united for the time the old Chartist forces. In the hot debate that followed, the doctrinaire tactlessness of the Sturgeite leaders added fuel to the flames of Chartist wrath.[1] "We will espouse your principles, but we will not have your leaders," said Lawrence Heyworth, the most offensive of the Sturgeite orators. Years afterwards Thomas Cooper voiced the general Chartist feeling when he declared "there was no attempt to bring about a union—no effort for conciliation—no generous offer of the right hand of fellowship. We soon found that it was determined to keep the poor Chartists at arm's length."[2]
In the end Lovett's resolution was carried by more than two to one. Thereupon Sturge and his friends retired, and the Conference broke up into two antagonistic sections, neither of which could accomplish anything that mattered. The failure practically put an end to the Complete Suffrage Movement, which was soon submerged in the general current of Radicalism. No doubt the dispute in the form in which it arose was one of words rather than things, but it was no mere question of words that brought Chartists of all sorts into a momentary forgetfulness of their ancient feuds to resist the attempt to wipe out the history of their sect. The split of the Conference arose from the essential incompatibility of the smug ideals of the respectable middle-class Radical, and the vague aspirations of the angry hot-headed workman, bitterly resenting the sufferings of his grievous lot and especially intolerant of the employing class from which Sturge and his friends came. The deep gulf between the Complete Suffragist and the Chartist is symbolised in the extreme contrast between the journalism of the Nonconformist and that of the Northern Star.
