The Chartist Movement/Chapter 1

by Mark Hovell

CHAPTER I

THE CHARTER AND ITS ORIGIN

The Chartist Movement, which occupied so large a space in English public affairs during the ten years 1838 to 1848, was a movement whose immediate object was political reform and whose ultimate purpose was social regeneration. Its programme of political reform was laid down in the document known as the "People's Charter," issued in the spring of 1838. Its social aims were never defined, but they were sufficiently, though variously, described by leading men in the movement. It was a purely working-class movement, originating exclusively and drawing its whole following from the industrialised and unpropertied working class which had but recently come into existence. For the most part it was a revolt of this body against intolerable conditions of existence. That is why its programme of social amelioration was vague and negative. It was an attempt on the part of the less educated portion of the community to legislate for a new and astounding condition of society whose evils the more enlightened portion had been either helpless or unwilling to remedy. The decisive character of the political aims of the Chartists bespeaks the strength of political tradition in England.

The "People's Charter" is a draft of an Act of Parliament, a Bill to be presented to the House of Commons.^[1] It is drawn up in a clear and formal but not too technical style, with preamble, clauses, and penalties, all duly set forth. It is a lengthy document, occupying some nineteen octavo pages, but brevity itself in comparison with a fully-drawn Bill for the same purpose from the hands of a Parliamentary draughtsman. The preamble is as follows:

Whereas to insure, in as far as it is possible by human forethought and wisdom, the just government of the people, it is necessary to subject those who have the power of making the laws to a wholesome and strict responsibility to those whose duty it is to obey them when made,

And whereas this responsibility is best enforced through the instrumentality of a body which emanates directly from, and is immediately subject to, the whole people, and which completely represents their feelings and interests,

And whereas the Commons' House of Parliament now exercises in the name and on the supposed behalf of the people the power of making the laws, it ought, in order to fulfil with wisdom and with honesty the great duties imposed on it, to be made the faithful and accurate representation of the people's wishes, feelings, and interests.

The definite provisions fall under six heads—the famous "Six Points" of the Charter. First, every male adult is entitled to the franchise in his district after a residence of three months.^[2] Second, voting is by ballot. Third, there will be three hundred constituencies divided as equally as possible on the basis of the last census, and rearranged after each census. Fourth, Parliament is to be summoned and elected annually. Fifth, there is to be no other qualification for election to Parliament beyond the approval of the electors—that is, no property qualification. Sixth, members of Parliament are to be paid for their services.

Besides these fundamentals of a democratic Parliamentary system, there are minor but highly important provisions. The Returning Officers are to be elected simultaneously with the members of Parliament, and they are to be paid officials. All elections are to be held on one and the same day, and plural voting is prohibited under severe penalties. There is no pauper disqualification.^[3] All the expenses of elections are to be defrayed out of an equitable district-rate. Canvassing is illegal, and there are to be no public meetings on the day of election. A register of attendance of the members of Parliament is to be kept—a logical outcome of payment. For the infringement of the purity of elections, for plural voting, canvassing, and corrupt practices, imprisonment is the only penalty; for neglect, fines.^[4]

As an arrangement for securing the purity of elections and the adequate representation of public opinion in the House of Commons, the "People's Charter" is as nearly perfect as could be desired, and if a sound democratic government could be achieved by the perfection of political machinery, the Chartist programme would accomplish this desirable end. The Chartists, like the men of 1789 in France, placed far too great a faith in the beneficent effects of logically devised democratic machinery. This is the inevitable symptom of political inexperience. We shall nevertheless see that there were Chartists, and those the best minds in the movement, who realised that there were other forces working against democracy which could not be removed by mechanical improvements, but must be combated by a patient education of the mind and a building up of the material welfare of the common people—the forces of ignorance, vice, feudal and aristocratic tradition.

The political Chartist programme is now largely incorporated into the British Constitution, though we have wisely rejected that multiplication of elections which would either exhaust public interest or put an end to the stability and continuity of administration and policy. In itself the Chartist Movement on its political side represents a phase of an agitation for Parliamentary Reform which dates in a manner from the reign of Elizabeth.^[5] The agitation began therefore when Parliament itself began to play a decisive part in public affairs, and increased in vehemence and scope according as the importance of Parliament waxed.

The abuses of the representative system were already recognised and turned to advantage by politicians, royal and popular, during the latter half of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century; but beyond a single timid attempt at reform by James I. nothing was attempted until the great politico-religious struggle between 1640 and 1660. It is here that we must look for the origins of modern radical and democratic ideas. The fundamentals of the representative system came up for discussion, and in the Instrument of Government, the written constitution which established the Protectorate in 1653, a drastic scheme of reform, including the normalisation of the franchise and a sweeping redistribution of seats, was made. In the preliminaries to this the question whether true representation was of persons or of property, which goes to the root of the matter, was debated long and earnestly by the Army in 1647. In the debate on the Agreement of the People, the Radical and Whig standpoints are clearly exhibited.^[6]

Mr. Pettus—Wee judge that all inhabitants that have nott lost their birthright should have an equall voice in Elections.

Rainborough—I think its cleare that every man that is to live under a Government, ought first by his owne consent to putt himself under that Government.

Ireton—… You must fly for refuge to an absolute naturall right. … For my parte I think itt is noe Right att all. I think that noe person hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing or determining of the affaires of the kingdome and in chusing those that shall determine what lawes wee shall bee ruled by heere, noe person hath a right to this, that hath nott a permanent fixed interest in this kingdome.

Here obviously the question of manhood or property suffrage is the issue. Colonel Rich declared that manhood suffrage would be the end of property.

Those that have noe interest in the kingdome will make itt their interest to choose those that have noe interest. Itt may happen that the majority may by law, nott in a confusion, destroy propertie: there may bee a law enacted that there shall bee an equality of goods and estate.^[7]

There was at the same time a demand for short and regular Parliaments, and that elections should be made "according to some rule of equality or proportion" based upon "the respective rates they (the counties and boroughs) bear in the common charges and burdens of the kingdome … to render the House of Commons as neere as may bee an equall representative of the whole body of the People that are to elect." Parliament was to be elected biennially and to sit not more than eight months or less than four.^[8]

Here, therefore, is the nucleus of a Radical Programme: Manhood Suffrage, Short Parliaments, and Equal Representation. We have even a hint at the doctrine of "absolute naturall right," which lies at the base of modern democratic theory since the French Revolution, and which found an echo in the minds of all Chartists two hundred years after the famous debates at Putney. With the downfall of the Commonwealth such conceptions of abstract political justice were snowed under by the Whig-Tory reaction. Henceforth both parties stoutly upheld the "stake in the kingdom" idea of representation. The height of this reaction came in the High Tory days of Queen Anne, when the legal foundations of the aristocratic régime were laid. The imposition of a property qualification upon would-be members of Parliament dates from 1710, when it was enacted that the candidate for a county must possess £600 a year and for a borough £300 a year, in both cases derived from landed property.^[9] This act was passed in the face of some Whig opposition, as the Whigs would have made exceptions in favour of the wealthy merchants of their party. Two years later followed the first of the enactments throwing election expenses upon the candidate.^[10] A further diminution of popular control resulted from the Septennial Act, though this was a Whig measure.

The Radical tradition, however, was not dead but sleeping. It lived on amongst the dissenting and nonconformist sections, whose ancestors had fought and debated in the days of Cromwell and had been evicted in 1662. The revival of Nonconformity under the stimulus of Methodism, the growth of political and historical criticism during the eighteenth century, and the growing estrangement between the House of Commons and the people at large, brought about a resurrection of Radicalism. In the second half of the century the Radical Programme appeared in full vigour.

The first plank of the Radical platform to be brought into public view was the shortening of the duration of Parliaments. In 1744 leave to bring in a Bill establishing Annual Parliaments was refused only by a small majority. In 1758 another Bill was refused leave by a much more decisive vote. In 1771 Alderman Sawbridge failed to obtain leave to introduce a similar measure, although he had the moral support of no less important persons than Chatham and Junius.^[11] In the same year a Wilkite society recommended that Parliamentary candidates should pledge themselves to support a Bill to "shorten the duration of Parliaments and to reduce the number of Placemen and Pensioners in the House of Commons, and also to obtain a more fair and equal representation of the people."^[12]

By this time the flood of controversy aroused by the Wilkes cases was in full flow, and the tide of Radical opinion was swelled by the revolt of the American Colonies. In 1774 Lord Stanhope, and in 1776 the famous Major John Cartwright, published more sweeping plans of Parliamentary Reform. Cartwright's scheme is set forth in the pamphlet, Take your Choice. Annual Parliaments and the payment of members are defended and advocated on the ground that they were "the antient practice of the Constitution," an argument which was a mainstay of the Chartist leaders. Payment of members was in force down to the seventeenth century, the oft-cited Andrew Marvell receiving wages from his Hull constituents as late as 1678. In claiming Annual Parliaments as a return to ancient ways Cartwright had the authority, such as it was, of Swift.^[13] Universal suffrage, vote by ballot, and the abolition of plural voting also found a place in Cartwright's scheme, but he maintained the property qualification for members of Parliament.^[14] Thus four of the six "points" of the Charter were already admitted into the Radical programme. It only required a few years to add equal electoral districts and the abolition of the property qualification.

These were added by a committee of reformers under the guidance of Fox in 1780. The whole programme figured in the interrupted speech of the Duke of Richmond in the House of Lords in the same year and in the programme of the Society of the Friends of the People (1792–95). The Chartists were not unaware of the long ancestry of their principles.^[15] There was a prophetic succession of Radicals between 1791, when the first working men's Radical society—the London Corresponding Society—was founded, and 1838, when the Charter was published. Down to the outbreak of the French Revolution the Radical faith in England, as in France, was mainly confessed in middle-class and some aristocratic circles. Wilkes, Fox, Sawbridge, and the Duke of Richmond are types of these early Radicals. With the opening of the States-General and the rapid increase of terrorism in France the respectable English Radicals began to shelve their beliefs. On the other hand, the lower classes rallied strongly to the cause of Radical reform, and the Radical programme fell into their keeping, remaining their exclusive property for the next forty years. When the middle class in the days after Waterloo returned to the pursuit of Parliamentary Reform, it was reform of a much less ambitious character. The working classes still held to the six points. During these forty years Radicalism became a living faith amongst the working class. It had had its heroes and its prophets and its martyrs, and when the salvation promised by the Whig reform of 1832 had proved illusory, it was perfectly natural to raise once more, in the shape of the "People's Charter," the ancient standard of popular reform.

By this time, however, the six points had acquired a wholly different significance. In the minds of the early Radicals they had represented the practical realisation of the vague notions of natural right. The programme was a purely political one, and was scarcely connected either with any specific projects of social or other reforms, or with any particular social theory. It represented an end in itself, the realisation of democratic theory. By 1838 the Radical programme was recognised no longer as an end in itself, but as the means to an end, and the end was the social and economic regeneration of society.

1. The Charter is divided into thirteen sections:

   I. Preamble.
   II. Franchise.
   III. Equal Electoral Districts.
   IV. Registration Officer.
   V. Returning Officer.
   VI. Deputy Returning Officer.
   VII. Registration Clerk.
   VIII. Arrangement for Registration.
   IX. Arrangement for Nominations.
   X. Arrangement for Elections.
   XI. Annual Parliaments.
   XII. Payment of Members.
   XIII. Penalties.

2. Residence of three months is only mentioned casually, in connection with registration.
3. Added in 1842.
4. For full text see Lovett, Life and Struggles, pp. 449 et seq. This is the revised edition of 1842, but is substantially the same as that of 1838.
5. Porritt, Unreformed House of Commons, Cambridge, 1903, i. 1.
6. Clarke Papers, ed. Firth, 1. 299-307.
7. Ibid. p. 315.
8. Ibid. pp. 363 et seq., "Agreement of the People." Gardiner, Select Documents of the Puritan Revolution, "Heads of the Proposals."
9. Porritt, i. 166.
10. Ibid. i. 185-195.
11. Veitch, The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform, p. 34.
12. Ibid. p. 32.
13. Life of Major John Cartwright, by his niece F. D. Cartwright, London, 1826, i. 82.
14. Veitch, p. 48.
15. Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 168. The preface to the first (1838) edition of the "People's Charter" contains a brief history of the "Six Points from 1776 onwards.