The Rise of the Democracy

by Joseph Clayton

What neither Cartwright nor Paine understood was, that it was not the reasonableness of a proposed reform but the strength of the demand that carried the day. The revolt and independence of the American Colonies were not due to a political preference for a republic, but were the work of public opinion driven by misgovernment to protest. The difficulty in England was that the mass of people might be in great wretchedness, badly housed, ill-fed, and generally neglected, but they were not conscious of any desire for democracy. They were against the government, doubtless, and willing enough, in London, to shout for "Wilkes and Liberty," but the time had not yet come for the working class to believe that enfranchisement was a remedy for the ills they endured.

Major Cartwright was an exceedingly fine type of man; conscientious, public spirited, humane, and utterly without personal ambition. He resigned his commission in the Navy because he believed it wrong to fight against the American Colonies, and he organised a county militia for the sake of national defence. On the pedestal beneath his statue in Cartwright Gardens, just south of Euston Road, in London, the virtues of the "Father of Reform" are described at length, and he is mentioned as "the firm, consistent and persevering advocate of universal suffrage, equal representation, vote by ballot, and annual Parliaments." It was in 1777 that Cartwright published his first pamphlet entitled "Legislative Rights Vindicated," and pleaded for "a return to the ancient and constitutional practice of Edward III." and the election of annual Parliaments. Long Parliaments were the root of all social political evil, Cartwright argued. War, national debt, distress, depopulation, land out of cultivation, Parliamentary debate itself become a mockery—these calamities were all due to long Parliaments; and would be cured if once a year—on June 1st—a fresh Parliament was elected by the votes of every man over eighteen—by ballot and without any plural voting—and a payment of two guineas a day was made to members on their attendance. Of course, Cartwright could not help writing "all are by nature free, all are by nature equal"—no political reformer in the eighteenth century could do otherwise—but, unlike his contemporaries, the Major was a stout Christian, and insisted that as the whole plan of Christianity was founded on the equality of all mankind, political rights must have the same foundation. By the political axiom that "no man shall be taxed but with his own consent, given either by himself or his own representative in Parliament," Cartwright may be quoted as one who had some perception of what democracy meant in England; but he is off the track again in arguing that personality, and not the possession of property, was the sole foundation of the right of being represented in Parliament. It was the possession of property that brought taxation, and with taxation the right to representation. We cannot repeat too often that in England the progress to democracy has never been made on assumptions of an abstract right to vote. We have come to democracy by experience, and this experience has taught us that people who are taxed insist, sooner or later, on having a voice in the administration of the national exchequer. But we have never admitted "personality" as a title to enfranchisement.

THE GORDON RIOTS

Cartwright followed with the multitude of political writers of his time to deduce a right to vote, and his deduction is as worthless as the rest of the a priori reasoning. But the brave old man—he was tried for "sedition" at the age of eighty in the Government panic of 1820—was an entirely disinterested champion of the poor and a real lover of liberty. He believed the affairs of government ought to be a matter of common concern, and that they were quite within the capacities of ordinary men. Cartwright's life—much more than his writings—kept the democratic ideal unshaken in the handful of "Radical Reformers" who survived the Tory reaction on the war with the French Republic in 1793, and his glowing enthusiasm helped to kindle the fire for political enfranchisement that was burning in the hearts of the manufacturing population by 1818. But in 1777 the electorate was not anxious for reform, and the unenfranchised gave no thought to their political disabilities. On the very day in 1780 that the Duke of Richmond proposed, in the House of Lords, a resolution in favour of manhood suffrage and annual Parliaments, the London mob, stirred up by the anti-Catholic fanaticism of Lord George Gordon, marched to Westminster with a petition to repeal Savile's Act of 1778, which allowed Catholics to bequeath land and to educate their own children. There was a riot, and in the course of the next six days the mob burnt Newgate, sacked Catholic chapels, and generally plundered and ravaged the City.

In the House of Commons Pitt made three attempts to get reform considered—in 1782, 1783 and 1785—and on each occasion his resolution was defeated by an overwhelming majority. After that Pitt made no further effort for reform, and from 1793 to 1795 the Government he led passed the Acts of repressive legislation which made all democratic propaganda illegal, and crushed all political agitation.

But "the Cause" was not dead.

Sir Francis Burdett, M.P. for Westminster, Henry Hunt, better known as "Orator Hunt," and Cobbett with his "Political Register," in various ways renewed the campaign for manhood suffrage, and the growth of the manufacturing districts made a change in the constitution of Parliament imperative.

Burdett was sent to the Tower in 1810 for contempt of Parliament, but lived to see the Reform Bill of 1831 passed into law, and died a Tory. Cobbett spent two years in prison, and became M.P. for Oldham in 1832. What Cobbett did with pen—and no man at that day wrote with greater ability for the common people, or with greater acceptance—Hunt did on the platform. Both strove to arouse the working class to demand enfranchisement. Hunt presided at the mass meeting at Peterloo, by Manchester, in 1819—an entirely peaceful meeting which was broken up by the military with some loss of life—and was sent to prison for two years for doing so. He also was elected M.P. (for Preston) in the first reformed Parliament.