CHARTISM - popular radicalism - DG WRIGHT

CHARTISM - popular radicalism - DG WRIGHT

1. "mass working-class movement making a determined bid for political power"

   • traditionally all working class, though deviated from this internalising select middle class
     • originally popular radical movement to achieve alteration to political theories - recent research claims "rational agitation" - political reaction to political events
       • also frustrations living conds, envir pollution, trade cycle, intro machinery
         • many turned to chartism due to econ recession 1837-42 -- unemploym & hunger
           • most popular petition had 6 millions signatures

2. slogan - "peacefully if we can: forcibly if we must"

3. first political movement which is wholey working class

   • never totally separate from middle class, many local activists were bourgeoisie (middle class)

4. 1838-39 northern industrial districts developed mass movement -- london became so after 1840

5. Friedrich Engels - German socialist, wrote communist manifesto with Marx in 1848

6. rooted from inequality of society - exploitation of working class

   • ideology that economic inequality derived from political inequality
     • tension middle & working class as middle supported govt - supression TU & passed new Poor Law and helped distribute punishm to uprisings

7. Chartists divided over how best to achieve the passing of the 6 points of the People's Charter

   • however didn't have plan for when plans were rejected

8. When the Chartist movement was established in the late 1830s, only 18 per cent of the adult male population of Britain could vote (before 1832 just 10 per cent could vote).

9. aim of London Working Men's Association - 'to seek by every legal means to place all classes of society in possession of their equal, political, and social rights'.

10. 6 changes proposed: Universal suffrage • Abolition of property qualifications for members of parliament • Annual parliamentary elections • Equal representation • Payment of members of Parliament • Vote by secret ballot

11. spread the word through newspapers, meetings and speeches

12. opposed by almost all who had the vote, MPs & ruling classes

    • shot themselves in the foot by lack of unity and organisation
      • split over use of moral force and physical force

13. the People's Charter - written by William Lovett

    • chartist movement led by Feargus O’Conno
      • physical force
    • 'moral force'