A NEW COMMONWEALTH
Charter Day, 18 September 1838
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Extract from the Promulgation Speech of Feargus O'Connor
Charter Square, London
The half-finished construction of the monuments at this Square do provide a fine symbol for the state of our country now. These statues shall be completed by the People of this land to glorify them and their newly won liberty! Further afield, the Palace of Westminster over yonder, lost in conflagration some years ago and still unrestored, shall be rebuilt in our own image. Our great thirst for freedom shall at last be quenched.
It is with great joy that I accept the offer of the Speakership of Our New House of Commons. Both I and our interim Ministry, drawn from members of the National Parliament of the Industrious, will begin the hard work of rebuilding and restoring our nation, and fulfilling the hopes of the people. We, like the People of this Land, are of but one voice and one will, have now put aside the antagonisms of class and party, and shall set to work tirelessly until all that we desire has been achieved.
And this day – to be forever known as Charter Day - shall be enshrined as the completion and capstone of the Building of Our Commonwealth of Great Britain and Ireland.
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Seamus Adlington, The Crises of Britain, 1830-1848 (St. John's, 1963)
In spite of the confident tone of many of the publications of the era, and particularly the triumphant statements of Feargus O’Connor, the seeds of later tensions within British political life were readily apparent even in 1838. The vagueness of the Six Points and the wide agreement across Britain for a further extension of the franchise in the face of the crises of the mid-1830s ensured that the early movement for the Charter could mobilise a wide range of support from across the political spectrum, and from all the different regions of the former United Kingdom.
However, this very broadness fed into its difficulties. The new Parliament was by no means united. As well as a whole bevy of artisan and middle-class radicals drawing inspiration from a plethora of ideologies, including Jacobins, Godwinites, Painites, Foxites, Benthamites and Owenites, the ranks of the newly elected parliament included philosophic liberals and utilitarians, evangelical non-conformists and Free thinkers, Irish nationalists and Repealers, free-traders, agrarian reformers, trade unionists, paternalist manufacturers, and even some on the extreme fringes of the old aristocratic Whig Party, all of whom had been caught up in the struggle for the Charter. They remained at loggerheads over economic and social affairs, defence, constitutional issues, foreign relations and religious policy.
More problematic were the events of the “Great Rising” itself. The initial resilience of the Government and elites, followed by their near total collapse in the face of protracted resistance, had meant that events had moved far quicker and taken on a more extreme character than many of the movement’s early supporters had expected. “Disenclosure” and the restoration (or, more accurately, reinvention) of the institution of Common Land, had been enacted by newly elected mayoralties and sheriffs across rural areas, often simply formalizing what landless labourers had seized themselves. Central government control was weak: the uprising had exposed the piecemeal structure of the old British state, and the network of local elites it had relied upon had now been totally uprooted. Further afield, the large-scale revolts in Canada and Ireland and the vicious eruption of new wars between settlers and the indigenous population in several colonies, particularly Southern Africa, Guyana and New Zealand, showed that Britain’s position in the world was changing rapidly.
The vagueness of the new political structure compounded these issues. While O’Connor was careful to stress continuity with his talk of the Ancient Constitution, in practice, the complete reconfiguration of Parliament and the law courts, the effective dissolution of both the House of Lords and the Monarchy, and the marginalization or exile of many of the former political and economic elite, meant that the new system was quite different. A House of Commons, to be elected on a universal male franchise, was the sole legislative body. A Speaker, elected on an annual basis by the House, was to combine the powers of both the former Monarch and the Prime Minister, appointing a Ministry drawn from the Commons Representatives to govern the country. A newly appointed Committee of Public Security was officially to take over the powers of the King’s Bench and the Upper Judiciary, and exercise some control over military affairs. Meanwhile, the enforcement of legislation, collection of taxation and oversight over local government remained in the hands of the county and borough mayoralties, sheriffs and corporations, who jealously held onto the powers they had gained during the Uprising.
Success in politics depended upon the ability to play and balance the different entangled layers of this
ad hoc and confused set of arrangements. Despite his high standing within the movement, this is something which O’Connor, with his abrasive and impulsive personality, found difficult, particularly once the euphoria of victory had dissipated and the work of government began.
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A Circular Dispatch, Marked “Most Secret & Confidential,” to All Members of the Committee of Public Security
and to The Elect Brotherhood of the Friends of the People
12 December 1838
Brothers!
I may congratulate you for the progress which we have made in our work! It is a good thing that the parasites and leeches who caused untold suffering over the centuries have finally gained their well-deserved comeuppance. But we are merciful – while we would have only expected the hangman’s noose and the jeering crowds from them, they are merely set to nobly toil for the good of the nation just like the rest of us, while the hulks await to transport the worst offenders to the hellish lands of Australia. They may whine and weep now, but this is the same whining and weeping which we have had to bear for countless generations.
But more pressingly:
** We have heard tell that some in the counties of the English South-West and the Midlands still resist the disenclosure that their mayoralties have deemed necessary. Stronger means against them may be considered advisable.
** It is likewise reported that the agents of foreign governments, even of the hated Metternick and the Emperor of Russia, seek to make misdemeanours in our country. A watchful eye must be kept open for such meddlings.
** More closer to home, it is well known that the Lion towers over the Commons, but that it is we that holds up his stilts. Never let him – or them - forget it!
In Equal Fraternal Unity,
G.H.
Great Paperstore of the Commonwealth, Series CW/CoPS3/07/003481.
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