To What extent did the Chartist movement fail because its program of reform was totally impractical?

Chartism was a movement from 1838 which grew from a series of smaller movements which arose in the 1830s such as Owenism, NAPL, GNCTU. As the movement grew, and to increase its support it increased its goals from merely trying to improve workers' rights to appeal, also, to the Anti-Poor Law Campaign and so forth. After the 1832 Reform Act, and the ensuing Whig decade of Reform, many people were still disappointed in finding a system fundamentally unchanged, and still unfavourable to themselves, so they turned to Chartism to bring about more reforms. They joined the LWMA (London Working Men's Association) in 1836, and declared the political reforms they desired in the Chartists' Peoples' Charter(published in May 1838) along with several other aims of their 'implicit social program' which contained their other social and economic aims.

None of the six aims in the Charter were achieved for at least sixty years, and even now, 150 years on, one of them still has not. One of the reasons for Chartism's failure (which it was because of the above) was that it aimed for too much, and therefore must be described as impractical, as it achieved so little of these aims. Their aims were too complicated and tended to confuse people. But although its programme of reform may seem impractical, now, for them to want so much, at the time, its advocates just saw it as what was absolutely essential. After these reforms they assumed that economic and social reform would soon follow, which is what the working-class most desired; because the industrial revolution had (for most of them) made their living and working conditions awful. To realise why those aims are impractical, it is important to look at them:

It is shown in this table how great the changes were that the Chartists demanded, and how far-reaching these changes would influence those already in power. The People's Charter intended to create a mass-based democracy (1st point)where voting would be free of 'influence'(2nd point), while the MPs would always be representative of all the people -including the working-class- (4th, 5th and 6th points), without becoming too detached from the times (3rd parliament). If these occurred most of the people in power now would almost certainly lose their seats in parliament. Naturally they did not want this to happen, so they opposed the changes.

There are other reasons too, but this one seems to be one of the largest contributing factors. They had so many aims for two reasons: firstly because that was what they felt was needed to change to make the British system of government fair and democratic; secondly, because its aims were so broad it appealed to many people, thus increasing its support. This was a key word and vitally important, as the Reform Act movement demonstrated. The general feeling in England was that the government would be forced to listen to the people. So at the presentation of the first petition O'Connor said:

"let them attend to the House of Commons,....with a petition on their shoulders, and let them tell the House of Commons that the Constituency of England were waiting.......for an answer".

Thus demonstrating the Chartist's feelings. but they were aiming way too high. They expected "all or nothing"; and achieved what the neutrals expected: nothing. They would not accept any 'downgradings of the Charter' as had happened to the Reform Act of 1832, and no matter what government party was in power (although most of them were landowners against Chartism), the Tory lords were totally opposed to Chartism and always had a deciding vote.

The Lord's primary reason why the workers should not vote is important. Why should uneducated people vote, if they do not understand how the country is being run. For example T B Macaulay:

"universal suffrage is utterly incompatible with the very existence of civilisation".

Although most of their views were extreme, their point was well made. Similarly the Chartists argued about democracy, unfairness, corruption and so forth. For example the Chartist Circular quotes:

"it is (universal suffrage) the only security against bad laws, and for good government".

Which may also be extreme but still valid. Because neither could win this battle a stale-mate was drawn-this benefiting the government who were already in power. Other Chartists had better ideas, such as giving in slightly and adopting plans for educating the people, but they never gained any significant power e.g. John Collins. This shows that if they had been successful and thus made the Chartist programme of reform more practical it might have been more successful.

This example underlines the other most likely reason why the movement failed. A reason supported by many other historians is that because the movement was already fragmented by the geographical spread of its support (and better communication was not to arrive for another 30 years), it needed good leadership to be successful. But the leaders also quarrelled about when and if to use force. The Chartist's problem was how to achieve a revolutionary goal by constitutional means. Most Chartists believed in 'moral force' (pressure) combined with defensive violence (i.e. the use of violence to defend if attacked; not to attack); but others used 'physical force' (the use of violence to scare the government into giving in). After physical force was used in Newport, the Bull Rising in Birmingham and the 'Plug Riots' of 1842, the government arrested the perpetrators and would always respond negatively to this. Those who realised this had the ideas of educating the workers so they would understand how the country was run- and thus be allowed to vote. But as the Benthamites (who also advocated this amongst other things) realised, the government claimed this was too expensive to create. Even thought their real reasons were simply that they did not want an educated electorate as it would probably oust them from their positions. By 1842 the Chartist leadership was divided and different leaders went in different directions:

· Lovett emphasised education

Vincent and Lowery emphasised teetotal Chartism

Scottish Chartists emphasised Christian Chartism

O'Connor spent more time on his Land Plan

Others went into Owenite Socialism, the ACLL (which was more respectable and supported by the middle-class), trade union activity and local government activity.

Sturge advocated co-operation with middle-class radicals and dissenters in the Complete Suffrage Union. This collapsed.

Those people who did these 'new moves' lost out to O'Connor-the physical force advocate whilst the N.C.A. (National Chartist Association) also wanted to demonstrate the working class' readiness for universal suffrage. This was led by O'Connor who as Mark Hovell puts it in The Chartist Movement:

"...emerges as the villain of the piece, luring working people away from the strategy which might have given the movement success: Lovett's education scheme". The evidence for this claim is that Lovett was an advocate of the so called 'New Moves' (which many claimed could have been extremely successful) but these never gained the level of support which the N.C.A. gained, because O'Connor attacked them specifically claiming they were a distraction from the main task of achieving the Charter.

There is abundant proof of the complete lack of unity in the movement

in the nature of how the Conventions acted and how the Petitions were presented. Before the presentation of the first petition the Convention was held in London. Hence followed the Bedchamber Crisis (further discrediting the movement) and it moved to Birmingham. After the petition was rejected the delegates at the conference then voted against a general strike and the Convention collapsed in disarray. The remaining leaders turned to force, and were arrested. This deprived the movement of its leaders and once again further meetings turned into fiascos.

The LWMA disintegrated. The N.C.A was set up, but even with better organisation its second petition still failed. This was because, at the same time economic and social conditions worsened and so did the use of force; thus scaring the Commons into rejecting the petition. With better organisation these outbreaks (even though no-one is sure whether they are connected to Chartism) could have been avoided and then the movement could have come across as being more respectable, and then possibly gained more success. Then the moderate leaders - the initiators of Chartism - became disillusioned and abandoned the movement (as described above). O'Connor assumed leadership of the Chartist movement but was discredited after the failure of his bizarre Chartist Land Company - yet another side-track to Chartism. Unity disappeared because of the conflict between leaders, and Chartism lost credibility. This argument between leadership and the use of force also split the Chartist's support, so those pro-'moral force' left this particular movement. In 1848 the last Chartist rally, instigated by O'Connor, took place on Kennington Common. It took place against a background of economic hardship:

1846:bad wheat harvest

1846/7: a bad potato harvest in England, but positively disastrous in Ireland

1847:commercial crisis

1848:European revolutions

The third Petition was taken to the Commons. The government set up a Select Committee to investigate the Petition, and Chartism was made to look fraudulent, as once again (as had happened with the previous petitions) its signatures were proved fraudulent, and the number of signatures on the petition were proved much lower than claimed. After Chartism disappeared the government could prove that they did the right thing, because of the huge amounts of incompetence the Chartists showed in their 12 year movement, they proved their unworthiness of having the vote.

This leads to a similar cause for Chartism's failure which was also important. The Chartist leaders and their supporters were all workers; and could not vote themselves. If they had gained the support of voters then they could try to persuade the government. The people targeted were the middle-class but apart from also being frightened away from Chartism due to its use of violence in the above places, the one group which they did support, the Complete Suffrage Union (CSU), eventually failed after O'Connor and Lovett persuaded it to change its ideas slightly to gain more support,- this was done thus the middle-class supporters left because they disagreed with this. Their support left the Chartist movement at the same time as (just before the first petition was presented to the House of Commons), 14 middle-class men resigned from the 'General Convention of the Industrious Classes'. Without this support Chartism had less respect and was seen as more radical and therefore dangerous, so making the government even more anxious to quell the movement. This also affected the Chartist's claims that they represented the whole constituency of England. Meanwhile groups such as the ACLL (Anti-Corn Law League) which was largely composed of voters and achieved its aim because its aim was sensible and its supporters were a powerful economic and political group; much the opposite of Chartism. Chartism also failed to gain much parliamentary support for the charter, which is also crucial. It meant that there was no-one helping them from the 'inside' making it harder for them.

Another reason why Chartism failed was because of its nature as a movement which grew from a Hunger and Economic Depression. Thus the

Chartists blamed the government for this (in other words, the government's failure of feeding its population). This although a valid reason led to irrational and violent behaviour aimed against the government, which then responded harshly to quell the Chartists. This was easily done because the government army and the newly extended police force (due to recent Acts creating local constabularies throughout rural and urban England), were still loyal.

"The Whig and Tory governments who rejected the petitions in 1839, 1842 and 1848, feared the consequences of accepting the Charter far more than the dangers involved in turning it down"; this meaning that they could easily use force to defeat the chartists now, but if they were able to vote etc. then they could grow too powerful and then threaten the government even more- which of course was the largest thing the government worried about whilst it was in power (its opposition). Especially as memories of the French (working-class) revolutions of 1790-4 and 1830 still remained and frightened all European Monarchs and governments of the 19th century. At the time of the petitions the government were easily able to withstand the Chartist's demands. in other words the government was too strong for Chartism (as a revolutionary movement) to be successful with its current demands.

Another reason is that the government handled the movement firmly and calmly, because when the Chartists attacked the state, claiming it to be unrepresentative, the state then acted during Peel's ministry creating economic reform and improving social conditions which took the teeth out of Chartism by undermining their case: Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 -due to the ACLL's success- and the introduction of free trade undercut the economic foundations of Chartism; The 1847 Factory Act introduced shorter working hours for all workers; The 1848 Public Health Act made some improvements in town conditions; various financial reforms helped to reduce the price of food and improved the economy of the country. But then this can be regarded as a success of Chartism, because if Chartism had not existed then the government would not have reacted in this way and created these Acts.

Other reasons why Chartism failed are based either because the movement was too early for its time, and died out by the 1850s, when communication problems still existed, the workforce was too divided to claim to be coherent and it was just too radical.

Even though all these reasons exist for it being described a failure is still had some measure of success; not least in that people always learn from their mistakes to launch a second attempt at a later date with a higher chance of success, but also because it did amass millions of names on its petitions, establish numerous nation-wide associations, journals and conventions. It also marked the rise of class-consciousness. As J. Walker writes in British Economic and Social History:

"Regarded as a stage in the growth of political awareness of the working-class it [Chartism] may be said to have achieved much. The movement afforded the opportunity of an apprenticeship in political activity to working men...It drew attention to social and economic evils and awakened public opinion to the need for improvement".

One historian points out that:

"far from being a fragmented movement, the Chartists were able to conjure up a degree of cohesion that was truly remarkable" and "Chartism was the response of a literate and sophisticated working-class", which can also be proven. This argument features more along the lines that Chartism failed because of the strength of its adversaries, not its own weaknesses. These adversaries all being middle- to upper-class and having different opinions of the Chartists; opinions based on the past, on events in Europe and what would be best for themselves.

"Some of the discredited Chartist leaders profoundly influenced the future by helping the Communist Karl Marx to found the International Working Men's Association in 1864". Modern Britain by D. Richards & J. W. Hunt. So some (communists) would say that just this alone made Chartism a success; obviously others (anti-Communists) would disagree and say this made Chartism a failure.

So Chartism's failure was due to many reasons, another being the recovery of the British economy during the 1850s, thus ruining its claim that the government was mismanaging the country, as well as its impractical programme of reform. But I believe this reason was the most important, based on the Reform Act of 1832 which occurred because it was a watered down version of what its advocates wanted. However to determine how important each was specifically is impossible because no-one knows what might have happened differently if one or more of those facts had not existed. The next step after Chartism seemed to begin in the 1850s In the form of Trade Unionism -"to achieve less ambitious, but more obviously attainable, objectives".