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conviction of those who united with , and of those who had now succeeded , the patriots of 1794 , was this—that nothing short of universality of the suffrage could satisfy the claims of human nature , or render to man that which was his right . It was with this conviction that he gave what had always been the introductory toast on those occasions , ' The sovereignty of the people . ' " { Cheers . ) The toast was heartily responded to , as was also that of " Her Majesty Queen Victoria . " Before proposing the latter , the Chairman remarked that , if they were met there to discuss their spiritual and not their political condition , it might be difficult to say lived in
under whose authority they , as they were the diocese of Cardinal Wiseman as well as in that of Dr . Blomfield . The toast of " Trial by jury , the palladium of British liberty , " was proposed by Mr . Toulmin Smith , who strongly condemned the pseudoliberalism which had raised up in this country a system of centralization , tending to degrade the bodies and minds of the people , and to deprive them of the blessings of self-government . The memory of the twelve men who , in 1794 , were acquitted , and proved the inestimable advantage of trial by jury , was drank with enthusiasm . The Chairman prefaced it with an eloauent speech : —
" Since the greatevent commemorated on that occasion heaven-born ministers had risen and fallen , thrones had been shaken , wars had been waged and concluded , and still there had been a gathering of true honest men to celebrate the deliverance of fifty-six years back . No one of the twelve men in after life ever stained the memory of that great day of deliverance . No one of them was ever assailed by the breath of vituperation , or did anything to disgrace the cause with which his name had become identified . The course which they all took was a noble one . The sought for nothing but what high political authorities had sanctioned their seeking , ? . nd they sought it by means worthy of freemen ; and after the
trial they returned to their several occupations and pursued them honourably . They always continued consistent to their principles , and several of them , having spent a long life , sank peacefully into their graves amid the blessings of all good men . They were not the notoriously profligate ; they were not offenders against the decencies of society ; but they were men who approved themselves honest and upright in their dealings ; and it could not but strike the youngest minds that there must be something wrong in a system which sought to make them die the death of dogs . These were the men whom the government of the day sought to destroy . And by what
means ? By imagining or purposely inventing the notion of conspiracy ; by employing spies , and by attempting to tamper with the jury . The trials were conducted with lit ^ our . The prisoners were confined in dungeons , and some of them deprived of their papers until it was too late to use them ; and upwards of thirty day s were passed in endeavours to procure their condemnation . This was the feeling of the ruling classes of this country ; this was the feeling of a professedly religious king—{ hear , / tear)—in reality a narrow-minded bigot , and whose long reign was marked by the shedding of more blood , by the wasting of more treasure , and by the loss of more territory than that of of church
any preceding monarch . This was the policy and state . { Hear , hear . ) All that was retrograde in mind and heart—all the owls and bats , and birds of night that hate the sunshine—all were alarmed at the principles which were dawning upon the world , and combined to crush those who asserted that God and nature had made men free and equal . How undoubtingly they stood that conflict they learnt from the memoirs of Thelwall . So warrants were prepared , and would have been issued , had a verdict been obtained . But the accii 3 ed endured the trial , and they had their reward in this affectionate commemoration . { Cheers . ) Although in these days the press was free to an extent of which they had no concepfree trade had ht feu
tion ; although , in these days taug - dalism that its day was o \ cr , and that it had now only to « die in peace ; ' although the country , while showing its love of order had shown also its love of freedom and of political progression ; although they lived in better days , and in hopes of brighter days yet to come , still , let them not forget those who contributed to this joyous march of events , and had their names inscribed on the page of history , in letters which would never grow dim and be read without emotion . Their spirit survived ; it would not die , it would outlast all struggles . There was a spirit of inherent immortality which inspired the bosoms of the men commemorated , and might well strengthen their hearts in this commemoration . "
Mr . Parry proposed the memory of Muir , Palmer , and Skirving , and tho other Scotch patriots who were convicted and sentenced between 1792 and 1794 . There was no value in such a meeting as the present , unless it were remembered that the principles the patriots of 1794 advocated wore not yet fully carried out . Universal suffrage and the responsibility of the representative to the country , were tho grout principles sought to bo recognized . If they
wanted a thorough financial reform—if they desired that the army and tho navy should cease to bo the refuge of the cadets of the aristocracy , they mustsccuro a thorough representation of the people . { Cheers . ) Ho luul no more sympathy with the Archbishop of Canterbury than with tho Archbishop of Westminster : in one hhisp he had less , tor lie believed that the former got . more pay and did less work ; but if they desired that ( Ussi-ntcrs should not nay to the support of an establishment which could not direct tlioir
souls to heaven , if it directed any , they must seek an extension of tho sullViiye . The great stumblingblock of reformers of all classes was the inadequate representation of tho people . Tho nuirtyrs of {
Scotland died for that principle ; Hardy and Tooke were ready to die for it , " and yet fifty years later the people were far from having achieved what these patriots aimed at . Mr . Francis "W . Newman proposed the memory of the Hungarians who fell in the maintenance of their liberties , and in . vindication of the laws of their country , in an excellent speech to the following effect : — " The hearty greetings with which the name of Hungary has been received imply that the company is well acquainted with the details of Hungarian right ; and , besides the lateness of the hour , forbid me to enlarge .
Yet , even a year or two years back , probably very few of us knew much of Hungary . Most truly has a former speaker said that the cause of freedom everywhere is our own . Nevertheless , we are in such a corner of Europe that too often we do not understand the facts of a national struggle until the crisis is past . I remember that , as a boy , I used to fancy that England was the only free nation in Europe , and that the rest had always been under despotism ; and I believe this is a popular notion . If this were true—if freedom sprang not out of human nature , with the growth of reverence for moral and political law , but out of English nature—the roots of freedom would not be so deep : it would not be , as it is , strictly
natural to man . Such a notion , therefore , if flattering to our vanity , is weakening to our cause . The same may be said of the idea promulgated by some of our ingenious German friends , that only the Teutonic races are capable of freedom . Whether they rightly call the Hungarians a Scythian nation , I leave my learned friend , Mr . Pulski , to discuss . At any rate , the Hungarians teach us that Teutonism is not essential to freedom ; for they had ( what my toast calls ) a system of local self-government which England might do well to imitate : and this it was that upheld their liberties against the usurping attempts of the Austrian Cabinet . I call on you to celebrate the Hungarian patriots because « they fell in
maintenance of their long-inherited liberties , and in vindication of the laws of their country . ' Had it been otherwise —had they lived under a system of unrighteous law , and died in the attempt to overthrow it—they might have deserved our sympathy , but they could have no celebration in this place , where we meet to commemorate constitutional struggles . He who rises against the laws , even against the worst laws , treads on narrow confines between high heroism and deep criminality , and we may well hesitate whether to admire or to condemn . But the Hungarian struggle was one for the constitution and / or the law , which was treacherously violated by a small knot of Austrian conspirators—not by the Austrian peopleunfortunate
not by the Austrian Crown , for the Emperor Ferdinand was little above an idiot ; but by a few generals and faithless Ministers , who , when they could not make their Emperor as pliant a tool as they wished , deposed him , and set up a youth in his place , who was not King according to the laws of Hungary . The Minister Stadion then put forth his celebrated centralizing constitution , annihilating the old Hungarian Parliaments , and , by a stroke of his pen , pretending to make a new Parliament , in which Italians and Hungarians should sit with Croats , Gallicians , and Austrians . But the Hungarians loved the old laws and the old constitution , to which they and their Kings had sworn , more than the new system and ht ext
which a usurping Minister was imposing , mign year as easily withdraw . From the time that the designs of Austria were fully manifested , the struggle became a strictly national one ; and the victims of it were martyrs , not merely to liberty in the abstract , but to the cause of their country and its hereditary laws . There was no part of its law which they so valued as its local self-government ; nor was there any part which the usurping Cabinet of V ienna had more insidiously laboured to undermine . Every quarter of a year the county meetings took place , and generally lasted for six days . In these four weeks they every year discussed public measures ; county conferred with county ; instructions
were issued to their representatives in the Supreme Parliament . They had not on each occasion to get up ' his Majesty ' s agitation ' anew , as among us the Anti-Cornlaw League at one time , and the . National Education Society at another ; but the same organization existed always for all public purposes . And this is what I understand my friend Mr . Toulmin Smith to mean ; not that he is averse to . Parliamentary Reform , but that no Reform will work rightly unless Local Self Government be more developed among us . Certainly , the example of France shows us that Universal Suffrage , even under Republicanism , does not always and in itself make a people master of its own laws , or improve its administration .
Does it not seem , thdteuery body of men , whatever the mode of its constitution , is slow to part with power , and grasps after more ? A courtof Chancery tries to enlarge its jurisdiction , a Royal Cabinet the range of its proclamations , and a Democratic Parliament the number of its functions . It is far from clear that the Parliament in Paris will ever establish Local Self Government , which would , of course , exceedingly limit its powers . My friend , Mr . Toulmin Smith , wishes to enforce on the meeting , that we are in danger of losing local right while struggling for central power . Butthough Hungary has fallen a noble victim
, to treachery and cruelty , it is not for ever : nay , her fall is not without sad comfort to other nations ; for now , Italy and Hungary , Germany and Poland , have all but one interest ; and that —( I grieve to utter it in a monarchical country)—is , Republicanism , I am no Republican ; in England I am satisfied with our hereditary constitution : but I cannot disguise from myself , that , through the imbecility or fanaticism of kings and the trortchcry of ministers , Republicanism has become the only hope of continental nations . The King of Hungary himself or his cabinet , cut all the tics that bound tho
allows me to repeat some of their last noble and touching words ; but they died for Duty and for Country , and with the blessing of God . " Count Pulski returned thanks . He said Local Self Government had been the palladium of Hun garian liberty . In England there were three safeguards of liberty—Freedom of the Press , Trial by Jury , and Local Self Government ; in Hungary there was only one namely , Local Self Government . { Cheers . ) In the name of the survivors of the late war , and of the prisoners in Asia and Europe , he returned his warmest thanks for the commemoration of their martyrs .
Mr . F . Lawrence proposed the memories of the jury who acquitted Hardy and his associates , and of the counsel who defended them , Erskine and Gibbs . The company broke up at a late hour , apparently highly pleased with the manner in which the commemoration had passed off . It was stated that the attendance was larger than it had been for some years .
country to him and his dynasty , and the Hungarian patriots have left their names to consecrate the national , but not the royal cause . Neither time nor my memory
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PARLIAMENTARY AND SOCIAL REFORM . The Council of the National Reform League has addressed the following statement to the members of the body residing in London : — Brethren , —In the Northern Star and Reynolds ' s Newspaper and the Leader of last week , you will have seen & resolution of this Council , approving of the withdrawal of our delegates from the Conference sitting at John-street . As our brethren in the country may , probably , not fully comprehend the motives which dictated our policy in this matter , we hasten to explain them to you , lest any misconception should arise , injurious to ourselves or to others .
We have no complaint to make of the Conferencenone of the particular societies represented thereatnone of the delegates themselves . Our withdrawal from the Conference was simply ' act of policy or prudence on our part , to prevent disunion in the Chartist ranks , of which the whole of our society forms an integral part . The great majority of the Chartist body are not Communists , nor Socialists , nor National Reformers , nor Trades' Unionists , nor members of any of the bodies said to be represented at the Conference . They are simply Chartists , that is , men desirous of being represented in the Commons House of Parliament according to the principles declared in the People's Charter . To preserve the integrity and unanimity of this body ought , we think , to be a prime consideration with every association represented in the Conference , and with every individual out of it holding Chartist principles . On no account should such integrity and unanimity be , for a moment , endangered by obtruding the views or projects of any particular social or politico-economical sect upon the body , as a reform to he worked out in common with the Charter . We may , in our advocacy of the Charter , present such , views or projects as natural results or consequences likely to flow from a wise advocacy of universal suffrage * but we cannot enter them upon a programme as essential parts of a national organization for the Charter , without estranging from the movement the millions not yet conversant with these views—nor , consequently , without perilling the integrity and unanimity of the Chartist body .
Particular societies like our own—or like the Social Reform League , or the Cooperative Trades' Societies—may safely enough , and with , we think , advantage to the cause of progress , propound their particular theories of social and economical science which it is their especial mission to promulgate . They may do so , either as members of their particular societies , or as Chartists looking to universal suffrage as the best means of realizing the reforms they desire . But , seeing how widely these several
societies differ as to particular euu ««»» cal changes that ought to take place , and seeing , also , that the vast majority of the unrepresented classes desire to be untrammelled by any particular theory of social rights or of social reform , the Co uncil of the National Reform League sees no possibility of fusing or amalgamating the several societies into one aggregate , one at the expense of extinguishing the rest , nor of uniting them upon any common basis of action , other than the principle upon which they are already avowedly in accord , viz .: —The principle of universal suffrage , with the necessary guarantees for its full , fair , and free exerciseas laid down in the People ' s Charter .
, In favour of a union of this kind , the London members of the National Reform League are , to a man , agreed . We desire to see the National Charter Association limit its programme to this single cardinal point . ^ As Chartists we shall give it our best support towards this end . We desire to sec every other popular society ( whatever its particular social or economical creed ) to concur with us in making common cause with the National Charter Association for its attainment , without calling upon them to abandon , their own special objects or missions ^ By this means we may have a real union of all the societies in one flrreat body for the attainment of one common ob-
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772 &i ) C HCatftV . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 9, 1850, page 772, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1858/page/4/
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