ng-man respects neither Lords nor Queen. The bourgeois, while in
reality allowing them but little influence, yet offers to them personally
a sham worship. The English Chartist is politically a republican, though
he rarely or never mentions the word, while he sympathises with the
republican parties of all countries, and calls himself in preference a
democrat. But he is more than a mere republican, his democracy is not
simply political.

Chartism was from the beginning in 1835 chiefly a movement among the
working-men, though not yet sharply separated from the bourgeoisie. The
Radicalism of the workers went hand in hand with the Radicalism of the
bourgeoisie; the Charter was the shibboleth of both. They held their
National Convention every year in common, seeming to be one party. The
lower middle-class was just then in a very bellicose and violent state of
mind in consequence of the disappointment over the Reform Bill and of the
bad business years of 1837-1839, and viewed the boisterous Chartist
agitation with a very favourable eye. Of the vehemence of this agitation
no one in Germany has any idea. The people were called upon to arm
themselves, were frequently urged to revolt; pikes were got ready, as in
the French Revolution, and in 1838, one Stephens, a Methodist parson,
said to the assembled working-people of Manchester:

"You have no need to fear the power of Government, the soldiers,
bayonets, and cannon that are at the disposal of your oppressors; you
have a weapon that is far mightier than all these, a weapon against
which bayonets and cannon are powerless, and a child of ten years can
wield it. You have only to take a couple of matches and a bundle of
straw dipped in pitch, and I will see what the Government and its
hundreds of thousands of soldiers will do against this one weapon if
it is used boldly."

As early as that year the peculiarly social character of the
working-men's Chartism manifested itself. The same Stephens said, in a
meeting of 200,000 men on Kersall Moor, the Mons Sacer of Manchester:

"Chartism, my friends, is no political movement, where the main point
is your getting the ballot. Chartism is a knife and fork question:
the Charter means a good house, good food and drink, prosperity, and
short working-hours."

The movements against the new Poor Law and for the Ten Hours' Bill were
already in the closest relation to Chartism. In all the meetings o