least propose alterations in it, that they should wish to put a proletarian law in the place of the legal fabric of the bourgeoisie. This proposed law is the People’s Charter, which in form is purely political, and demands a democratic basis for the House of Commons. Chartism is the compact form of their opposition to the bourgeoisie. In the Unions and turnouts opposition always remained isolated: it was single workingmen or sections who fought a single bourgeois. If the fight became general, this was scarcely by the intention of the workingmen; or, when it did happen intentionally, Chartism was at the bottom of it. But in Chartism it is the whole working class which arises against the bourgeoisie, and attacks, first of all, the political power, the legislative rampart with which the bourgeoisie has surrounded itself. Chartism has proceeded from the Democratic party which arose between 1780 and 1790 with and in the proletariat, gained strength during the French Revolution, and came forth after the peace as the Radical party. It had its headquarters then in Birmingham and Manchester, and later in London; extorted the Reform Bill from the Oligarchs of the old Parliament by a union with the Liberal bourgeoisie, and has steadily consolidated itself, since then, as a more and more pronounced workingmen’s party in opposition to the bourgeoisie. In 1835 a committee of the General Workingmen’s Association of London, with William Lovett at its head, drew up the People’s Charter, whose six points are as follows:
- Universal suffrage for every man who is of age, sane and unconvicted of crime;
- Annual Parliaments;
- Payment of members of Parliament, to enable poor men to stand for election;
- Voting by ballot to prevent bribery and intimidation by the bourgeoisie;
- Equal electoral districts to secure equal representation; and
- Abolition of the even now merely nominal property qualification of £300 in land for candidates in order to make every voter eligible.