Part 11 (1/2)
The Whigs, or Republicans, as they came to be called, stood for a strong Federal Government; the Democrats were jealous for the rights of State Governments. The issue was not decided till the Civil War of 1861-1865, when the southern slave-holding States, seeing slavery threatened, announced their secession from the United States. Abraham Lincoln, the newly-elected President, declared that the Government could not allow secession, and insisted that the war was to save the union. Slavery was abolished and the Union saved by the defeat of the Secessionists; but for a time the fortunes of the Union were more desperate than they had been at any time since the Declaration of Independence.
Hamilton was the real founder of the Republican party, as Jefferson was of the Democrats. Both these men were prominent in the making of the American Const.i.tution in 1787, and Jefferson was the responsible author of the Declaration of Independence. But Franklin and Paine made large contributions to the democratic independence of America.
THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809)
Edmund Randolph, the first Attorney-General of the United States, was on Was.h.i.+ngton's staff at the beginning of the War, and he ascribed independence in the first place to George III., but next to ”Thomas Paine, an Englishman by birth.”[75]
Paine's later controversies with theological opponents have obscured his very considerable services to American Independence, to political democracy in England, and to const.i.tutional government in the French Revolution; and as mankind is generally, and naturally, more interested in religion than in politics, Paine is remembered rather as an ”infidel”--though he was a strong theist--than as a gifted writer on behalf of democracy and a political reformer of original powers.
Paine--who came of a Suffolk Quaker family--reached America in 1774, on the very threshold of the war. His Quaker principles made him attack negro slavery on his arrival, and he endeavoured, without success, to get an anti-slavery clause inserted in the ”Declaration of Independence.” He served in the American ranks during the war, and was the friend of Was.h.i.+ngton, who recognised the value of his writings. For Paine's ”Common Sense” pamphlet and his publication, ”The Crisis,” had enormous circulation, and were of the greatest value in keeping the spirit of independence alive in the dark years of the war. They were fiercely Republican; and though they were not entirely free from contemporary notions of government established on the ruins of a lost innocence, they struck a valiant note of self-reliance, and emphasised the importance of the average honest man. ”Time makes more converts than reason,” wrote Paine. Of monarchy he could say, ”The fate of Charles I. hath only made kings more subtle--not more just”; and, ”Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of G.o.d, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”
Paine was in England in 1787, busy with scientific inventions, popular in Whig circles and respected. The fall of the Bastille won his applause, as it did the applause of Fox and the Whigs, but it was not till the publication of Burke's ”Reflections on the Revolution in France,” in 1790, that Paine again took up his pen on behalf of democracy.
Burke had been the hero of Paine and the Americans in the War of Independence, and his speeches and writings had justified the republic. And now it was the political philosophy of Hobbes that Burke seemed to be contending for when he insisted that the English people were bound for ever to royalty by the act of allegiance to William III.
Paine replied to Burke the following year with the ”Rights of Man” which he wrote in a country inn, the ”Angel,” at Islington. It was not so much to demolish Burke as to give the English nation a const.i.tution that Paine desired; for it seemed to the author of ”Common Sense” that, America having renounced monarchy and set up a republican form of government, safely guarded by a written const.i.tution, England must be anxious to do the same thing, and was only in need of a const.i.tution.
The flamboyant rhetoric of the American Declaration of Independence--”We hold these truths to be self-evident--that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”--was not the sort of language that appealed to English Whigs (America itself cheerfully admitted the falseness of the statement by keeping the negro in slavery), and the glittering generalities of the ”Rights of Man” made no impression on the Whig leaders in Parliament. Paine was back in the old regions of a social contract, and of a popular sovereignty antecedent to government. It was all beside the mark, this talk of a popular right inherent in the nation, a right that gave the power to make const.i.tutional changes not _through_ elected representatives in Parliament, but by a general convention.
Parliament in the sight of the Whigs was the sovereign a.s.sembly holding its authority from the people, and only by a majority in the House of Commons could the people express its will. What made the ”Rights of Man” popular with the English democrats of the ”Const.i.tutional Society” and the sympathisers with the French Revolution was not so much the old pre-historic popular ”sovereignty” fiction--though it is true that there were many Englishmen, of whom G.o.dwin was one, who could see no hope of Parliament reforming itself or of granting any measure of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt to the people, and therefore were willing to fall back on any theory for compelling Parliament to move towards a more liberal const.i.tution--as the programme of practical reforms that was unfolded in its pages and the honest defence of the proceedings in Paris. That Parliament had no right to bind posterity, as Burke maintained, and that if the revolution of 1688 was authoritative, why should a revolution in 1788 be less authoritative? were matters of less interest than the clear statement of events in France, and the proposals for a democratic const.i.tution in England and for social reform. Fifty thousand copies of the ”Rights of Man” were quickly sold, and it obtained a large number of readers in America, and was translated into French. The total sales were estimated at 200,000 in 1793. Paine followed it up with Part II. while he was an elected member of the National Convention in Paris, and in 1792, when a cheap edition of the ”Rights of Man” was issued, its author was tried for high treason, and in his absence convicted and outlawed.
Part I. of the ”Rights of Man,” while relying on the popular ”sovereignty”
fiction for getting a national convention, contained a careful definition of representative government. It showed that government by democracy--i.e.
by popular meeting, suitable enough for small and primitive societies--must degenerate into hopeless confusion in a large population; that monarchy and aristocracy which sprang from the political confusion of the people must degenerate into incapacity. A representative government was the control of a nation by persons elected by the whole nation, and the Rights of Man were the rights of all to this representation.
As a nation we have never admitted any ”natural” political rights to man, but we have steadily insisted on the const.i.tutional right of representation in Parliament to those who possess a fixed abode and contribute by taxation to the national revenue.
Paine attacked all hereditary authority and all t.i.tles, but approved a double chamber for Parliament. He claimed that the whole nation ought to decide on the question of war with a foreign country, and urged that no member of Parliament should be a government pensioner.
In Part II. there is a confident announcement that ”monarchy and aristocracy will not continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries of Europe,” so sure was Paine that civilised mankind would hasten to follow the examples of France and America, and summon national conventions for the making of republican const.i.tutions. As the old form of government had been hereditary, the new form was to be elective and representative. The money hitherto spent on the Crown was to be devoted to a national system of elementary education--all children remaining at school till the age of 14--and to old-age pensions for all over 60. It is in these financial proposals and the suggested social reforms that Paine is seen as a pioneer of democracy. A progressive income tax is included in this Part II., the tax to be graduated from 3d. in the on incomes between 50 to 500; 6d. on incomes between 500 and 1,000; an additional 6d. up to 4,000; and then 1s. on every additional 1,000 until we get to an income tax of 20s. in the on an income of 22,000 a year.
The popularity of Paine's proposals in England and the Reign of Terror in France frightened the British Government into a policy of fierce persecution against all who bought, sold, lent or borrowed the ”Rights of Man.” ”Const.i.tutional Societies” were suppressed, and all who dared openly express sympathy with revolutions or republics were promptly arrested.
Paine, outlawed by the British Government, contended in the National Convention for a republican const.i.tution for France, did his best to prevent the execution of Louis XVI., fell with the Girondins, was thrown into prison, and only escaped with his life by an accident. Then, under the very shadow of the guillotine Paine wrote his ”Age of Reason,” to recall France from atheism to a mild humanitarian theism. This book was fatal to Paine's reputation. Henceforth the violent denunciation of theological opponents pursued him to the grave, and left his name a byword to the orthodox. As Paine's contribution to the body of democratic belief in the ”Rights of Man” was submerged in the discussion on his religious opinions, so was his early plea for what he called ”Agrarian Justice.” On his release from a prison cell in the Luxembourg, in 1795, Paine published his ”Plan for a National Fund.” This plan was an antic.i.p.ation of our modern proposals for Land Reform. Paine urged the taxation of land values--the payment to the community of a ground-rent--and argued for death duties as ”the least troublesome method” of raising revenue. It was in the preface to this pamphlet on ”Agrarian Justice” that Paine replied to Bishop Watson's sermon on ”The Wisdom and Goodness of G.o.d in having made both Rich and Poor.” ”It is wrong,” wrote Paine, ”to say G.o.d made rich and poor; He made only male and female, and gave them the earth for their inheritance.”
Napoleon organised the plebiscite, which conferred on him the Consulate for life, in 1802, and the French Revolution and Const.i.tution making having yielded to a military dictators.h.i.+p, Paine returned to America, and died in New York in 1809.
MAJOR CARTWRIGHT AND THE ”RADICAL REFORMERS”
John Cartwright, the ”Father of Reform,” is notable as the first of the English ”Radical Reformers.” His direct influence on politics was small--none of his writings had the success of the ”Rights of Man”--but, like Paine, he laboured to turn England by public opinion from aristocracy to democracy, and for more than forty years Cartwright was to the fore with his programme of Radical reform. The problem for Cartwright and the Radical reformers was how to get the changes made which would give political power to the people--with whom was the sovereignty, as they had learnt from Locke--and make Parliament the instrument of democracy. A hundred years and more have not sufficed to get this problem answered to everybody's satisfaction, but in the latter part of the eighteenth century, to the minds of simple, honest men, it seemed enough that the argument should be stated plainly and reasonably; it would follow that all mankind would be speedily convinced; so great was the faith in the power of reason.
What neither Cartwright nor Paine understood was, that it was not the reasonableness of a proposed reform but the strength of the demand that carried the day. The revolt and independence of the American Colonies were not due to a political preference for a republic, but were the work of public opinion driven by misgovernment to protest. The difficulty in England was that the ma.s.s of people might be in great wretchedness, badly housed, ill-fed, and generally neglected, but they were not conscious of any desire for democracy. They were against the government, doubtless, and willing enough, in London, to shout for ”Wilkes and Liberty,” but the time had not yet come for the working cla.s.s to believe that enfranchis.e.m.e.nt was a remedy for the ills they endured.
Major Cartwright was an exceedingly fine type of man; conscientious, public spirited, humane, and utterly without personal ambition. He resigned his commission in the Navy because he believed it wrong to fight against the American Colonies, and he organised a county militia for the sake of national defence. On the pedestal beneath his statue in Cartwright Gardens, just south of Euston Road, in London, the virtues of the ”Father of Reform”
are described at length, and he is mentioned as ”the firm, consistent and persevering advocate of _universal suffrage_, equal representation, vote by ballot, and annual Parliaments.” It was in 1777 that Cartwright published his first pamphlet ent.i.tled ”Legislative Rights Vindicated,” and pleaded for ”a return to the ancient and const.i.tutional practice of Edward III.”
and the election of annual Parliaments. Long Parliaments were the root of all social political evil, Cartwright argued. War, national debt, distress, depopulation, land out of cultivation, Parliamentary debate itself become a mockery--these calamities were all due to long Parliaments; and would be cured if once a year--on June 1st--a fresh Parliament was elected by the votes of every man over eighteen--by ballot and without any plural voting--and a payment of two guineas a day was made to members on their attendance. Of course, Cartwright could not help writing ”all are by nature free, all are by nature equal”--no political reformer in the eighteenth century could do otherwise--but, unlike his contemporaries, the Major was a stout Christian, and insisted that as the whole plan of Christianity was founded on the equality of all mankind, political rights must have the same foundation. By the political axiom that ”no man shall be taxed but with his own consent, given either by himself or his own representative in Parliament,” Cartwright may be quoted as one who had some perception of what democracy meant in England; but he is off the track again in arguing that personality, and not the possession of property, was the sole foundation of the right of being represented in Parliament. It was the possession of property that brought taxation, and with taxation the right to representation. We cannot repeat too often that in England the progress to democracy has never been made on a.s.sumptions of an abstract right to vote. We have come to democracy by experience, and this experience has taught us that people who are taxed insist, sooner or later, on having a voice in the administration of the national exchequer. But we have never admitted ”personality” as a t.i.tle to enfranchis.e.m.e.nt.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GORDON RIOTS
_From the Painting by Seymour Lucas, R.A._]