People's Petition Analysis
Briefly explain the document’s Origin, Purpose, Value, and Limitations (OPVL)
The People’s Charter was drafted in 1839, and was submitted as a petition to Parliament. The Chartists, working-class citizens who drafted this petition, outlined a list of reforms they wished for Parliament to implement, some of which were (1) Universal Suffrage, (2) Annual Parliamentary Elections, and (3) the Secret Ballot. The purpose of the document was for the working-class citizens to reveal their grievances for the government to acknowledge, such as being burdened by tax and low wages; the document further argues that the Parliament acts on behalf of the parties, which would sacrifice the best interest of the majority. They wanted to have a say in all the aforementioned aspects, and drafted the petition hoping for change. This document reveals the grievances of the working class; it illustrates, or gives us an idea of the conditions which they were subjected to, and the manner in which they voice their grievances in the Charter further exhibits the degree of their need for reform, and the lack of power which they possess. The document was the basis for the present existing laws in England and provides Historians the opportunity to compare and contrast the lives of working class citizens during the Chartist movement with those today. Although highly valuable (?), it is rather limited from the working-class point of view and strongly biased towards upper-middle class and Parliament. The degree of limitation in the document makes it difficult to corroborate the conditions of the working class citizens, since the government or upper-class citizens’ point of view may significantly differ from theirs.
2. How important was this document to Great Britain transforming itself from a constitutional monarchy to a parliamentary democracy? Which other reforms were also important in this process?
Although the document/petition itself failed in the short term when it was first draft, and was repeatedly rejected by Parliament, it played an important role in transforming Britain from a constitutional monarchy to a parliamentary democracy. It first established a concrete and thorough list of reforms which would eventually be largely implemented, and it also further instigated protests and the working-class’s push for reforms in the coming decades; it imbued confidence and the strength to seek power in the working-class, and contributed to the rise of democracy in Britain.
One other reform which was notably important as well was the Great Reform Act, which took place 7 years prior to the Chartist Movement. It redistributed the seats in the House of Commons by eliminating seats for those from the useless “rotten boroughs” which lacked a large population, and granted seats to representatives from larger, urban and populous cities for the large number citizens living there with opinionated voices. Some other reforms that were also important in the process were Disraeli’s Second Reform Act in 1867, which was further reinforced by Gladstone’s Third Reform Act in the 1880s, which reformed that farm workers to vote, and also fulfilled one of the charter’s demand, which was the secret ballot. Reforms which followed ruled that executive leaders would be elected by Parliament, and a bill passed by the Liberals in 1911 restricted the power of Lords along with their veto. The Fourth Reform act in 1918 finally granted suffrage to all men over 21, and all boys 19 and over in war, along with women over the age of 30.
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