parliaments, nor poor laws have any place. The Bible is the charter and the Decalogue the law of the land. It is easily conceivable how Stephens and, to a lesser extent, Oastler could become leaders of an armed insurrection against the Poor Law Amendment Act. That Act was conceived as a "law of devils," the work of a Parliament which stood between Throne and Cottage, and which carried on its evil work through commissioners who were as murderous as Pharaoh of old. It was lawful to resist such a law.
If Lord John Russell wanted to know what he (Stephens) thought of the New Poor Law, he would tell him plainly, he thought it was the law of devils … if vengeance was to come, let it come: it should be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, limb for limb, wife for wife, child for child, and blood for blood.[1]
In Lancashire and Yorkshire the eloquence, activity, and fearlessness of Stephens and Oastler raised them to a pitch of popularity and authority such as few men have attained. Their personal influence was immense, and they were rewarded with passionate adulation for their exertions in the popular cause. Lovett was probably thinking of these two eminent demagogues when he penned his bitter lines about the tendency of working people to look up to leaders. Another hostile critic relates of Stephens:
He was utterly careless of other men's opinions and paid little or no regard to the feelings of any but those he wished to command: and these were the working people. Over these he domineered, carrying everything he wished with a high hand: he was obeyed, almost adored, by multitudes, … Of personal consequences he was wholly reckless.[2]
Thus did Stephens exemplify in his own person the political supremacy of the preacher. In Ashton and in many of the other small manufacturing towns his word was law. And Oastler's reputation in Yorkshire was no whit less. It was a Wesley-Whitefield crusade again. The appeal was to the same class of people, the methods were the same, only the object was different.
In the hands of these two men Toryism assumed a terrifying aspect. They lashed their followers into a continuous state of fury which finally culminated in threats of insurrection and of incendiarism. They seized without inquiry upon every
- ↑ Holyoake, Life of J. R. Stephens, p. 122.
- ↑ Place, in Holyoake's Life, p. 76.
