expurgated it.[1] Douglas obtained an account and declared to the Birmingham Union that something must be done as Stephens was elected a delegate to the Convention. The Birmingham people were beginning to regret their precipitancy in admitting such roaring lions into peaceful currency pastures.
At the weekly meeting of the Union on November 13 there was an unexpected visitor. It was O'Connor, who, following his usual custom, entered when proceedings were in full swing in order to concentrate all attention upon himself.[2] He had come to defend himself against the calumnies of Salt and Douglas. He had been charged with traitorously preaching physical force, and had gone so far as to declare that on September 29, 1839, all moral agitation must come to an end and other measures be taken, if the Charter were not by that time obtained. O'Connor, who made a very ingenious defence, had had some legal training. He pointed out, amongst other things, that it was quite necessary to fix a limit to peaceful agitation because the people would become impatient and the agitation would gradually die away.[3] This was probably a true statement of the attitude of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Chartists at least, but it augured badly for the soundness of the Chartist cause and the discipline of its zealots. O'Connor scored, too, by pointing out that the Birmingham leaders had sinned also in the matter of violent language. That was true. The real difference between Birmingham and the northern Chartists was that the Birmingham leaders regarded a display of numbers—of "physical force"—as a useful background to lend reality to their views, but the northern people looked upon physical force as the whole picture.
A week later O'Connor appeared again before the Union, evoking cheers and sympathy by pretending to be on his trial before the honest working men of Birmingham. Meanwhile Stephens was breathing fire and slaughter with undiminished vigour. On November 12 he attended a meeting at Wigan and denounced the London and Birmingham leaders as old women.[4] He probably felt, what many of his followers later on openly said, that the Charter-Petition agitation would smother the Anti-Poor Law Movement in which he was so
- ↑ Additional MSS. 27,820, p. 295.
- ↑ O'Connor was uninvited. His habit of intruding where he was not required was a cause of immense friction, as he was seldom content to be passive, and sometimes diverted meetings to purposes for which they were never intended.
- ↑ Additional MSS. 27,820, p. 304. Northern Star, November 17.
- ↑ Northern Star, November 17.
