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 L162 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 / 
 
 TO THAT PORTION OF’ THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND 
 
 CALLING THEMSELVES 
 
 REFORMERS, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 ' POLITICAL EXCITEMENT OF THE PRESENT 
 
 TIME. 
 
 BY RICHARD OARLILE. 
 
 MANCHESTER: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THOMAS PAINE CARLILE^ 
 220, DEANSGATEj 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 ALFRED CARLILE, 1, WATER-LANE, FLEET-STREET.^ 
 
 PRICE TWOPENCE. 
 
 1839. 
 
AN ADDRESS &c.' 
 
 Men and Brethren, Fellow- Countrymen and Reformers 
 — I am anxious that the present agitated and convulsive state of 
 the public mind be not allayed until some useful change be 
 worked for the amendment of our government in Church and 
 State, and for such progressive improvement of the condition of 
 the working- classes as shall finally and promptly redeem and 
 rescue them from present ignorance, superstition, bad habits, 
 uncomfortable dwellings and starvation. I see how this may be 
 done, and how only, and whomsoever it may offend, my courage 
 equals the call of duty to make the statement. The question of 
 anarchy or reform has recommenced in Birmingham, and, while I 
 write, will, I fear, be spreading elsewhere, as 1 hear, with painful 
 reflections, popular threats succeeding delegated and influential 
 recommendations for the destruction of property. I throw my- 
 self into this storm and breach of social compact, into this hell of 
 damned spirits, with the forlorn hope of staying the rage and 
 fury on both sides. Property, created and possessed, may, by 
 just administration of just laws, be applied to public good ; but 
 destruction of property cannot be administered to the benefit of 
 one human being. It is the produce of labour, and to waste it 
 is to apply so much labour in vain. Whatever is wrong in the 
 distribution of property, may be remedied by moral force ; but 
 neither moral nor physical force can restore destroyed property — 
 it is the destruction of the equal quantity of human happiness : 
 it is a war against yourselves ; not only social and civil war, but 
 suicidal. Disturb not the stone of a building; stay not the 
 working of a wheel in machinery ; damage not either raw or arti- 
 ficed material ; trample not unnecessarily a blade of grass or ear 
 of grain; waste nothing that can be applied to the comfort of 
 human or animal sustenance. Your violence may destroy capital; 
 but who after that shall arrange your necessary employment? 
 You may create famine; but who will be the first to starve ? You 
 may breed pestilence; but who will fall before you as the first vic- 
 tims? If your physical force were equal to conflict with the 
 physical force that is arrayed against you, where nothing but 
 human life should be sacrificed, I would join you in the manly 
 and patriotic fight : for I count the condition of a very large por- 
 tion of the human life of this countiy as not worth holding or 
 preserving under its present tenure ; and, therefore, if a quantity 
 of that life sacrificed, would secure a better future state for the 
 remainder, it appears to me a sound religious, moral and political 
 principle, to recommend and partake of that sacrifice: it becomes 
 a parent’s duty to provide that better inheritance for his children ; 
 
 \ 
 
3 
 
 u: 
 
 u 
 
 Q 
 
 o 
 
 and it would become a people to arrest the wickedness of 
 government, an aristocracy, or a priesthood, on this ground and 
 with these means. But I implore you not to allow destruction 
 of property to make any part of this question. I implore you 
 not to destroy any thing but wicked human life that may array 
 itself or be arrayed against you. Property is a valuable inheri- 
 tance on whomsoever it may fall ; the want of a sufficiency and a 
 just distribution of which, our vices excepted, are the cause and 
 effect of all the calamities of which we can justly complain. If 
 you array yourselves or any portion of you array yourselves 
 against property for destruction, such will be wicked men, such 
 will be the tyrants against whom every good man will array him- 
 self a willing sacrifice to seek their destruction, and I for one will 
 declare against them, if their courage do not carry them above a 
 destruction of property. The horrid law of warfare allows it as 
 between nations ; though bad and wicked is the principle of des- 
 troying property, but in a case of civil war, the principle is suici- 
 dal, and party-spirit could only thus triumph in the weak- 
 ened defeat of its own wickedness. — 
 
 I have stood aloof from all the men who have recommended 
 a war with or the destruction of property. I have before in print 
 denounced such men. I repeat hereby the denunciation. They 
 are your enemies. I need not mention names ; for, flagrant as 
 has been their language, there is not one of them that could be 
 found to maintain his recommendation under free discussion of 
 its merits; and therefore we find the evasion of the subject on pres- 
 sure is equal to the inuendo style in which it is put forth. But 
 precisely in the ratio of such recommendations do 1 find the 
 advocates deficient in the statement of all honourable and intelli- 
 gible political principles. Up to this moment, there is not a man 
 among you, calling himself a political reformer, and bearing the 
 distinction of being a leading man, who has propounded any defi- 
 nite political principles, any that are practicable in the working of a 
 change; and thus it is that the cry for Universal Suffrage has 
 been a barren clamour for sixty years ; and that all Charters, 
 from Magna Charta down to the new “ People’s Charter,” have 
 been in relation to popular welfare and improvement mere waste 
 paper, and all men calling themselves Reformers or Chartists, of 
 no more political weight in the country, than boys at play with 
 their chartered kites. Such a voice is a mere vaulting into the 
 atmosphere, moved by every idle wind that passes. I have 
 marked the apathy that succeeded an excitement equal to this 
 from the years 1817 to the death of Queen Caroline in 1821, and 
 I fear a similar apathy may follow, unless the agitation be put on 
 the ground of better political principles. I have heard many 
 shallow men say in the present year, “ if this agitation do not 
 succeed, I will never more meddle with politics.” Had such men 
 possessed a definite understanding of political principles, thev 
 
 -'V 
 
 i. - -5 j- 
 
 
 
4 
 
 could not have uttered such desponding sentiments; for the prin- 
 ciples of political reform will be ever progressive, never accom- 
 plished as perfect, but should be always agitated for improvement. 
 Slow is the progress, but sure the benefit, if rightly pursued. 
 Sometimes moral force may accelerate, sometimes physical force 
 may be necessary — but both should be ever ready ; for the one 
 has no real and just identity separated from the other. 
 
 I shrink from no part of the subject. I have never shrunk 
 from a full and fair statement of the pclitical questions of the 
 country. The case is fairer, the justice is stronger, and the dan- 
 ger is less so, than to threaten the torch for incendiarism, the 
 destruction of property, and weapons for the massacre of the 
 defenceless. The questions resolve themselves under the follow- 
 ing heads: — Church and State. 
 
 As to the Church. — 1st. Should its administration consist of 
 science or superstition? — 2nd. Should its property be swallowed 
 up by the priesthood and aristocracy, or applied to popular 
 benefits ? 
 
 As to the State. — Should it consist of the popular voice, as the 
 representation of the people in legislature and magistracy, or 
 should it, as now, be a state of Hereditary Monarchy and Here- 
 ditary Lords, with a third estate that is nominally a representa- 
 tion of the people ; but really and necessarily a representation of 
 Monarchy and Lords, while they remain as two first estates? 
 
 These are the political questions of the country; these the sub- 
 jects of enquiry. The man who shrinks from either of these 
 questions is not vrorthy of being called a reformer. 
 
 The Church is the covenant and law of the people for a state 
 of mind. It consists of the people in all their means and appli- 
 ances lor mutual and general instruction. Church and Mind are 
 synonymous : to which Suul and Sjnrit may be added as conver- 
 tible terms. 
 
 Religion is nominally the business of the Church. It is also 
 called a Avorship of God. Its authority is declared to be the 
 Bible. What is the authority of the Bible ? Is it History or 
 Time, People and Place, as generally received : or is it a mystery 
 of the varying conditions of the states of the mind or souls of 
 human generations, interpreting the word mystery by its ancient 
 and original meaning, as the dramatic language of personified 
 principles or spirits? Doesittreat of things known as natural, or of 
 unknown speculations as supernatural? It has the latter appear- 
 ance by its letter ; it has the former interpretation by its spirit. 
 The first is the meaning of mystery, the second of revelation. 
 
 The evidence that the Bible is not a Book of History is this, 
 that the Old Testament existed as a series of books for centuries, 
 under a translation from the Hebrew into the Greek language, 
 before the names, of Judea, as a country and Jerusalem as a 
 city, were applied to the regions of Palestine or Syria, to say 
 
iioUiing oi the higher and better meaning the words liave iti the 
 original language, as a state of mind or soul, than as a geographi- 
 cal application co a barren country and an inferior city. Judea 
 signilies, as a Hebrew word, a state of knowledge, which is appli- 
 cable, in its longitude and latitude, no where but to the human 
 body when cultivated. Like the word Israelite, it expresses the 
 man of science, who has a knowledge of the works of God, as of 
 supreme physical and moral power. And as Calvary or Golgotha 
 signilies the skull or human head uncultivated, whereon Christ is 
 eternally crucified, so Zion, the Holy Hill, rising out of Jerusalem, 
 the City or Soul of Peace, whereon God clelighteth to dwell, as in 
 a temple not made with hands, is again, in its longitude and latitude, 
 conlined to the elevated and cultivated human forehead. Thus 
 the mystery of the Godhead is no subject for idolatry or super- 
 stition ; but purely natural, relates to and is comprised in ad its 
 meaning, in the well cultivated human head and virtuous being. 
 See St. Paul’s 1st. Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. 3rd, verse 16, 
 chap. 6, verses 15,19. 
 
 The application of those Sacred Scripture Names to the locali- 
 ties of Palestine in Syria, was a work and presumption of a reli- 
 gious sect improperly called Jews, a few years only before the era 
 from which we now date. From Herodotus to Julius Csesar, a 
 space of five hundred years, every historian who gives an account 
 of Palestine or Syria and its people, makes no mention of any 
 nation of Jews or Israelites, while they are uniformly correct in 
 the same description of the people of the districts under the name 
 of Syrians. 
 
 I give a short sketch of this subject here, just to show that I 
 have solid ground whereon to say the Bible is a Book of Science, 
 and not a Book of History. I follov/ St. Paul in this view. Its 
 religion, therefore, or a religion founded upon it, should consist of 
 science. And a Church, having its authority from the Bible, can 
 be truly and justly made no other than a school of science. 
 
 Beside all evidence, it is high time. for the political improve- 
 ment of the people and the welfare of the country, in its relations 
 to other nations, that some mediation and harmony should arise 
 as between what is called science and what is called religion. 
 Thg symbols and language of superstition and the letter of the 
 Bible, scientifically interpreted, become science ; and this I main- 
 tain against the priesthood and against the superstitious part of 
 the people, to be the best and only true interpretation, and to be 
 the foundation of the ordy true religion, of all that is not idolatry 
 and superstition. 
 
 In the name of God, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the 
 name of the Godhead, in the name of Man’s Science and Reason, 
 I demand the rooting out of superstition and the restoration of 
 Science to the (3hurch, and that its property be applied to no 
 other puiTposes, than to feed the poor, and to teach all science. 
 
6 
 
 The present administration of the affairs and property of the 
 Church is most wicked. It is a double robbery, both as to pro- 
 perty and to soul. It is a positive administration of atheism ; for 
 all its ceremonies are idolatrous, and all idolatry is atheism to- 
 wards the true God. It has no authority for present proceedings 
 in the Bible. It has no authority in any of the known works of 
 God. It is now a system of vile priestcraft, encouraged by the 
 aristocracy, for the plunder of the Church Revenues, and for the 
 keeping of the people in a state of ignorance and suitable slavery 
 and debasement. 
 
 The tithe of all the produce of the country is the property of 
 the Church, and no past law that has abrogated the proper use of 
 that property, can be maintained against the politically, morally, 
 religiously, and constitutionally inalienable principle of Church 
 Revenues. All misapplications of Church Property vfill be found 
 recoverable, as far as property can be found to represent it, and 
 the true strength of a people, especially of the people of England 
 and Ireland, will be found to be in their Church Property. Every 
 tittle of Church Property, that has been removed from the poor 
 and the ignorant, has been a felonious application. My political 
 experience induces me to urge upon the whole j>eople the expe- 
 diency of resorting on every Sabbath to the building called the 
 Parish Church, soberly and orderly, and there discuss in the best 
 manner, the original nature and institution of the Church. Upon 
 the same authority of the Bible as a Book of Science and not of 
 History, I warn the people called Dissenters from the Church 
 Established by Law, that, as in the Church, their whole system 
 of religion is idolatrous and superstitious, as such damnable, and 
 has not a word of truth, in history or science, by human or divine 
 testimony, with it associated. I make no exceptions, but include 
 the whole, from the Presbyterians of the seventeenth to the Uni- 
 tarians of this century, all who read the Bible as a Book of 
 History. All this I am ever ready to discuss with the most 
 learned among them. 
 
 I have long seen it to be either political blindness or madness, 
 to seek a change in the Poor Laws on any other ground than this, 
 which I pleaded against the Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens, in the 
 last year. This is the root of all grievances — the superstition of 
 the Church, and the consequent spoliation of its revenues hy Kings, 
 Lords, and Priests. This is the root of all political debasement, 
 of every poor man’s wrong, and every rich man’s tyranny. 
 
 As the spiritual man is the improvement of the natural man — 
 as the intellectual is the cultivation of the physical soul — so hea- 
 ven, in its true and scriptural meaning, is to be a highly cultivated 
 state of human society, carrying ouc a high cultivation of the 
 earth, the land of promise, to flow with milk and honey ; the 
 advent of Christ, the state of peace and good-will among men, 
 the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, as righteousness and 
 
7 
 
 rest — ^joy and love. There is not a word in the Bible, tliat relates 
 to any other dwelling-place than the earth, the earth as it is, and 
 the earth or heaven as it may be cultivated. And all the difi'o- 
 rence between heaven and hell, is that hell now is, through idolatry, 
 superstition, ignorance, consequent vices and political debase- 
 ment, and heaven may be, if we only take possession of the right 
 means and practices to bring ourselves up to that state. Mise- 
 rable deception is it, and without the authority of God or Bible, 
 a piece of tyranny and priestcraft, plunder and spoliation, that 
 cajoles the human race into a conten^edness with hell here, under 
 a promise of a heaven in another life. I plead nothing against or 
 about a future state ; but I demand the product of that heaven 
 here, which is promised in the Bible, and calculated as obtain- 
 able by every good and wise man, from the authors of the book to 
 Robert Owen, 
 
 It may be perceived, that if tithes, irredeemable, were paid in 
 full to the Church, as they ought to be, and free trade in all com- 
 modities, foreign and domestic, as there should be, existed, the 
 aristocracy could neither monopolize the land nor get a rent from 
 it. Tithes were the original and only just rent payable to the 
 people as original landlords and used for the Church purposes of 
 feeding the poor and teaching all. This would not be spoliation 
 of the rich ; but the restoration of justice to the poor. I would 
 take nothing from the rich, but what they had taken from the 
 poor. The welfare of society requires that we raise all upward 
 and not level all downward. 
 
 Tithes are a property of growing value ; therefore it is impossi- 
 ble to state the extent of Church property, if it were rightly 
 gathered and administered. One half of the tithes are not now 
 collected from the mere shame of the use that is made of them. 
 
 A right application of them is the fiist principle of political liberty, 
 correcting and purifying all that follows. They are the necessary 
 property applicable to the creation of mind ; and without a high 
 state of mind, there can be no political liberty, nothing approach- 
 ing to equal rights or equal laws. As the root of all wrong is in 
 the present state of the Church or state of mind, so the root of 
 all reform must be there. We cannot reform either Kings, 
 
 Lords, or Commons, through any other means or media than in 
 first reforming the Church. A full trial of the per contra was 
 made and failed in the seventeenth century, even to the abolition 
 of monarchy, lords, and established church ; there was no pre- 
 pared state of mind to correct and restore a better state of 
 things; and monarchy, lords, and superstitious church were res- 
 tored to curse and oppress us, and make the hell we now inhabit. 
 
 I pass from the subject of the Church, which is but little under- 
 stood, and requires more voluminous treatment than can be afforded 
 here, to that of the State, with which tnen of all parties profess to 
 be quite conversant. Let us try their profession and judgment. 
 
 V)H»V£RSTTY 
 
 ttUNOiS 
 
8 
 
 The task I here assign myself, is a continuation of that on which 
 I entered twenty years ago, the most difficult of all reforms, the 
 necessary task of reforming the reformers. In the course of that 
 twenty years, I have fought and beaten the Tories, as to the un- 
 limited freedom of the press, in the discussion of all matters of 
 public principle in politics and religion. That was one thing ne- 
 cessary to be done, and is done ; as far as the government is in 
 question, the press is now more free, than the people are free and 
 high minded to use it. I have fought and beaten the Whigs, in the 
 matter of free oral discussion on the sabbath, as well as on other 
 days. This united struggle has cost me nine years and nine 
 months of imprisonment, and great sacrifices of property, under 
 government seizures, to my continued impoverishment. But I 
 have, so far, mastered both Tory and Whig Administrations, and 
 nothing now remains to be done in this country for useful progress 
 in political change, but to reform the reformers, so as to make 
 them one body and one mind. The right of discussion is now as 
 free as it is desirable it should be, so far as the authorities are in 
 question ; defects on that head belong to the people alone, as a 
 defective state of mind. 
 
 I am in truth and honesty bound to say, that the mind of the 
 Reformers throughout the country is in a miserably defective state. 
 They eire an inferior class of politicians. There is yet no men- 
 tal manhood among them. But few of them say what they 
 mean, and fewer understand the bearing of what they say. The 
 prevalent feeling among the Reformers is, that there is something 
 wrong, without the knowledge to attach the wrong and apply the 
 remedy. The highest statement among them is, that to reform 
 the House of Commons'' by the propositions of Universal Suf- 
 frage, Ballot, Annual Elections, no Property Qualification, and 
 Payment of Members, with Uniform Electoral Districts, would be the 
 regeneration of the country. It is a mere senseless parrot cry. 
 They stop not to ask themselves how this could be done, in con- 
 junction with such a Monarchy, and such a House of Lords as we 
 now have, or how it would so work afterward. The project is a 
 hobby which the unreflecting imagination rides, and all obstacles 
 are galloped over imaginarily, but never practically removed. 
 Thus, this sort of clamour for reform has been unsuccessful through 
 sixty years, and sinks in the weight and worth of its advocates. 
 It began as a Bill to Parliament with a Duke, the Duke of Rich- 
 mond, and wdll end with the madness or death of a couple of wild 
 Irishmen, who have made a Paper Kite of the Charter to play and 
 profit with, after every English Gentleman and Philosopher has 
 discarded it as an impracticable project. One quarter of the ex- 
 ertion, and a hundredth part of the expence, that has procured it 
 a million and a quarter of signatures to petitions in the present 
 year, procured it a million and a half, twenty two years ago. As 
 fnen grow more intelligent in politics, they pass away from such 
 
9 
 
 futilities. In 1817, I found the old politicians, who had lived 
 through the French Revolution, scouting all pretences that were 
 limited to a reform of the House of Commons, as impracticable 
 and futile. They whispered into my ear, and the whisper has not 
 been lost upon me, that the cry of reform was a bug-bear, and 
 would be a humbug in its advocacy, until the people were so re- 
 formed, as to be rescued from the designs and interests of a priest- 
 hood, supported by and supporting a Church plundering legisla- 
 ting aristocracy. Twenty two years of study and experience, after 
 and under this suggestion, have assured me that there lies the root 
 of all national grievances. 
 
 The Church is the only great institution in the country that 
 can be corrected by moral force, and consequently is the first 
 open to correction ; for the people, through their ignorance, their 
 superstitious divisions and bad habits, are no more prepared for 
 physical force opposition to the government, than are the sheep 
 of the country. Like sheep would they be scattered and slaugh- 
 tered. My experience says, England contains no fighting poli - 
 ticians with destructive weapons. And even if there were a pro- 
 bability of a successful stand, they are, in present state of mind, 
 in the additional danger of turning their arms one aganst the 
 other from religious dissension. The only way to reform is to 
 remove the superstition of the people. The doing of this would 
 create a new moral power necessary to the direction of physical 
 force. 
 
 Of the West Riding of Yorkshire, I have this summer visited 
 Hull, Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, Brad- 
 ford, Dewsbury, Halifax and Huddersfield, and there, I have not 
 found half a dozen individuals so mad as to think of the present 
 application of physical force against the government. There might 
 have been companies of a different kind of men into which ,I 
 have not entered ; but I speak of the more intelligent class of 
 reformers, whom I can proudly claim as my readers, through the 
 last twenty years. Throughout this district, I could get no evi- 
 dence that the people were arming, other than the vague rumour 
 that it was every where but on the spot of enquiry. In one part 
 of Manchester and in Bolton I found a passion for arms and their 
 accumulation ; but it is one thing and a proper thing to have arms 
 at home and another and very different one to have the spirit, 
 and to know the time when to bring them out for use. It is one 
 thing to threaten and to bully, cowards are most forward to do 
 this ; it is another to turn out on principle for battle ; and still 
 another to stand firm in battle and report progress in a political 
 cause. 
 
 Englishmen are not yet prepared for this. I am not so well 
 informed as to Scotland ; but I doubt from the little I have seen 
 if Scotchmen are prepared. And Daniel O'Ccnnelhs seven mil- 
 lions of Roman Churchmen will never be found fighting in 
 harmony with people of another religion, whom they hate ajid 
 
io 
 
 by whom they are persecuted. The public mind is a chaos through 
 the matter of religion, of superstition ; and order must be first 
 restored there, before it can follow elsewhere. While the Church 
 is a chaos, the State must remain a chaos. There is not a man 
 in parliament, nor among the men calling themselves Radical 
 Reformers out of parliament, that dares look at the subject, so as 
 to be able to speak out boldly and honestly and lay the foundation 
 of unity of mind in rational reform. It is not an afiair to be 
 decided by the wink of Feargus O’Connor, nor by the nod of 
 James Bronterre O’Brien, cunning as they may conceit themselves 
 to be and popular among ignorant people. Henry Hunt, as a 
 man of purpose and nerve, was superior to either of them, even 
 in the same sort of popularity, and yet his political career was 
 fruitless and his popularity not worth a rush in its application to 
 public good. Henry Hunt understood not the true relation of 
 the people to the Church, and, with Major Cartwright, that good 
 old man, vainly sought to mix popular suffrage with a Church 
 Plundering Monarchy. Aristocracy and Priesthood. Reformers ! 
 it cannot be done. Thomas Paine is the only bold, honest and 
 rational politician, after whom I have read, and they who abuse 
 him dare not discuss his merits with me. In the speeches or 
 writings of Feargus O’Connor, or James Bronterre O’Brien, I 
 have never found a tittle of political principle, nothing intelligi ^ 
 ble, nothing that a follower can judge of as to what is meant, or 
 what should be done day by day, or how any kind of change is 
 to be worked. To hear the cry of_'* Hunt for ever,” was the 
 heaven of Henry Hunt, and to hear the cry of three cheers for 
 Feargus O’Connor and James Bronterre O’Brien, among a beer- 
 besotted and tobacco-stenched people, seems to me to be the 
 climax of their aspirations. This state of things can lead to no 
 good, to no useful change, to no change at all. These are not the 
 people to arm : they have first need of knowledge, to know what 
 politics, legislation and government mean, and that knowledge 
 can never be nationalized and rationalized, until superstition be 
 abrogated, and science made the business of the Church. A 
 superstitious Church requires, prepares, justifies and makes neces- 
 sary a tyrannical and corrupt government. The purification 
 must begin with the Church, that is, with the people themselves. 
 The people are not now a power to reform any thing in the State. 
 They recognize no principles, no state of mind, that can lead 
 them to any good. They are political idolaters of men, of 
 inferior men, of noisy and impudent men, without principle, 
 of worthless men, of men of trick and cheat, of political traders, 
 and thus generation after generation passes away, no beneficial 
 change is worked, apathy follows excitement, and unremoved 
 ignorance sinks and sulks into bad passions. The highest aggre- 
 gate of political power that has been exhibited among men calling 
 themselves Reformers, up to this hour, has been a mob riot, des- 
 tructive of dwellings and of property. This is not improvement. 
 
11 
 
 If change, it is a change for the worst. Stay this course. Reform, 
 ers, let us enter upon a oetter and begin a reform of the Church 
 without neglecting a reform of the State and of each individual 
 institution. Let us begin with ourselves and extend the reform 
 to all. If we begin not at home, we begin not at all. 
 
 Are you prepared to throw away your superstition and bad 
 habits first ? If not, hold your tongues from shame and say noth- 
 ing about the reform of others. Superstition is mental intoxica- 
 tion. The bulk of the taxation of which you complain is but a 
 tax upon popular vices. The wasteful expenditure begins with the 
 people. Reform cannot be brought to the benefit of the drunk- 
 ard. Suffrage is nothing to him. Liberty is a spirit which he 
 defies. He is the first principle of social tyranny : a tyrant and a 
 ruffian at home of the worst description : a nuisance alike at home 
 and abroad : his life is a disgrace to humanity — his death becomes 
 a universal relief : he has lived a hell and has been an obstacle to 
 heaven : he has made himself a consuming fire, a temple of the 
 Devil, an earthly fiend, a moving pestilence, a damned soul. 
 The cry of reform or death is suitable to his condition ; he cannot 
 too soon determine on the one or the other as within himself. 
 If he reform himself, he becomes a practical reformer of the 
 laws, constitution and government of the country. If not, he is 
 a knave and fool ; the fit subject of necessary tyranny. Suffrage 
 in legislation is a mockery with a drunken man, as it is a mock- 
 ery in the hands of a superstitious, priest-ridden man. 
 
 fn a national state of mind, like that of England at present, 
 extensive popularity and profits can only be founded upon the 
 most gross ignorance and a pandering to the vices and mistakes of 
 the people. I have never sought such a popularity, have never been 
 a bidder for it ; but have steadily pursued my individual course 
 to the accomplishment of whatever change for good was indivi- 
 dually practicable, trusting to and valuing only the support and 
 countenance of those who understood my purpose and could see 
 the issue of my career. Thus far, I have not failed in anything 
 I have undertaken that depended on myself. My present under- 
 taking is to carry science into the Church, under the abolition of 
 superstition as the first necessary step in national reform. Can 
 this purpose be mistaken ? Is it the task of a government agent? 
 Ignorant men, bad men, calling themselves Reformers, have made 
 this imputation. I seek their instruction, their first necessary 
 reformation, and when instructed and reformed, I will pardon 
 their wrong and false imputation. At present, I defy their igno- 
 rance and malice, as a part of the tyranny and corruption of the 
 country. Who among them can bear free discussion on all sub- 
 jects, before all men, as I can bear, and as I seek it ? This is the 
 true criterion of individual worth, of talent and of virtue. 
 
 Reformers, People of Great Britain and Ireland, shall your 
 religion consist of superstition or of science ? One or the other 
 
12 
 
 it must be. There is neither medium nor alternative as between 
 the two. Your decision on this as aprimary question inthecauseof 
 reform will determine whether your government shall be a legist- 
 lation for the benefit of an aristocracy and a priesthood, or for the 
 people as a whole, A tyrannical and corrupt government is 
 indispensible to a superstitious people. A free and liberty loving 
 government must have its foundation in a free minded and liberty- 
 loving people. As liberty is not the property of drunkenness, 
 vice or bad passion of any kind, so also, it cannot be made the 
 property of an ignorant man. We want science in the Church, 
 as a parochial, in particular, and national institution, in general, 
 for the removal of that ignorance. There is no other ground of 
 national and rational reform, and all men, in or out of parliament, 
 who are short of this, while calling themselves reformers, are 
 cheats or ignorant humbugs. 
 
 Are we to wait until the people are all educated before we get 
 a better state of things, cry “Chartists and Universal Suffrage” 
 men. Yes, I answer. Do all you can, accomplish all you wish, 
 and you will then have to wait until the people are better edu- 
 cated, before you can work a change to produce a better state 
 of things. The people may begin to make science the business of 
 the Church to-morrow, or any day ; it is their own pleasure, their 
 own will, their own power, they have only to assemble any Sunday 
 morning in Church or Churchyard and begin it ; there let them 
 assemble, exhibit their distresses, their mental destitution, their 
 neglected state, and my life on the issue, that this continued for 
 twelve months, will sufficiently educate them, to make them a 
 new power, both a moral force and physical force power, to enter 
 upon the consummation of most rapid useful changes in legislation 
 and administration of law. If this be not done, nothing will be 
 done, and they who live through the remainder of this century 
 will find themselves as to Universal Suffrage or Charter, where 
 their fathers were with the Duke of Richmond at their head sixty 
 years ago. There is no other ground for religious, moral or politi- 
 cal union among the people, than in entering upon science as the 
 business of the Church and thereby abrogating superstition. 
 This superstition is the root and cause of all the ignorance and all 
 the vices of the people. See to it. Professors of Religion : see to 
 it Government: see to it Legislators: — see to it Magistrates: — see 
 to it Bishops, Priests and Deacons, I would save you from Dis- 
 senterian overthrow, where and when you cannot save yourselves. 
 Put the Crown of Science on the Head of the Queen, as the 
 head of the Church, sink the frown of tyranny, subdue the lour 
 of superstition, bring back Zion, the perfection of beauty, on 
 the human countenance, and happy days may be prepared for 
 mankind. The Bible commands you to do this, and in the name 
 of God, Bible and People, I repeat the command. You have 
 fallen into idolatry and superstition, and into consequent captivity. 
 
hoiKlage and slavery ; you arc in a state of mental confusion ; 
 there is no mental manhood, no clear intelligence operating among 
 you. All of which you complain has its root in a supertitiousChurch; 
 lay your axe at that root, thrust your pikes into the carcase of 
 this superstitious Old Hag, like the knife of Ehud in the bowels 
 of Eglon, let the dirt come out, make the Old Lady clean, purify 
 her within and without, and though now scientifically dead, she 
 will rise to life again, if you kill her superstition, which has 
 mentally killed you. 
 
 Thomas Paine stated the case clearly in the year 1792, 
 and George Canning, an adverse politician, repeated it as fairly, 
 in the year 1824, the Radical Chartists have never met the 
 question, tliat there can be no reformed House of Commons, 
 as a representation of the whole people, with a House of Lords. 
 The man is knave or fool, who makes any pretence to any thing of the 
 kind. We will settle the question with the Lords in a week, said J ames 
 Bronterre O’Brien, (on my interrogation) when they have given 
 us, or we have taken Universal Suffrage. That is an Irish Bull, 
 Pat, the Lords will neither give it to you, nor let you take it, in 
 the present state of things, as between their state and your state. 
 Give it to you, they most assuredly will not, in the present defec- 
 tive state of the public mind, with their present physical force 
 strength, and with your weakness; andwdien you can take it, it will 
 be an Irishman’s long day first, would it not be wiser to calculate, 
 know, and remove the obstacles, before you begin to use it? 
 Aye ! Pat ! what say you ? I have known and shaken hands 
 with but one Irishman yet, that was a good politician and philo- 
 sopher.and that was Roger, the Father of Feargus O’Connor, and 
 if Feargus would reprint, and widely circulate his father’s writings, 
 he would be doing more good, than he is doing with his forty 
 thousand Northern Stars, made up of vapid speeches, beer house 
 resolutions, and quack and filthy advertisements, to the exclusion 
 of good political and theological discussion, of all instruction and 
 respectable literature. A single edition of “The Chronicles of Eri” 
 would be of more value and political worth to the people, than 
 all the “ Northern Stars" that have appeared. 
 
 Ah ! but the expediency of saying all that we mean ? Why let 
 our enemies into our secrets and purposes ; why not lull and 
 weaken them with delusions, and then trick 'and beat them ? 
 Because you cannot. They see more than you see, are deeper 
 and clearer headed than you are, have stronger nerves than you 
 have ; they are neither to be frightened by your bullying, nor 
 tricked and outwitted by your tricks and want of wit. They are 
 a fair and open enemy, and you can only fight and beat them by 
 fair and open means, none of which are you now taking, or have 
 you ever taken. You have to learn their strength, and your own 
 comparative strength with theirs, and to know that you are the 
 strongest, before you will be qualified to meet them with physical 
 
14 
 
 Jorce. You may weaken them by the full exercise of moral force# 
 You may weaken them, and thus only can you weaken them, by 
 removing their chief prop and corner stone of superstition. As 
 their privileges are your oppressions, so they hold their distinc- 
 tions over you, through your ignorance, and their superior cun- 
 ning. They are educated and trained to be your oppressors, 
 where you are neither educated nor trained to resist them. For 
 the correction of this error and evil, we want a scientific church. 
 
 It is inexpedient to meet the Lords and the Priesthood fairly 
 and openly, say our would-be cunning ones, while they are rash 
 and base enough, to talk openly and undisguisedly of applying the 
 torch or the Lucifer match for the destruction of property. It 
 would be inexpedient to fight the army, say they, while they re- 
 commend weapons, the alternative use of which must be to turn 
 them against weak and defenceless property-people. Throughout 
 the periodical writings of James Bronterre O’Brien, I have seen 
 nothing but an expression of hatred toward and warfare with peo- 
 ple of property, and here roots his popularity with the most des- 
 perately depraved portion of the people, of similar tastes and 
 habits. I repeat, that from him I have read no emanation of 
 sound political principle : nor any instruction calculated to raise 
 and dignify a people. And this man has the impudence to abuse 
 Thomas Paine as a defective Politician and Financier ! Will he 
 bear any discussion on the subject ? He is challenged, will he 
 meet it ? 
 
 Unprincipled desperadoes, like these, agitate the ignorance 
 and inflame the passions and vices of the people, without direct- 
 ing them to any good, without working any useful change. With 
 lying reports as to the state of mind or disposition of the people, 
 carried from place to place, they keep up an excitement, make a 
 profit of it, and thus carry on a political business that suits the 
 agitator, but damages the people. This is not wholesome agita- 
 tion. There is no principle, no teaching, no strength deduced 
 from such proceedings. Lancashire and Yorkshire are full of politi- 
 cal associations, of moving delegates, without any other purpose 
 than to apply and expend the subscriptions. I have known this 
 game carried on and livings made of these delegacies ever since the 
 year 1817, while it is politically clear, that they can minister to 
 nothing but political deception. I have uniformly condemned 
 and do condemn still all political associations as a damage to 
 the general question of reform. Scientific tssociations, for instruc- 
 tion are necessary in the absence of a scientific church. Thou- 
 sands of pounds will have been collected and spent in political 
 associations and delegacies this year, while the year will be found 
 to end in effect as it began in cause. Needed we a Convention of 
 Delegates all but self-appointed, to tell us to abstain from the 
 use of exciseable articles, to run upon the banks without having 
 property in them, to stand idle without the means of subsistence. 
 
16 
 
 and to make all our dealings of a sectarian character. Is this an affair 
 of conventional wisdom for which to expend two tliousand pounds P 
 Either delegates or delegators might have learnt all this and the 
 futility of such proceedings, by reading the political tracts of the 
 years 1817 to 19. Alas! fora miserable and deluded people, 
 Alas ! for political scoundrelism. 
 
 The broadest and best political principles may be individually 
 stated without danger to any one ; but the advocacy of inferior po- 
 litical principles in political associations, are attended with dan- 
 ger ; for every political association is a political conspiracy, in and 
 under which, every member is legally responsible for every other 
 member’s language and acts. The p^overnment or parties have 
 only need to send their agents into such associations, to 
 work them to ends opposed to public good. No good man is 
 
 safe in such an association. Oliver, the spy, who caused the 
 death of Brandreth,Ludlam and Turner at Derby in 18 1 7, and the 
 transportation of many others, did no more than scores of dele- 
 gates are doing in the present day, by conveying false reports 
 from place to place of popular risings, or popular readiness to rise 
 and be insurgent. There were scores of delegates employed in 
 this way from 1817 to 1820, and to the death of Queen Caroline. 
 These are the men to be suspected as government agents ; for if 
 they have not lent themselves to such purposes, the government 
 has the power and the skill to use them for such purposes. I 
 find myself abused and misrepresented by all, or nearly all such 
 men. These are the dividers of the people ; they who mislead 
 them, they who weaken them, and take advantage of their igno- 
 rance. Let no such men be trusted y for planned insurgency can 
 never succeed in this country, under a strong government, with 
 eyes and agents and reporters in every parish. 
 
 We have need of a moral ground on which to proceed in the 
 advocacy of political reform, a ground on which all men calling 
 themselves reformers can unite, and against which, our interested 
 opponents cannot raise a moral objection. We can find that 
 ground at present no where, but in seeking a scientific church. I 
 am not for deferring or delaying a reform of the House of Com- 
 mons. I am impatient for its accomplishment. I pity, hate, and 
 dread your delays. I shrink not from Universal Suffrage ; but I 
 desire it as the suffrage of intelligent and wise men. I do not ask 
 you to wait for any thing, but to hasten on, and be doing some- 
 thing toward the accomplishment of the means to your end. It 
 is you, and not I, who have been standing still and doing nothing, 
 I have been moving forward, and have kept ahead of you through 
 every one of the last twenty two years. I have been ready either 
 for moral or physical force throughout that time, but I have not 
 found you ready with either. I have been painfully and pecuni- 
 arly made to feel, that, as a party, you have been in a despicable 
 state of mind, much below the cunning of either whig or tory. 
 
.16 
 
 It is stated, and is true, that no men appear among you qualified 
 to take any political office, for the carrying out of reform and im- 
 provement. The most wild and extravagant of your men, your 
 O'Connors and O’Briens, present nothing of practicable opera- 
 tion, and statesman-like political principle : nothing to move with, 
 or to be moved. I dislike the sound of these Irish O’s, in connec- 
 tion with the question of English Reform, and look upon an 
 Irish Protestant as a base and bastard Irishman, a traitor to his 
 persecuted country, without the apology of philosophical dissent 
 from the Romish Church. If this be an unsound prejudice of 
 mine, I feel, express and submit it to correction. I count such 
 men obstacles to the public good of this country, and that the 
 temper of an Irishman is best suited to the state of Ireland. 
 I wish them all at home and happy, reforming themselves and Ire- 
 land. They are not solid and steady enough, not sufficiently 
 philosophical, for the necessities of English Reform. I dislike 
 the mixture, and think it does not work 'well. 
 
 The history of the House of Commons is briefly this, that while it was a growing 
 popular power in the reigns of James and Charles the first, it led on to the destruc- 
 tion of King, Lords and Priesthood of the Law Established Church ; and when 
 Charles the Second was restored, for want of a state of mind among the people, 
 wherewith to constitute a good and permanent representative system of government, 
 the Lords and Established Church Priesthood being restored also, it was found 
 necessary and practically accomplished to corrupt a House of Commons, so as to 
 make it fit and suit the other imperfections of the government. From that day to this, 
 we have had nothing but a bribed and corrupted House of Commons subservient to 
 and in reality a representation of the interests of King, Lords and Priesthood and' 
 not at all a representation of the people or popular state of mind, and the whole 
 question evolves the declaration that there can be no popular House of Commons 
 representing at large an intelligent people, coexistent with a House of Lords. The 
 Lords must retire from the legislature, whenever an intelligent people gets a repre- 
 sentation of the House of Commons, and before it is got. For the present, then, a 
 reform of the House of Commons is a physical force question: the Lords will not now 
 yield to any moral force that can be immediately brought to bear upon them. Are the peo- 
 ple at large prepared to make it a physical force question ? I cannot find a prepared 
 state of mind in the country equal to any such purpose. What, then can be done ? 
 
 We can go to the Church as purely a moral force question and seek the education 
 of the people through it and its property as an institution. Surely this is a case in 
 which all classes, save the interested against, may join, even higher, middle and 
 lower. It would be a relief to all parties except the robbers of Church Property. 
 To the Church, then, let us go. This may be done to-morrow or to day. We need 
 not pass a hour without doing something on this ground. Every man’s conversation 
 with his neighbour may be brought to bear on this subject as a progression. And 
 this too is a provision of the education of the people so much called for to qualify 
 them to make the best use of the suffrage when they get it. SCIENCE IN THE 
 CHURCH, when made a popular cry and demand, is the solution of all the political 
 difficulties of the country. Who in the face of that demand shall cry 
 for superstition ? If we are not prepared for this, we are prepared for nothing 
 good and useful- 
 
 There can be no reformed House of Commons, of popular representation, with a 
 House of Lords. Science may be carried back into the Church, in spite of King, 
 Lords and Priesthood, if the people can only be brought to attend to their present 
 interests, under their present power, in the proper election of Churchwardens and 
 other Church Officers. To the Church, every Sabbath, and make it a school of 
 science, of politics and morals. As far as possible, I offer my assistance to the 
 inhabitants of any parish that will commence the struggle, and in all reasonable 
 things, Eemain your humble servant, 
 
 RICHARD CARLILE. 
 
 A. HEYWOOD, PRINTER, OLDHAM-STREET, MANCHESTER. 
 


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