Leading on from organisation, another huge factor in the failure of the Chartist movement was the friction between the two strains of Chartism- Moral and Physical. Comparisons can be drawn between the Chartist movement and the Irish republican movement- whereby Sinn Fein is the political side, and the Irish Republican Army is the militant faction. However, unlike the solidarity displayed (in the main) by the Irish republicans, the Chartist movement was often split in half because of the antagonism between William Lovett, the leader of so-called ‘Moral’ Chartism, who advocated passivity and moderation, received only limited support from Fergus O’Connor, the more radical leader of ‘Physical’ Chartism, who advocated ‘dying for the cause’ and setting a date for violent action, unless Parliament did not grant the points on the charter. This caused a rift between the two factions, rather than a peaceful co-existence. There were many cases of the leaders sniping at each other- when O’Connor was imprisoned in March 1840 for publishing ‘seditious libels’ in his newspaper, the Northern Star (although the paper paid the 4d Stamp Tax, O’Connor denounced it as taxing free speech), he carried on editing the paper from his cell, and told his readers that from ‘September 1835 to February 1839 I led you single-handed and alone’. This of course, did not endear him to the other Chartist leaders, and after his release in August 1841, carried out a series of character assassinations and barbed verbal attacks on the other leaders such as Lovett (leading to his retirement in 1842, depriving the movement of an important leader), O’Brien and Vincent. This irrevocably divided the Chartist movement. After his failure with the third and final petition, which contained only 1,975,496 (many of which were forgeries, including ‘Queen Victoria’ ‘Lord Wellington’ and even ‘No Cheese’) not the 5,706,000 he had told the crowd. He was accused of ruining the credibility of the movement, and eventually died in a mental institution.
The friction between the leaders was caused by their differing opinions on how the chartists should go about achieving their aims. The chartists who advocated violence were often excluded by the more peaceful ones. For example, O’Connor was excluded from a meeting organised by the London Working Man’s Association after a speech he made giving a date for ‘violent action’ against parliament if they did not grant the charter outraged his fellow leaders. Every time a violent demonstration occurred, it was quickly put down by the authorities and harsh sentences were handed out, such as the case of the failed Newport rising of 1839, where John Frost and several others were charged with treason and narrowly escaped hanging. This did not inspire the majority of chartists to turn to violence however, instead convinced them of the futility of violent direct action. With the failure of violence, many chartists became disillusioned with the cause and left.
It soon became clear through the failure of the petitions and the dispersal of meetings, the arrest of the more violent chartists and the rifts in the movement that the six point charter was not going to be accepted. At this point, with Lovett retired and O’Connor in a mental institution, the chartist movement petered out. The very methods used to get themselves into the public eye- mass protests, violent action, mass petitions and incorporating smaller movements- became their undoing, as a result of in-fighting, bad administration, heavy-handed policing and government apathy. The conflict between the main factions of Chartism caused indecision, the death blow of any organisation. The poor coordination between peaceful action and violent action ensured even non-violent protests and mass meetings were quickly dispersed by troops, and the long prison terms and deportation meant the chartists were quite often without capable leaders. I would agree with the statement, because the methods, although gaining some small success at the time, led to the downfall of the chartist movement, and their demands were only implemented at a later time, when the government had carefully evaluated them. The reason the chartists could not get their demands met at the time was down, in the main, to their inability to organise themselves effectively- it is telling that most of the demands were eventually passed without the chartists efforts.
