Striving for a world transformed by justice and peace - a TL from 1827

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The resignation of six cabinet ministers and several junior ministers on 29 January 1846 meant that Goulburn had to make a major reconstruction of his government. Here is the new cabinet as at 30 January (the names marked with * are those unchanged in their posts):

Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Commons: Henry Goulburn*
Lord Chancellor: Lord Lyndhurst*
Lord President of the Council: Thomas Hamilton, Earl of Haddington
Lord Privy Seal: The Duke of Buccleuch*
Chancellor of the Exchequer: John Herries*
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: Edward Law, Earl of Ellenborough
Secretary of State for the Home Department: Sir George Clerk
First Lord of the Admiralty: The Earl of Lonsdale
Secretary of State for the Colonies: Sir Henry Hardinge
President of the Board of Control: Lord Stanley*
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: James Milnes Gaskell
Chief Secretary for Ireland: James Emerson Tennent
Minister without Portfolio and Leader of the House of Lords: The Duke of Wellington*
Paymaster-General: Sir Edward Knatchbull*
President of the Board of Trade: Sir Thomas Fremantle
Secretary of State for War: William Bingham Baring (he had previously been Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, but Goulburn separated these two posts and abolished the cabinet post of Secretary at War, the responsibilities of which were taken over by the Secretary of State for War) (1)
First Commissioner of Woods and Forests: James Manners-Sutton.

Outside the cabinet Henry Thomas Lowry-Corry became Master of the Mint, and Lord John Manners (MP for Newark) entered the government as Vice-President of the Board of Trade.

(1) The Secretary of State for War was responsible for military policy. The Secretary at War had some responsibility for the administration and organisation of the army. The latter post was subordinate to the former.

 

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In September and October 1846 Benjamin Disraeli and Anna, his wife, made a five to six weeks tour of Ireland. The Disraelis landed in Dublin where they made contact with the Jewish community in that city, and also with the Jewish communities in Cork, Limerick and Belfast. When in Dublin they met, and became friends with, Jane Francesca Elgee (1), a writer, supporter of the nationalist movement and contributor to The Nation, a nationalist weekly newspaper. Benjamin Disraeli was commissioned by Charles Gavan Duffy, the editor of The Nation, to send regular reports of his journey through Ireland for publication in that journal. The Disraelis travelled all over Ireland in a generally clockwise direction.

On the day before he and Anna embarked from Dublin, Benjamin Disraeli and Daniel O'Connor addressed a huge meeting in Dublin. Disraeli told the meeting that he had seen with his own eyes the tremendous distress caused by the British government's reaction to the potato blight. He demanded the immediate repeal of the Corn Laws, which in his opinion would result in a rapid and large fall in the price of grain. and the complete suspension of all exports of food from Ireland, until the potato harvest is back to normal levels.

He called for the repeal of the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland, and the restoration of an Irish Parliament. He said that the cause of Ireland's freedom was his cause.

In early December 1846 Disraeli's book Narrative of my travels through a famine-stricken Ireland and the true cause of Ireland's distress was published. This became a great success in liberal and radical circles.

(1) In OTL she is better known as Jane Francesca Wilde, the mother of Oscar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Wilde .

 

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Cultural events

In this TL Alfred Tennyson committed suicide in November 1833, therefore he doesn't marry Emily Selwood. By the late 1830s Emily had become part of the circle of poets and writers in London - of which the most notable were Robert Browning, Thomas Carlyle and Arthur Hallam. In June 1842 Emily married Browning. She kept her Selwood surname and became Emily Selwood Browning.

Emily was a more than competent musician and a talented, even brilliant, composer, though her works were on a small canvas - solo pieces for the piano and violin; piano and violin sonatas; string quartets; and songs. She also put some of her husband's poems to music. She is now regarded as one of the leading British composers of the 19th century. She died on 19 August 1896, as in OTL. (1)

After a period of illness in October 1847 Felix Mendelssohn made a full recovery. In the next twenty-five or so years his musical genius reached new heights. He composed two more symphonies; a piano concerto; a flute concerto; a double concerto for cello and violin; three more string quartets; two overtures and works for solo instruments - flute, piano and violin. He died on 23 June 1868, aged 69.

(1) The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article for Emily Tennyson states: "Her own particular talent was for music and she composed and played all her life." See http://217.169.56.135/view/article/41314 .

 

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Young England originated as a group of four Tory MPs in 1842 or 1843, its exact date of birth cannot be pinned down. The Young Englanders were Lord John Manners, Alexander Baillie-Cochrane, Henry Thomas Hope and George Smythe, although several more Tory MPs were sympathetic to the cause. Manners was the group's leader and figurehead. It was passionately opposed to an individualistic and rational Radicalism, which they believed had infected the attitudes and policies of Sir Robert Peel and other leading members of the Tory Party. It believed in a romanticised and idealised paternalistic society in which the rich kept their moral obligations to the poor, a return to an idealised Middle Ages. However it can not be put into a right-wing box. In alliance with the radicals it opposed the New Poor Law. (1)

When Henry Goulburn became Prime Minister on 30 January 1844 after the assassination of Peel, Young England hoped that he would be more inclined to their way of thinking. It was disappointed that the Goulburn government did not implement its policies.

Young England were on the same side as the government in opposing the repeal of the Corn Laws. It argued that free imports of corn and grain would destroy the livelihoods of farmers and those dependent upon them. At the end of January 1846 Goulburn appointed Lord John Manners to his government as Vice-President of the Board of Trade, outside the cabinet.

What happened in London on Saturday 1 May 1847 saw the start of a fundamental change in the political ideology of Young England. That day will always be known as Bloody Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in a demonstration in London organised by the Anti-Corn Law League and the Chartists. In the afternoon, the demonstrators congregated in Trafalgar Square to hear speeches from prominent members of both organisations including Fergus O'Connor, the Chartist MP for Nottingham.

Suddenly police and militia on horses started charging the crowd and hitting them with truncheons and the flat of their swords. In less than twenty minutes seven people were killed - four men, two women and a child - were killed, and another twenty-four people injured, by the forces of law and order.

The Bloody Saturday massacre began the process of transforming Young England from a small group within the Conservative Party to a substantial component of British socialism, which it still is in 2011. What is sometimes called gothic socialism. Of course Young England changed its name. William Morris (1834-1896) would be an important figure in this transformation.

But this for later in this TL. In opposition to Bloody Saturday Lord John Manners resigned from the government. Lord John Russell, the leader of the Whig Party, tabled a motion of censure on the government to be debated in the House of Commons on 5 and 6 May.

(1) Here is the Wikipedia article on Young England: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_England . In this TL Benjamin Disraeli was a radical Whig.

 

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For the Whigs to win their motion of censure on the government, they would need to attract the votes of what were coming to be called the Grahamites (named for Sir James Graham, former President of the Board of Trade), those 58 Conservatives who had voted to repeal the Corn Laws in the debate on 4 February 1846. Another 30 to 40 Conservatives would need to vote with the Whigs and/or abstain.

Young England was another dissident group of Conservatives, but they were fundamentally opposed to the Whigs.

The censure debate was opened on 5 May 1847 with an eloquent speech by Henry Labouchere from the Whig Front Bench. He attacked the government as murderers and compared the massacre in Trafalgar Square to the Peterloo massacre in Manchester in 1819.

Sir George Clerk, the Home Secretary, was the first speaker for the government. He started by saying that the government deeply regretted the loss of life and injuries, but the forces of law and order were in a difficult situation and they believed themselves to be under attack. They behaved as best as they could in a difficult situation.

Sir James Graham, a former Home Secretary, condemned the government. From the accounts of eye-witnesses the police and militia were in no danger from the crowds in Trafalgar Square on 1 May. He would be voting with the Whigs. Britain needed a general election which he hoped would return a majority of Whigs and liberal Conservatives.

Lord John Manners, the leader of the Young Englanders, said that although he and his friends opposed the cold, harsh and inhuman political economy of the Whigs, they would vote for the motion of censure as a deeply-felt protest against the trampling by horses of men, women and children, peacefully demonstrating in accordance with their age-old right of protest.

In the vote on 6 May 1847 the motion of censure was defeated by 296 votes to 312 votes, a majority of 16. Compared with the vote on repeal of the Corn Laws on 4 February 1846, the opposition vote (including dissident Conservatives) went up from 281 to 296, but the Conservative vote also increased from 305 to 312. This was in large part to the efforts of William Forbes Mackenzie, the government Chief Whip, in maximising the Conservative vote. Even so 64 Conservatives voted with the opposition.

 

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An evening in early June 1846 in New York City. In Walt Whitman's house in Brooklyn he and William Gladstone are laying on a bed with their arms around each other, after making love. Whitman takes from a table a manuscript book of his poems. He reads from one (1):

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reached till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.

William said that he remembered that time and other times, but asked why the coyness in describing activities which were more intimate. Walt said that to be crudely anatomically accurate would tarnish the beauty of their physical love for each other. Also his hopes of publishing his poems would be destroyed if they were sexually explicit.

Walt asked:

Does Alice know that we are far more than friends, that we are lovers?

Alice is Alice Haverly, William's partner.
William replied:

As far as I am aware she does not. But if she did her opinions on such matters being of an advanced nature, she would in my estimation be accepting of the situation between us. She knows that she and I are totally committed to each other. Moreover I believe that she enjoys the delights of sapphic love with one of her close friends in the movement for women's rights.

Their conversation turned to politics. William was two or three minutes through an eloquent speech about the evils of slavery and the dominance of the Slave Power in American politics, when Walt interrupted him with a humorous remark about adressing him as if he were a public meeting, and said that he should run for election. William said that he had decided to run for election to the New York State Assembly on the Liberty Party ticket in the State elections in November.

Before they parted William said:

Alice and I would be delighted and honoured if you would come round to our house for dinner one afternoon. I am sure she would love to hear your poems.

Walt replied:

It pleases me greatly to accept your invitation. I look forward to meeting Alice and your children. I will bring my poems with me.

Their children are Frances, Angelina and Robert.

William and Walt made their farewells with a long, lingering kiss.

Gladstone was defeated in his bid for election to the New York State Assembly on 3 November 1846. 68 Whigs, 50 Democrats and 10 Anti-Renters were elected, as in OTL. However the Liberty Party reached its greatest strength in the state elections of 1846. (2)

(1) This quotation is taken from Song of Myself, published in Leaves of Grass.

(2) See http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Liberty_Party .

 

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One Sunday afternoon in mid June 1846 William Gladstone and Alice Haverly entertained Walt Whitman at their house on the fringes of the Washington Square district in New York City.

Walt read some of his poems which were later published in Song of Myself. Alice expressed her great appreciation and liking of them.

They talked about politics. Alice and William passionately condemned the Mexican American War which had broken out only a month previously, as an immoral war of aggression fought to extend slavery. It was no more than the murder of Mexicans and the theft of their land. Whitman defended the declaration of war by Congress, saying that it was being fought to extend liberty and that it was necessary to chastise Mexico. In spite of their deep differences of opinion on this issue the friendship between these three people frayed, but did not break.

However all three agreed on their complete opposition to the evil of slavery. Alice and William were members of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Alice was the most radical in linking the war with slavery and the oppression of women. She declared that only in a Socialist society would these evils be eradicated. Women, Negroes and working-class men were oppressed in their different ways by the capitalist system.

 

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In early July 1848 Alice Haverly was one of five women, with Mary Ann McClintock, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Martha C. Wright who issued a call for a Women's Rights Convention to be held in the Wesleyan Chapel at Seneca Falls, N.Y, on 19th and 20th of the same month.

Alice Haverly was joined at the Convention by William Gladstone and their three children. On the morning of the first day Alice was appointed Secretary. The resolutions adopted by the Convention and the Declaration of Sentiments were the same as in OTL.

In the evening session on the second day Alice Haverly gave a short, but inspiring address, in which she called upon women to cast off their servitude to men and claim their God-given true dignity and happiness, freedom and equality. She said that Frances, her nine-year old daughter, had expressed the desire that she wanted to become President of the United States when she grew up. "I told that she if she studies hard at school, then she could, but she must never betray her principles to become President. I tell you now that we must be the pioneers clearing the path for Frances or any our daughters, or a Negro woman, to become President. Let us build that shining future in which women and men are truly equal."

 

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US presidential election 1848
President James Polk having kept his promise that he would not be running for a second term, the Democrats needed to choose another candidate for president at their national convention in Baltimore from 22 May-25 May 1848. They nominated Lewis Cass for president and William Orlando Butler for vice President, as in OTL.

There was a strong campign in the Whig Party to nominate General Zachary Taylor as candidate for president. Taylor was a hero of the Mexican-American War and until 1848 had not declared his political allegiance. In that year he announced that he was Whig. However he was bitterly opposed by the supporters of Henry Clay as a man without principles.

The Whig Party National Convention was held in Philadelphia on 7 June 1848. On the first ballot the number of votes obtained by each candidate was as follows:
Henry Clay: 125
Zachary Taylor: 83
Winfield Scott: 43
Daniel Webster: 22
John Middleton Clayton: 4
John McLean: 2.
Clay won a majority of delegates on the third ballot after Webster withdrew in his favour. (1)

In the ballot for the vice-presidential nomination Abott Lawrence (Massachusetts) received a majority of the votes on the second ballot. (2)

The National Convention of the Free Soil Party, which comprised the bulk of the Liberty Party and the Barnburner Democrats who were anti-slavery, was held in Buffalo, New York, on 9 and 10 August 1848. After much consideration Martin Van Buren finally decided not to put his name forward for nomination as president. (3) John Parker Hale, Independent Democrat Senator from New Hampshire, was nominated on the first ballot. Charles Francis Adams was chosen as the vice-presidential candidate. He was the grandson of President John Adams and the son of President John Quincy Adams.

In the general election held on 7 November 1848 the Cass/Butler ticket received 166 electoral votes to 124 electoral votes for Clay/Lawrence. (5) Lewis Cass became president of the United States.

In elections for the House of Representatives William Gladstone was elected for the 8th District of New York (roughly Manhattan) on the Free Soil ticket. This was a gain from the Whigs.

(1) In letters to his friends after the Whig National Convention, Clay claimed that a majority of the Ohio delegation was pledged to vote for him, as well as delegates from other states. In OTL he received the vote of only one Ohio delegate on the first ballot and not the votes he expected from delegations from other states. See The Papers of Henry Clay Volume 10: Candidate, Compromiser and Elder Statesman: http://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=0813100607 .

(2) In OTL the Whig ticket was Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore.

(3) In OTL Van Buren only decided at the last moment to seek the Free Soil Party nomination for president. See Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War, by Eric Foner.

(4) In OTL Martin Van Buren was the Free Soil candidate for president and Adams for vice-president.

(5) In OTL the electoral vote was 163 for Taylor/Fillmore to 137 for Cass/Butler. In this TL Hale attracted more support than Van Buren from the Whigs. Compared to OTL Cass/Butler won Connecticut (6 electoral votes), New Jersey (7 electoral votes) and Pennsylvania (4 electoral votes) which in OTL went to Taylor/Fillmore.

 

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I have edited my previous post so that the ticket of Lewis Cass and William O. Butler wins the presidential election of 1848, instead of that of Henry Clay and Abbott Lawrence. Though in September 1848 in OTL there was talk among the most fervent Clay supporters in New York of nominating him as an Independent candidate, Clay refused to be nominated. While in this TL Clay won a few votes of disgruntled Whigs who in OTL did not vote for Zachary Taylor, they were outbalanced by the loss of votes which in OTL went to Taylor because he was a war hero.

The Conscience Whigs didn't vote for Clay because he was a slaveowner, and because the Free Soil ticket better represented their moral and political convictions. Also John Parker Hale attracted more Whig votes than Martin Van Buren did in OTL.

The percentage of votes obtained for each candidate was as follows:
Lewis Cass (Democrat): 43.5
Henry Clay (Whig): 42.3
John Parker Hale(Free Soil): 14.1
Others: 0.1.

 

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Among the estimated one and a half million people who died in the Irish famine was Patrick Kennedy, a farmer in Dunganstown, County Wexford. Born in 1823 he died in July 1848. He had intended to sail to the United States. So the Kennedy political dynasty is butterflied away.

In September 1847 in Dublin Jane Francesca Elgee (born 27 December 1821) married John Blake Dillon (born 5 May 1814). Dillon was a founder of The Nation, a nationalist weekly newspaper and Elgee wrote poems and other articles for it.

In OTL Elgee married Sir William Wilde in 1851 and was the mother of Oscar, who is therefore butterflied away in this TL.

 

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In early June 1847 the Young England group of Conservative MPs finally left the Conservative Party and formed themselves into the Commonweal Party under the leadership of Lord John Manners. The name 'Commonweal' instead of Young England was suggested by Alexander Baillie-Cochrane. He argued that having England in the title did not appeal to Irish, Scottish and Welsh people, and as regards the word "Young", it was not obvious to voters why it was in the title. Also it could give the misleading impression that they were only for young people. The word 'Commonweal' had a somewhat medieval resonance, and Young Englanders were big on medieval nostalgia.

Anyway nine former Conservative MPs took the Commonweal Party whip.

 

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Striving for a World Transformed by Love

That was the title of a new timeline I started which was intended as a continuation of this one under a new name because this timeline's name gives a too restrictive picture of its scope. However I have decided to continue with this TL because it has received hundreds of times more views than the new one.

Here is the first post on the World Transformed TL: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=4374373 . That post is now part of this TL. I don't know how to copy and paste it on to here.

 

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The summer and autumn of 1847 saw the forging of an alliance between the Commonweal Party and the Chartists. Both parties shared an opposition to industrialism and harked back to an agricultural society. The Chartists were divided in respect of Free Trade with a significant number being Protectionists, including Fergus O'Connor, the leader of the Chartists in the House of Commons. The Protectionist Chartists argued that high prices meant high wages, and that "cheap bread" meant "cheap labour". They also received the support of handloom weavers who had been thrown out of work by industrialisation. Some Chartists wanted to leave alone the whole question of the repeal of the Corn Laws and concentrate on the Charter. (1) The Commonweal Party was Protectionist.

The agreement between Manners and O'Connor was signed on 25 November 1847 on behalf of their respective parties. The Commonweal Party accepted the demands of the Charter except for annual parliaments, instead Parliaments would be elected for four years. The Chartists agreed to oppose the repeal of the Corn Laws. They agreed not to fight against each other in future elections.

(1) The chapter Chartism Versus Free Trade in the book The Chartist Movement, by Mark Howell, Manchester University Press, 3rd edition 1966, has an account of the various Chartists attitude towards Free Trade and Protection.

 

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On 10 April 1848 a massive Chartist demonstration assembled on Kennington Common in south London before marching to Parliament to present their huge petition. How things developed is still a matter of controversy, but when the demonstrators had crossed over London Bridge they were fired on by the army. 23 demonstrators were killed and 48 injured.

 

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There were further Chartist demonstrations in the following five days in cities throughout Britain: Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, and Sheffield. Most were characterised by clashes between demonstrators and police or army. A total of 14 demonstrators were killed and 29 injured. However army and police casualties amounted to 3 killed and 8 injured. These were all in Manchester. The demonstration in Nottingham was peaceful because of the influence of Fergus O'Connor, the Chartist MP for the city.

On 17 April, Henry Goulburn, the Conservative Prime Minister, announced that Parliament would be dissolved and a general election would take place. Polling would be from 21 May to 16 June.

 

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In the general election the Conservative party campaigned on a policy of maintaining law and order, combined with the continuation of the Corn Laws to protect farming, with a modest reduction in tariffs on other imports, and keeping the existing franchise as established in the Reform Act 1832. (1)

The Liberal, as the Whigs, were becoming known as, campaigned on a policy of the repeal of the Corn Laws and rapid progress to free trade. As regards the extension of the franchise they were divided with opinion ranging from a minor extension to full suffrage of all males who owned property or rented property, but were not lodgers where the landlord was in occupation, and were not in receipt of poor relief. However they united around the policy of appointing a royal commission on the franchise.

(1) For the Reform Act 1832 see http://www.victorianweb.org/history/reform2.html .

 

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On 29 April 1848 Richard Monkton Milnes, the Conservative MP for Pontefract and one time cabinet minister, joined the Commonweal Party.

In the general election the Chartists and the Commonweal Party made an pact in which they fought the election as separate parties, but did not put up candidates in opposition to each other. The 58 Grahamites, or Free Trade Conservatives, stood as Conservative candidates.

 

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In August 1847 Lord John Manners, the leader of the Commonweal Party, toured Ireland where he met prominent members of the Young Ireland movement including John Blake Dillon and his fiancee Jane Francesca Elgee, Thomas Francis Meagher and William Smith O'Brien. (1) Young Ireland gained its inspiration from the Young England group of Tory MPs which in this TL became the Commonweal Party in June 1847. Both rejected mechanistic Utilitarianism and laissez-faire economics.

As a result of discussions between Manners and the Young Irelanders, the Commonweal Party policies in respect of Ireland were as follows:

The repeal of the Act of Union 1800 and the restoration of the Irish Parliament of 1782-1800. However Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom and the Irish Parliament would be subordinate to the UK Parliament. In other words Home Rule or devolution to use terms from OTL.

Land reform to give tenants security of tenure, fair rents, and the right to purchase their tenancies if rented from absentee landlords. The encouragement of a spirit of friendliness and co-operation between landlords and tenants in which both parties recognise their need for each other.

The Church of Ireland should not be disestablished, but non-members would no longer be obliged to pay tithes to it. A Catholic University of Ireland should be established.

As regards the famine the Commonweal Party rejected any idea that it was God's punishment of the Irish. While it still raged there should be no exports of food from Ireland, while a limited amount of food should be imported where necessary to supplement Irish grown food. Famine relief to individuals and families should not be dependent on willingness to work.

These were Commonweal policies for the election of May/June 1848, although the Commonweal Party did not put up any candidates in Ireland.

(1) Here is the wikipedia article on Young Ireland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Ireland

 

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Here are the number of seats obtained by each party in the general election held from 21 May to 16 June 1848 (general election June/July 1843 in brackets):

Conservative: 311 of which Grahamites 49 (397). So 'orthodox' Conservatives: 262.
Liberal: 276 (Whig: 232)
Repeal Association: 39 (23)
Commonweal: 17 (did not exist)
Chartist: 10 (6)
Irish Confederate: 3 (did not exist)
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Total: 656 (658)
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In 1844 the borough of Sudbury (2 seats) was disfranchised because of extensive bribery and merged into the West Suffolk constituency. This also happened in OTL.