The Society for Constitutional Information

In our household we are hoping for a late election. My son turns 18 in the summer, so the timing will determine whether or not he can vote in the forthcoming general election. This approaching milestone makes my current work on citizenship education all the more pertinent. Alongside this, in my classes on early modern history at Newcastle University I have been exploring with my students the development of political institutions between 1500 and 1800. In discussing the constitutional changes that occurred during the Civil Wars, or the proposals put forward by reformers in the late eighteenth century, some students have commented that they do not feel they have a good understanding of the workings of our political system today and that school did little to prepare them for their role as adult citizens.

The members of the Society for Constitutional Information (SCI), which was established in 1780, were equally concerned about the lack of an understanding of the constitution among residents of Britain in the late eighteenth century. Of course, the circumstances then were very different. In 1780 it is estimated that only 3% of the population of the United Kingdom had the vote. Today the percentage is approximately 68%. The main activity of the SCI was to disseminate knowledge of the British constitution among the population as a means of gaining support for the campaign for parliamentary reform.

In their first Address to the Public, the Society set out the fundamental belief that underpinned their commitment to reform:

LAW, TO BIND ALL, MUST BE ASSENTED TO BY ALL (An Address to the public,

from the Society for Constitutional Information. London, 1780, p. 1).

Statue of John Cartwright in Cartwright Gardens, Bloomsbury, London. Image by Rachel Hammersley

This reflects an understanding of liberty that insists that people are free if they are subject only to laws that they (or their representatives) have made. The idea was outlined more fully in the Declaration of Rights written by one of the SCI's founding members Major John Cartwright:

Fourthly, That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of Representatives, do

not enjoy liberty; but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes, and to their

Representative: for to be enslaved, is to have Governors whom other men have set over

us, and to be subject to laws made by the Representatives of others, without having had

Representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf.

Fifthly, That a very great majority of the Commonalty of this Realm are denied the

privilege of voting for Representatives in Parliament; and consequently, they are

enslaved to a small number, who do now enjoy this privilege exclusively to

themselves (John Cartwright, A Declaration of the Rights of Englishmen. London, no

date, p. 2).

This reflects the concept of Neo-Roman liberty analysed by the eminent historian Quentin Skinner, which has its origins in the Roman law distinction between those who are free and those who are slaves. Judged according to this principle, the members of the SCI concluded that the vast majority of the population of the United Kingdom were not free. Indeed they went so far as to argue that a small number of individuals without 'virtue' or 'abilities' were effectively disenfranchising their electors (A Second Address to the Public from the Society for Constitutional Information. London, 1782, p. 9).

They went on to outline three reform proposals that would need to be enacted to remedy the situation. First, they called for a redistribution of parliamentary seats.

This issue was summarised in the Report of the Sub-Committee of Westminster produced in March 1780. That committee included a number of members of the SCI and its reports were printed by the SCI for distribution:

That it appears to this Sub Committee, that many towns and boroughs, formerly

intitled "for their repute and population," to send members to Parliament, have

since fallen into decay, yet continue to have a representation equal to the most

opulent counties and cities; while other towns and places, which have risen into

consideration, and become populous and wealthy, have no representatives in

Parliament (Westminster Committee. King's Arms Tavern, March 20, 1780. Report of

the Sub Committee, appointed to enquire into the state of the representation of this country.

1780, p. 2).

Nine years later, the SCI declared that their 'most immediate object' was to gather and then publish 'a compleat State of the representation of the people in Parliament' and to this end they invited people to report on the situation regarding voters and elections in their local constituencies (The National Archives: TS 11/961. SCI Minutes for Friday 29th May 1789). The results appear in one of the SCI volumes held at the National Archives.

Concern at the unequal distribution of parliamentary seats was not a new idea in the late eighteenth century. In the Agreement of the People that was presented by an alliance of soldiers and civilian radicals to the General Council of the Army at the Putney Debates in October 1647 it was asserted:

That the People of England being at this day very unequally distributed by

Counties, Cities, & Boroughs, for the election of their Deputies in Parliament, ought

to be more indifferently proportioned, according to the number of the Inhabitants:

the circumstances whereof, for number, place, and manner, are to be set down

before the end of this present Parliament. (An Agreement of the People, for a firme and

present Peace, upon grounds of Common-Right. London, 1647, p. 2).

Secondly, the SCI advocated universal manhood suffrage, which set them apart from some of the more conservative reform societies at the time. As Cartwright declared in the second article of his Declaration of Rights:

That every man of the Commonalty (excepting infants, insane persons, and

criminals) is of common right, and by the laws of God, a freeman, and entitled to the

full enjoyment of liberty. (Cartwright, A Declaration of the Rights of Englishmen, p. 1).

Universal manhood suffrage was also not a completely new idea in 1780. At the Putney Debates, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough voiced the stirring line (now recalled in a plaque in Putney Church): 'for really I thinke that the poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest hee'. He went on:

and therfore truly, Sir, I thinke itt's cleare, that every man that is to live under a

Government ought first by his owne consent to putt himself under that

Government; and I doe thinke that the poorest man in England is nott att all bound

in a stricte sence to that Government that hee hath not had a voice to putt himself

under (The Clarke Papers, ed. C. H. Firth. London, 1992, p. 301).

Engraving of the quotation from Thomas Rainsborough in St Mary’s Church, Putney. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

In those debates the alternative view was expressed by Colonel Henry Ireton (Oliver Cromwell's son-in-law) who insisted that only those with landed property should be allowed to vote, since only they had a fixed interest in the country and could, therefore, be trusted to make decisions in the common good. The SCI turned Ireton's assumption on its head, insisting:

The poor man has an equal right, but more need, to have representatives in the

legislature than the rich one (An Address to the Public, p. 7).

The third demand made by the SCI was for more frequent - ideally annual - parliaments. Major Cartwright's Declaration asserted it is 'the right of the Commonalty of this Realm to elect a new House of Commons once in every year, according to ancient and sacred laws of the land' (Cartwright, A Declaration, p. 2). If elections were held less frequently, he argued, those people who had recently arrived in an area would be deprived of their right. Moreover, longer parliaments would be more susceptible to corruption and undue influence.

Once again the roots of this concern can be found in the seventeenth century. Between 1629 and 1640 Charles I ruled without calling parliament. In theory there was nothing wrong with this since it was up to the monarch to call Parliament when (s)he wanted (usually when they needed money). But Charles's behaviour prompted anger and when Parliament met in 1640 one of the first actions it took was to institute a Triennial Act which required Parliament to be called at least once every three years. Some at the time felt that even this did not go far enough and called for annual parliaments as a crucial mechanism to mitigate the corrupting effects of power. As John Streater explained:

A Free State, governed by Annual Representatives, is Naturally good, it cannot be bad;

for that no one can obtain in such a Government opportunity to do Hurt: and it

behoveth every one of them to do all the good they can, in regard that they must

Return to a private state and Condition, in which they shall participate and be

sharers of the good they have procured, or been parties in ordaining (J. S. [John

Streater], A Shield Against the Parthian Dart. London, 1659, pp. 16-17).

If we compare the SCI demands to how things are today, we see that one demand - universal manhood suffrage - has not only been achieved, but surpassed. Today it is not only adult men who have the vote, but women too. This is especially interesting given that this was seen as the most extreme demand in the eighteenth century and one that not all supporters of reform at that time were willing to endorse. A second demand - an equal distribution of parliamentary seats - is recognised as important and the distribution is continually updated. A local election leaflet that came through my front door this week explains:

Following a review by the Boundary Commissions, changes have been made in the

coming elections for electing your Ward Councillors and member of Parliament

(MP). The changes aim to rebalance the number of electors in each area and ensure

that they are represented effectively by the candidates you elect.

Yet the third demand - annual parliaments - has neither been put into practice, nor is widely advocated today. There are, perhaps, good reasons for this, in that annual elections would be costly and would risk encouraging even greater short-termism in politics than is currently the case. On the other hand, as the Streater quotation suggests, more frequent elections would ensure that MPs have to live under the laws they make and would strengthen the sense of their accountability to their constituents. It would also ensure that whatever is decided in the next few months, my son wouldn't have to wait another five years before being able to express his political voice in a General Election.

Citizenship Education Workshop

‘Citizenship Education Undermines Strong Government.’

The poster used to advertise our workshop.

This was the provocative statement we used to attract participants to a workshop held at Newcastle University on Wednesday 17th January 2024. The weather forecast at the beginning of the week declared that temperatures would plummet that day but participants still travelled significant distances to attend and the warm room and stimulating discussion protected us from the cold outside.

The plan for the day. Image Harriet Palin.

We adopted an Open Spaces methodology for the workshop, facilitated by members of Newcastle University's Organisational Development team. This approach was perfect given the exploratory nature of the workshop and the fact that we were keen to learn from our participants - who included academics, school teachers, and members of charities and community groups such as the English Speaking Union and Education for Action. The methodology requires the participants to set the agenda rather than it being dictated by the organisers in advance. This makes for a slightly nerve-wracking start (I had to silence the feeling of not being properly prepared for the workshop) but ensures that the topics discussed resonate with those present. After a brief welcome and introduction, participants were invited to come up with their own questions or issues relating to the general theme. They were then given an opportunity briefly to present their proposals to the group before posting them on the Community Bulletin Board on the wall. Once everyone had had an opportunity to propose topics, participants visited the Bulletin Board and put their initials against the three or four topics they were most keen to discuss. There was then a frantic ten minutes in which those of us facilitating the workshop translated this into three sets of three parallel sessions, with the aim of ensuring that as many individuals as possible would have the opportunity to discuss their favoured topics. After that, we were off.

The agenda for the workshop compiled by our participants. Image Harriet Palin.

I attended sessions exploring: how history can inform citizenship; activism and innovative methods of political engagement; and the problem of misinformation now and in the past. The reflections that follow will therefore focus mainly on the discussions in those sessions, but I have also drawn on the report that each group presented to our final plenary discussion.

One of our biggest concerns in embarking on this project is how we demonstrate the value of historical research and teaching to citizenship education. Fortunately, the workshop participants not only shared this concern but also had some concrete proposals. History, it was suggested, enables us to understand why the world/our society/politics is how it is. It provides an explanation of how we got to where we are, while perhaps also indicating the paths not taken, and providing a foundation that allows us to identify current issues and offer directions for the future.

Participants also noted that history encourages critical and empathetic thinking. It reminds us that there is not just one perspective, but rather different interpretations of events. It encourages us to be sensitive to the viewpoints of others. Perhaps most importantly it reminds us to pay attention to the sources of our information. That does not mean dismissing a source on the grounds that it is 'biased', as some students seem to assume, but rather recognising that all sources are written from a particular perspective with certain aims and audiences in mind. Being aware of this allows us to make good use of the information each one provides and might also encourage us to think about how we can capture hidden voices by reading against the grain.

A second observation from the workshop is that, for some, the very notion of citizenship education can be an alienating concept. Those who are stateless, such as asylum seekers, may not feel like (or be treated as) citizens of the country in which they live. Moreover, in a system in which citizenship is often defined by voting, those who are unable or unwilling to vote can feel disenfranchised. The late eighteenth-century reformers I have been researching saw suffrage as the golden bullet solution to overturn the oppression of the poor and minority groups. They believed that giving people the vote (together with education) would end poverty and oppression. From the perspective of today, their view looks hopelessly naïve. We discussed the place of elections and voting within modern politics, considering whether they are essential to democracy or whether they are becoming less relevant.

The symbol of the cockerel used by Thomas Hollis. This version is taken from the copy of Henry Neville’s, Plato Redivivus, or a dialogue concerning government (London, 1763) held at the National Library of Scotland: ([Ad]. 7/1.8). Image credit: National Library of Scotland.

One participant argued that vigilance rather than voting should be seen as the safeguard of our democracy. This requires keeping watch over those in power and taking action when necessary, though, of course, people need the means to do so. Vigilance was an important concept for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers too. I immediately thought of the cockerel - a symbol used by Thomas Hollis to represent vigilance - which appeared very frequently on the covers of the books he distributed.

Participants explored a variety of other ways in which people can express their political views or take political action, many of which are also open to those who do not have the vote. People use music - writing and singing protest songs; clothing - in the outfits, badges, or accessories they wear; food - by providing nourishment; and community building - whether in-person or via social media. In focusing in particular on citizenship education in schools it was interesting to observe that these methods have long been adopted by teenagers themselves. We noted the continuity in alternative forms of activism including boycotts, strikes, and even attacks on works of art. We also acknowledged the new pathways opened up thanks to improved communications and especially social media.

Engaging in at least some of these activities requires having the confidence and skills to speak out, making Oracy another important theme. Some of the teachers among us noted the challenges involved in facilitating discussion and debate, especially when students come from different starting points and with different skill levels. The challenges are also heightened by the wider environment of culture wars. Some students can be put off by the notion that debate has to be combative and competitive. It was noted that this is a rather narrow understanding of debate. It need not be about winning an argument, but can be used to facilitate problem-solving or consensus-building.

Part of the problem here is that the way in which the UK political system is presented to the public (for example through Prime Minister's Questions) tends to emphasise the image of for and against arguments and confrontational point-scoring. This leads to more emphasis being placed in this country on debate as a means of persuading others. A Swiss colleague alerted me to the fact that in Switzerland the notion of 'persuasion' is viewed much more negatively, since their political system, which makes more use of referenda, depends on individual citizens making up their own minds not being persuaded by others. The challenge for educators in the UK is to decide whether we help students to present their arguments more effectively in order to persuade others or whether instead we introduce them to different modes of debate.

Linked to this is the idea that listening is as important as speaking. In particular it is important that we listen to views that are different from our own and are even willing to amend our own views on the basis of what we hear. Listening was recognised as an important skill in early modern times when sermons and speeches were key modes of communication (partly because not everyone was able to read fluently). Tapping into early modern discussions of how to develop the art of listening might provide another useful historical dimension to modern citizenship education. It was also suggested that we should bring speech and language therapists into our discussions for their up-to-date understanding of the issues involved in speaking and listening for the full range of students.

Behind all of our discussions lurked concerns about the limitations of resources (especially time and money) and the difficulties of having to work within the curriculum and in line with government guidelines. Our proposals for next steps were, therefore, shaped with these in mind. Increased collaboration is undoubtedly key and we hope to arrange some school visits by academics and perhaps even secondments or mini-fellowships for teachers to spend time in the University. In addition we want to think about how we can work more closely with other organisations, including the local Historical Association. By working together we hope to be able to share our knowledge and good practice. Our initial plans are two-fold. First we committed to meeting again in the spring to begin work on a curriculum audit, producing resources to embed citizenship education within the history curriculum. Secondly, we want to engage in a deeper investigation of policy in this area to inform our future actions and the resources we create. The Open Spaces methodology seems to have proved so successful that we set the agenda not just for this meeting, but for several to come.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 2: Republican Government has always been Aristocratic

January's blogpost explored the myth that republican government is necessarily anti-monarchical. This month I want to consider another myth: that republican government is inherently aristocratic or élitist in character and therefore unsuited to the democratic nature of twenty-first-century states.

Print of Geneva in 1630. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

There is some justification for this characterisation. In the ancient world republican government was associated with slavery, the exclusion of women from the political sphere, and the restriction of political participation to certain groups. Indeed, the exercise of citizenship depended on the work carried out by non-citizens (including slaves, women, servants, and foreigners), which made it possible for citizens to devote their attention to political matters. Moreover, later republican governments were criticised for descending into oligarchy. Venice's Grand Council was initially composed of all male inhabitants but due to citizenship being restricted to the descendants of those original citizens, by 1581 it was accorded to just over 1% of the population. In the Genevan republic the cost of claiming citizenship became more expensive over time, restricting who could take it up. In addition, power was increasingly moved away from the General Council - comprising all citizens - and towards smaller bodies that were dominated by a few families.

Frontispiece to The Federalist Papers. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

The rise of the modern representative republic proved a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it undercut the need for citizens to be supported by non-citizens by making citizenship a less onerous activity. Yet, at the same time, it created a political élite distinct from the wider citizen body whose role it was to govern. For some thinkers this was a positive move. They saw representation not simply as a necessary evil in the large states of the modern world, but as a good in itself. In The Federalist Papers James Madison insisted that in a representative government 'public views' would be 'refined' and 'enlarge[d]' by being passed through 'the medium of a chosen body of citizens' who would be wiser than the rest and therefore better able to determine the true interest of the nation. He went on: 'Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose.' (Publius, The Federalist Papers, X).

Yet, as debates at the time make clear, this was not the only way of organising representative government. Anti-Federalists in America, and various individuals and groups in Europe, proposed representative systems that maintained a closer connection between elected delegates and those they represented. The mechanisms they advocated included short terms and regular rotation of office, powerful local assemblies, binding mandates, and even the popular ratification of laws. The way in which the modern representative republic was organised did serve to create a narrow political élite, but that was a deliberate choice rather than the only option available.

Where the Federalists chose to build on the aristocratic tendency within republican thought, an alternative more democratic strand also existed

Portrait of James Harrington from The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington… ed. John Toland (London, 1737). Image by Rachel Hammersley.

Some republicans insisted that popular participation (rather than anti-monarchism) was the defining feature of republican government. William Walker argues that the ancient historian Sallust saw the establishment of the tribunate as more important to the Roman Republic than the displacement of the monarch by consuls (William Walker, 'Sallust and Skinner on Civil Liberty', European Journal of Political Theory, 5:3, 2006). Likewise, for James Harrington it was not the presence or absence of a single figurehead at the apex of the system that determined whether or not a regime was a commonwealth, but rather whether or not the people (via their popular assembly) had the final say over which legislation was passed and enacted (Rachel Hammersley, James Harrington: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 2019). Similarly, John P. McCormick has argued that Niccolò Machiavelli offered an anti-élitist critique of republican practice. In contrast to Francesco Guicciardini's "senatorial" model of politics, he favoured a "tribunate" model which embraced popular deliberation and employed extra-electoral methods to secure the accountability of those in power (John P. McCormick, 'Machiavelli Against Republicanism On the Cambridge School's "Guicciardinian Moments", Political Theory, 31:5, 2003, 615-43).

Both Machiavelli and Harrington were also advocates of the idea that extremes of wealth and poverty would pose a direct threat to the survival of the republic. Machiavelli famously argued that if the system was well-constituted the public should be rich, but the citizens poor (Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, p. 475). This idea has a modern echo in the notion that we must choose between public luxury for all or private luxury for some. Other thinkers called for balance and moderation. Harrington claimed that: 'There is a mean in things: as exorbitant riches overthrow the balance of a commonwealth, so extreme poverty cannot hold it nor is by any means to be trusted with it.' (James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana, ed. J. G. A. Pocock. Cambridge, 1992, p. 77). A similar view was endorsed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who insisted that in order to secure civil freedom: 'no citizen [can] be so very rich that he can buy another, and none so poor that he is compelled to sell himself.' (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, ed. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge, 1997, p. 78). The problem with wealth and luxury, Rousseau insisted, was that they exerted a corrupting influence, encouraging the citizens to put their own private interests above those of the republic.

The Leaders of the Knights of Labour with Terence Powderly in the centre. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

It is also evident that even after the emergence of representative republics, the language of republicanism could be used by marginalised or excluded groups against their oppressors. As Alex Gourevitch has demonstrated, this tactic was deployed to great effect by 'The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor', the first labour organisation in the United States of America to admit both white and black workers (Alex Gourevitch, From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth. Cambridge, 2015). Its leaders deliberately used republican arguments to criticise wage labour. George McNeill spoke of the 'inevitable and irresistible conflict' between the system of wage labour and republican governance (p. 100). The reason for this, as Terence Powderly explained, was that the wage labour system generated economic inequalities that were translated into political inequalities. Drawing directly on the understanding of liberty as non-dependence, and on arguments that had been used in the seventeenth century to insist that subjects were unfree even under a mild and gentle monarch, the Knights insisted that a worker would be a slave even if employed by 'the gentlest man in the world' 'if he must obey his commands and depend upon his will' (pp. 14-15). The solution, they argued, was to establish cooperatives so that workers could collectively own and manage the factories in which they worked. By applying the conception of liberty as non-dependence to the economic as well as the political sphere, these labour republicans succeeded in making republican arguments applicable not just to independent property owners, but to all workers - white and black, male and female.

While republicanism has taken an aristocratic form in both theory and practice in the past this was often a deliberate strategy rather than a necessity. The history of the republican tradition can provide arguments in favour of popular participation in government, warnings against excessive inequalities among citizens, and evidence of the importance of economic as well as political inequalities (and of the relationship between the two). Rather than dismissing republicanism as inherently aristocratic, then, it might be more profitable to draw on these resources to create a version of republicanism suited to the democratic states of the twenty-first century.