Chartism was from the beginning in 1835 chiefly a movement among the working-men, though not yet sharply separated from the bourgeoisie.  The Radicalism of the workers went hand in hand with the Radicalism of the bourgeoisie; the Charter was the shibboleth of both.  They held their National Convention every year in common, seeming to be one party.  The lower middle-class was just then in a very bellicose and violent state of mind in consequence of the disappointment over the Reform Bill and of the bad business years of 1837-1839, and viewed the boisterous Chartist agitation with a very favourable eye.  Of the vehemence of this agitation no one in Germany has any idea.  The people were called upon to arm themselves, were frequently urged to revolt; pikes were got ready, as in the French Revolution, and in 1838, one Stephens, a Methodist parson, said to the assembled working-people of Manchester: 

“You have no need to fear the power of Government, the soldiers, bayonets, and cannon that are at the disposal of your oppressors; you have a weapon that is far mightier than all these, a weapon against which bayonets and cannon are powerless, and a child of ten years can wield it.  You have only to take a couple of matches and a bundle of straw dipped in pitch, and I will see what the Government and its hundreds of thousands of soldiers will do against this one weapon if it is used boldly.”

As early as that year the peculiarly social character of the working-men’s Chartism manifested itself.  The same Stephens said, in a meeting of 200,000 men on Kersall Moor, the Mons Sacer of Manchester: 

“Chartism, my friends, is no political movement, where the main point is your getting the ballot.  Chartism is a knife and fork question:  the Charter means a good house, good food and drink, prosperity, and short working-hours.”

The movements against the new Poor Law and for the Ten Hours’ Bill were already in the closest relation to Chartism.  In all the meetings of that time the Tory Oastler was active, and hundreds of petitions for improvements of the social condition of the workers were circulated along with the national petition for the People’s Charter adopted in Birmingham.  In 1839 the agitation continued as vigorously as ever, and when it began to relax somewhat at the end of the year, Bussey, Taylor, and Frost hastened to call forth uprisings simultaneously in the North of England, in Yorkshire, and Wales.  Frost’s plan being betrayed, he was obliged to open hostilities prematurely.  Those in the North heard of the failure of his attempt in time to withdraw.  Two months later, in January, 1840, several so-called spy outbreaks took place in Sheffield and Bradford, in Yorkshire, and the excitement gradually subsided.  Meanwhile the bourgeoisie turned its attention to more practical projects, more profitable for itself, namely the Corn Laws.  The Anti-Corn Law Association was formed in Manchester, and the consequence was a relaxation of the tie between the Radical bourgeoisie and the proletariat.  The working-men soon perceived that for them the abolition of the Corn Laws could be of little use, while very advantageous to the bourgeoisie; and they could therefore not be won for the project.