ABSTRACT
The idea of a National Petition, as well as the plan of a General Convention of the Industrious Classes, originated with the Birmingham Political Union. The National Petition is credited to the pen of R. K. Douglas, the editor of the Birmingham Journal. The petition complains against the load of taxes which affects capital as well as labor, and alludes to other matters which, in previous petitions, were labeled by Bronterre O’Brien as “unconsequential rubbish”. The missionaries who were sent out of the Metropolis to obtain signatures to the National Petition were instructed “to refrain from all violent and unconstitutional language and not to infringe the law in any manner by word or deed.” The spirit of enthusiasm that pervaded the Convention did not last long, however. The government kept a vigilant eye on the movements of the members of the Convention and the active Chartists.
