ABSTRACT
Chief Justice Tindal’s reference to the ‘poorer class’ provides a clue to the central motivation behind a recurring historical pattern with crimes against the state. He was defining seditious speech. Why should it matter whether the audience of an allegedly seditious address is poor or wealthy? The Chief Justice referred to crowds ‘brooding at the time over their wrongs’. In essence, the concern is that the unemployed and others of the working class – who in the 1840s were demanding, and being denied, the basic right to vote – would be most receptive to anti-establishment appeals. As will be seen, the fear of revolt from below, and ultimately of social revolution, is what has animated the historical development of the law in this sphere. In judicial judgements one finds contemptuous references to the alleged gullibility or stupidity of poorer people. On other occasions, judges have warned that members of the lower classes are particularly susceptible to criticisms of governments and the existing order.
