ABSTRACT
The scope of the constitutional debate which had been enlarged as a result of the American and French Revolutions narrowed in the early years of the nineteenth century. Paine had offered a revolutionary prospect in response to Burke’s defence of the existing constitution, but Bentham’s utilitarian reforms were proposed within the contemporary structure, to plaster the cracks that had appeared in the facade of mixed government and balance. James Mill and Lord Macaulay were representatives of this more parochial debate. However, the matter of constitutional change assumed a more immediate relevance with the passage of the 1832 Reform Act. That Act, the first extension of the right to vote in the nineteenth century, was one of the signposts pointing the way in which democracy began to develop in Britain.
