ABSTRACT
The American war generated intense political debate on individual and political rights. There were small groups of intellectuals who kept alive the more radical traditions of the seventeenth-century Commonwealth. Edward Thompson's classic work argued that the combination of radical political ideas and the actual experience of industrial change brought about the making of the English working class. Workers became conscious of themselves as a class against other social classes. Concepts of class and how far one can talk of a common experience of industrialisation have been much challenged since the 1960s. In their politics, working-class radicals continued to use the language of eighteenth-century radicalism about eradicating the corruption in what was basically a sound constitution. The language of most public meetings was still rooted in constitutionalism, talking about traditional rights and the ancient constitution that had been corrupted. The Paineite case about the natural right of people to democratic representation was rather muted.
