Guy A. Aldred Archive
Written: 1912.
Source: RevoltLib.com
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Throughout his incarceration Carlile’s vigorous pen had continued to expose the abuses of our class society and its corrupt governmentalism in the columns of the Republican. “Justice,” he declared, “is nowhere found in the country. Her painted figure only is visible in our courts of law and iniquity. We have the shadow to torment our eyes and senses, whilst the substance is sought in vain. . . . The law cannot reach determined rogues, surpliced hypocrites, and flagitious ministers, nor their bribed supporters.” From this he concluded that “the true definition of law. . . is the caprice of the ruling power.” “Law, like religion,” he says again, "is a mere word. They are words of sound without any confined application: they vary with circumstances. Hypocrites and tyrants say that both are necessary to bridle the multitude, therefore they may be considered as the forerunners of slavery: the one imposes an unequal and unjust restraint on the body, the other on the mind.” He leads up to this conclusion by pointing out that “the law is omnipotent and also omnivorous: each party in power destroys its opponents according to law.” We can only quote in part from his historical evidence for this assertion, viz. :-—
"The law brought Charles Stuart to the block; and again, the law brought those to the gallows who brought this monarch to the block. The law provided a sumptuous funeral for Oliver Cromwell, and the law again enabled Charles Stuart the Second to dig up his putrid body and hang it on the gallows. But then it must be observed that the law which brought one party to the gallows, was the subversion of that law by which the other party were put to death."
Consequent upon this belief was his complaint :-—-
“Weak men are apt to listen to a judge with the same feelings as a Roman Catholic would listen to the Pope."
He had no idea that anything short of downright intimidation would have any effect on the governing-class, its kings, and their parasites. Deep-rooted corruptions could be removed only by revolutions. Only a few more of these were needed for the fear and dread of them to pass away. Each succeeding one would be effected with less bloodshed, and display to a greater extent its utility. And he was firmly of opinion that a formidable revolution would find the military ready to join it, since they could see themselves secure in doing so. In the interval he noted how appropriate was the epithet of "Famine Guards" for the military, since the greater the distress and danger to those who employed them, the more certain they were of being better fed and paid, and of having their favor and protection courted, until they felt a sense of importance.
In line with these observations are his following reflections :-
“To petition is to become frivolous and degrading, and to meet for the purpose dangerous. To complain is sedition ; and to say that this state of things is not a visitation of God is blasphemy. Therefore those who have neither labor nor food must perish quietly and be thankful; and those who have a little of either must be contented ; for the slightest murmur is now construed to be ‘against the peace of our Lord the King,’ and dissatisfaction and rebellion ‘against the dictates of heaven.’ To doubt this is impiety; and obstinate doubt, however virtuous, is punishable blasphemy! This state is decreed to continue until resistance to it shall be found practicable; and whenever practicable, it shall be decreed to be just."Every attempt at insurrection will become more and more formidable until at last it will become effectual. They may hang or transport a few hundreds or thousands but the spirit will increase; and the more the people are inured to the shedding of blood, the less will be their scruples to retaliate. It is astonishing to see how the lessons and experience of history are lost on kings and rulers; they proceed with a blind infatuation, as if they were omnipotent ; and are not to be awakened to danger until they feel themselves in the vortex of destruction. Power has, most certainly, a tendency to bind and corrupt the mind, where it is not the offspring of knowledge.
“It is folly to talk of the weapons of reason, when they are met by those of a conscious and malignant ridicule. What does such a man as Castlereagh or Canning care about the weapons of reason? They will continue to smile securely, while the weapons of reason are hurled at them unsupported by some powerful arguments. . . . They laugh at us. and shake the keys of the dungeon and the halter in our faces, and point to their standing army as their last resource. . . . What effect had the reasoning of our Colonial brethren in the United States? They reasoned and they petitioned. and they were laughed at, and threatened with military execution. They prepared to meet the military execution, and what followed? Let the reasoner speak. Show me a state of oppression and despotism that was ever overthrown by the weapons of reason alone, and I, for one, will be forward to acquiesce in your pacific reasoning. Out late king had sufficient good sense to tell Bishop Watson, that the sharper a conflict was, the sooner it was over, and the less destructive it became. I am quite of his opinion, and therefore on the Score of humanity, I am for pointed and urgent reasons.
"Where a great portion of society live in luxury and idleness on the produce of the remaining portion, there is sure to be distress and wretchedness.
"Men who are ever ready to make themselves subservient to despotism on an extended scale, are always ready to display a local despotism within their own bounds of rule.
"Royalty is a ‘species of sacred mystery; where no one can rightly define but those who have access to it. And those may be considered a species-of priests, who will never open the eyes of the people to a true knowledge of that which supports themselves in luxury and idleness. It is a political sanctum sanctorium which has put to death the stranger who has drawn aside the veil.
"Four centuries have not yet elapsed since the invention of printing, and in no country in Europe has a free and unrestricted Press "yet existed; yet it has produced. with all its shackles, a manifest and irrevocable change in society. The will and edict of tyrants are now printed and laughed at, and every despot finds it necessary to corrupt a great portion of the Press of the country in which he dwells to preserve his existence. They are now compelled to purchase that base adulation, which a great portion of the daily and other periodical portion of the Press abounds in, with caresses and gold. This, in a great measure, unarms the despot and renders him less destructive than formerly; he is compelled to put on a hollow and false outside, that his adulators may find some apparent excuse for his inhumanities. In fact, his whole despotic career is now necessarily performed by a sort of agency to hide its hideous features and screen the real actor.
“Literature and knowledge on all subjects may now be considered excisable articles throughout Europe, and the poor obtain but little more than might be said to be smuggled among them by word of mouth. The indolent and lazy read and tremble, lest the discoveries they daily make should extend among the poorer classes. The boldest warrior is now more " alarmed at paper shot than those of lead. The prostituted portion of the Press is become the basis of all European Governments, and war is declared against the portion that dares to be honest.
“He who sets himself up as an instructor to his fellowman should offer nothing but what is clear and intelligible to all who should read what he wrote. The fine figurative writer will, in future ages, be read with disdain and contempt. The daily avocations of those who labor for a livelihood are such that they have not time to unriddle figurative writings, such as the Bible and many other books abound in. They stand in need of that mental refreshment which is as simple as the diet they make use of.
"It is reason that endows man with the gift of speech ; "without reason he could not communicate an idea but by dumb show. ‘His voice would be of no further use to him than the power of barking to a dog or of braying to an ass. It is evident that without reason man would be a beast of the forest, and a prey to many a stronger animal. And yet this glorious light of reason becomes a dreadful eyesore to the priest! And for why? Because the priests of all ages, of all sects", and of all doctrines, impose nothing but error and falsehood on the multitude, and they find" their doctrines rejected by those of the multitude who exercise their reason. This is an assertion that bids defiance to contradiction.”
In addition to these remarks, Carlile observed that "the priest who is about to take holy orders is necessitated to vow in the church, before the bishop, that he does not seek the office for the sake of lucre, but that he is impelled by the holy ghost!" After such a base perversion of his reason and sense of shame. it seemed to Carlile inevitable that the priest “should studiously endeavor to degrade every other person to the same level, as a cloak-and a safeguard against his own infamy, perjury, and villainy.”
A Carlile also pointed out that he could never hear ministers talk about providing for the splendor of the Crown without
"viewing it as the act of an insolvent tradesman who has driven a career of misconduct so far that he finds himself on the eve of dissolution, in point of business, and endeavors to delay the evil day by seeking to obtain credit by a more splendid show in dress and manners. Any attempt to give pauperism a false and pretended splendor is only calculated to excite ridicule towards it ; and to attempt to attach splendor to a throne that is founded on pauperism makes the person who fills it but a splendid pauper, and exposes him to ridicule and contempt.”
We regard these observations as replete with courage, power, and good sense. Of the courage there can be no doubt. At the time at which they were written Carlile was incarcerated in the Dorchester Bastile, doomed to nearly another six years’ imprisonment. and with nearly twenty informations suspended over his head that were never brought to a trial. About six of them had been suspended for three years. In addition, two Press Acts had been passed mainly for his benefit. One exposed his house or premises to repeated ramsacking by the police, and empowered the authorities to destroy all the books thus seized. This Act also restored banishment, transportation, and incarceration in the hulks for the “offenses" of “blasphemy” and “sedition.” The other Act imposed the newspaper stamp upon all pamphlets of a republican, atheistic, or deistic tendency that were published at less price than sixpence and on so small a quantity as two sheets of paper. It exempted every pamphlet written in defense of Christianity and the Constitution. Thus the Christian and the Governmentalist could defend the powers that be in a fourpenny pamphlet. The rebel could not reply, in a pamphlet of the same size, under sixpence. Republican and atheist publishers were also required to find sureties before they could publish their educational tracts, and also to deposit original MSS. with the authorities, with name’ and address of the author written across them. Carlile knew how to deal with this terrorism. He found no sureties, paid no. tax, deposited no MSS., and informed on no authors. His policy he declared to be founded on the duty of resisting the “imposition of a duty on political information for the better preservation of ignorance among the laboring classes.” Watson, one of the shopmen who went to prison for selling Carlile’s publications, persuaded Henry Hetherington to ‘establish a workman’s newspaper in defiance of the Government, by emulating Carlile. Hetherington, who was two years Carlile’s junior, consequently established his Poor Man’s Guardian and Poor Man’s Conservative. They were both unstamped. This was in 1831. Within three years over 750 men and women went to jail for selling them. Some went several times, so that it can be seen that they sustained over this number of prosecutions. On the last prosecution of Hetherington, Lord Lyndhurst, a Tory judge, exhibited disgust with the prosecutions, and practically told the Jury to legalize the sale. This was done, and the stamp-tax persecution collapsed. Carlile has seen his defiance inspire 150 of his own shopmen and women, and 750 of Hetherington’s, to go to jail for the Free Press, and had witnessed the final discomfiture of the ruling-class. His policy had won the day. The stamp-tax imposition was killed for all time; whilst, after his day, the Guildhall—at which interested persons were continually proceeding against Carlile and his supporters for "sedition" and “blasphemy”——became ashamed of its notoriety in this respect. Four decades later, the Bow Street Court upheld a prosecution for sedition where the Guildhall refused to look at the repetition of the offense, the Guildhall refusal leading to the squashing of the Bow Street indictment. Of a truth, Carlile’s defiance had proven victorious.