A History of Constitutional Reform in Great Britain and Ireland: With a Full Account of the Three Great Measures of 1832, 1867, and 1884 (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

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Excerpt from A History of Constitutional Reform in Great Britain and Ireland: With a Full Account of the Three Great Measures of 1832, 1867, and 1884

Now that the Reform Act of 1884 - one of the charters of British freedom, has been secured, it may not be unfitting to inquire what it means, what it is worth, who have fought for it, and how it has been won. It is not much more than half a century since this great empire was really governed by a few thousands - by a mere oligarchy - and now we find that the political power of the country has been transferred to five millions of our fellow-countrymen, being perhaps three-fourths of the manhood of the nation. It is the object of these pages to present a short review of the successive reforms by which this emancipation was effected.

The history of human government exhibits an organic growth or development - it has a beginning, middle, and end. It begins with despotism, runs a course of constitutionalism, and ends with self-government. It is the constitutional phase of the political government of the country that has been selected for treatment here; that portion of its history during which we see the process going on whereby despotism was put under harness, and political power secured by the people at large.

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