In the last video we talked about how a seemingly insignificant middle age peace treaty laid
the groundwork for human rights legislation across the world, why a religious war gave
rise to modern parliaments and constitutional monarchy, and how a failed scheme to sell
haggis to Native Americans is the reason we all speak English now.
You probably already know all this I’m just wasting time until we pass the 30 second mark
and I can safely talk about slavery without YouTube demonetizing me.
So….slavery!
Slavery was never legal in England or Scotland, but it was never made illegal either.
This made the law ambiguous at best and a tool to exploit property law at worst.
One example of this in action was in 1781 when the slave ship Zong ran out of clean
drinking water and so jettisoned some of it’s “cargo” into the ocean to save water for
everyone else on board.
When they arrived at their destination, they attempted to claim insurance on their “lost
property”.
Thankfully they didn’t get any, because they voluntarily “destroyed” the “cargo”
which invalidated the insurance agreement.
Not because they MURDERED PEOPLE.
James Somerset was an enslaved African brought to England from the Virginia colony by his
owner, Charles Stewart, in 1769.
Two years later, Somerset escaped from Stewart’s ownership and was on the run for a month until
Stewart recaptured him and imprisoned him on a boat bound for the Colony of Jamaica.
Hang on a minute…
Every man must be convicted by a fairly selected jury before he can be punished.
Was Somerset convicted of escaping by a jury before being imprisoned on that ship?
No!
And because slavery isn’t explicitly legal it isn’t illegal to be an escaped slave.
So James must be freed!
A team of anti-slavery advocates gathered funds to bring the case before a judge.
Rather than simply buying Somerset and setting him free, they wanted to tackle the legality
of slavery head-on.
They hoped that the judge would rule slavery as illegal and automatically free all the
slaves in Britain.
Selected to judge the case was William Murray, the Earl of Mansfield.
Proceedings opened with a speech from one of Somerset’s lawyers, William Davy.
“No man at this day is, or can be, a Slave in England.
The moment they put their foot on English ground, that moment they become free.
They are subject to the laws of this country, and so are their masters, thank God!
Toleration of slavery in the colonies is merely local, and wholly dependent on colonial law.
The court of the King’s Bench is concerned with the laws of England only!
The laws of Virginia have no more authority in this country than those of the Chinese!”.
Stewart’s lawyers argued back.
“The Africa and Senegal Trade Act of 1765 clearly endorses the right to buy slaves in
Africa and sell them in the American plantations.
Such slaves are as much the planters’ property as any other article of their personal estate.
It would be unjust to divest my client of his rightful property simply because he sailed,
in pursuit of his lawful business, from one country to another.”
“Just as a matter of interest...would you mind telling the court who is paying your
legal fees?”
[crickets]
After hearing both of their cases, Lord Mansfield spent a whole month figuring out which party
was legally right, and consulted with no fewer than 12 fellow judges.
Although he made it clear that he was opposed to slavery, he knew that his ruling would
have an impact on all subsequent court cases about slavery.
To completely overturn the entire institution of slavery based on a single case, was, Lord
Mansfield felt, an abuse of his power as a judge.
All the while, news of the case spread up and down the country.
Mansfield returned on the 22nd of June 1772; the courtroom was packed with Somerset’s
supporters and many more people congregated on the street outside.
The verdict?
“We cannot say the cause set forth by this return is allowed or approved of by the laws
of this kingdom, therefore the man must be discharged.”
Somerset was released and lived the rest of his life a free man.
The ruling of Somerset v Stewart didn’t make slavery illegal, or free all the slaves,
or even stop future escaped slaves from being recaptured.
Mansfield was careful in the wording of his verdict so that his ruling prevented was slaves
in England being forcibly transported out of England.
When they were here, they were here forever until they agreed to leave.
But the controversy surrounding the case had finally woken up the English middle class
to the legal paradox of slavery; if Britain was supposedly a free country, where all men
are guaranteed the same set of rights, why are some men allowed to be owned as property?
In 1807, under pressure from abolitionists, parliament would pass the Slave Trade Act,
banning the transportation and sale of slaves to any British territory.
The Act also stipulated that for the next 50 years, 2% of the budget and 1/6th of the
Royal Navy’s fleet would be devoted towards patrolling the Atlantic and stopping any ships,
British or foreign, from transporting slaves out of Africa.
In that time, 1600 ships were halted and 150,000 slaves freed.
This finally culminated in the Abolition of Slavery Act 1833, where parliament took out
a massive loan and bought every single slave in the entire Empire and set them free.
This action was so costly that this loan wasn’t fully paid off until 2015.
And although that did mean many wealthy slave owners received large sums of money for their
“confiscated property”, I would argue that there is no price greater than the value
of a human life.
It was clearly the lesser evil.
Just a footnote here; we’ve been patting ourselves on the back for nearly 250 years
now about how great it was that we abolished the slave trade, but a lot of people overlook
the fact that we actually, y’know, did the slave trade for over 200 years.
The good doesn’t wash away the bad, and you have to commemorate both if you’re not
a charlatan.
Freeing the slaves wasn’t the only monumental law of the 1830s though.
The government at the time, led by Earl Charles Grey – yes, that’s who the tea is named
after – had introduced another landmark piece of legislation the previous year.
In 1832, Parliament was incredibly corrupt.
The way Members of Parliament were chosen was extremely unfair, and if you thought First
Past the Post produced some terrible results you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The upper chamber of parliament, the House of Lords, was made up of the aristocracy – Dukes,
Lords, Barons, and such.
They weren’t even elected at all, and they inherited the seat from their family.
The lower chamber was the House of Commons, which was supposed to be elected by the ordinary
people, but in practice was a contest between the nobility on who could buy the most votes.
A potential law has to be approved by both of these chambers to pass.
Many of the districts that elected MPs were drawn up hundreds of years ago and didn’t
reflect changes in population – the so called “Rotten Boroughs”.
Famously, a hill in Wiltshire that hadn’t been inhabited since 1322 was represented
in parliament by two MPs.
Meanwhile, Yorkshire, the largest and most populated county in the country, had...also
two MPs.
Manchester, who had gone from a tiny, insignificant village to a massive city...had zero.
If a borough had only a handful of voters, a majority of them could often be paid by
their local Lord to vote for his preferred candidate.
For centuries, this was “fine”.
Most people couldn’t even read the ballot paper.
But now, thanks to the industrial revolution, living standards were increasing, and the
new educated middle class could finally demand participation in government.
The conservative Tory party, who represented the aristocracy and landowners, were opposed
to any sort of reform.
The system worked fine, and Rotten Boroughs allowed young up-and-coming politicians to
easily get into parliament.
Some of our best prime ministers represented these boroughs!
Meanwhile the liberal Whig party recognised that if the upper classes didn’t share,
the middle classes would inevitably start a revolution like the French were always doing
– there was a wave of revolutionary sentiment across continental Europe which Britain wanted
to avoid.
Also, the middle class tended to vote Whig more so it was just easy votes.
The Whigs, led by Prime Minister Earl Charles Grey, introduced a bill to parliament that
would abolish all of these rotten boroughs, create new ones for modern cities, and expand
voting rights to the middle class, which they defined as smaller farmers, shopkeepers, and
people who paid a rent of £10 or more per year.
It passed the Commons by...one vote.
But we’re not done yet.
Now it was time for MPs to suggest amendments and improvements, and knowing now that electoral
reform wasn’t as popular as first thought, many MPs paid off by the Lords realised they
could ruin the bill entirely by passing amendments that cut out all the important parts.
One amendment, which passed by 8 votes, would scrap the clause about abolishing rotten boroughs,
completely negating the purpose of the act.
And the Whigs were all “well f**k this if we can’t get it the way we want we’re
not doing it at all”.
Earl Grey went to the people and a fresh election was called.
Grey appealed to the voters; reject the bribes, vote your conscience, prove that electoral
reform is popular in this country!
And the electorate responded; nearly every non-corrupt borough returned a Whig MP.
With such a large majority, there was no stopping the reform bill passing the House of Commons
completely unamended.
Victory was assured!
All it needed to do was go to the… fuuuuuuuuu-
The Tory Lords rejected the Reform Bill completely and people were not happy.
But what can you do?
The Lords aren’t elected, you can’t vote the corrupt ones out.
Disappointment turned to rage as riots broke out across the country; 300,000 pounds worth
of damage was caused in the span of a month.
12 people died, 102 were arrested, and 31 rioters were executed.
Numerous political organisations sprung up in urban centres, with plans to cause disruption
if reforms were not delivered – many refused to pay taxes while others stormed the Bank
of England and withdrew as much money as possible to destabilise the economy.
Worst of all they burned down the pubs.
Earl Grey resigned as Prime Minister, and for a while it seemed like Britain was on
the brink of a full-scale revolution.
King William IV needed somebody to fill the role of Prime Minister, but both parties needed
a plan of where to go from here.
The Tories suggested...do nothing.
Wait for all this to blow over.
Then pass a watered-down really boring reform act and make people think they’ve won.
The Whigs suggested that the King use his Royal powers to make a bunch of Whig-supporting
commoners into Lords, who will then out-vote the Lords on the Reform act.
“That’s ridiculous, you can’t just make random people into Lords, that would make
being a Lord no different from being an average person with a fancy- ohhhhh”
To avoid this blatant violation of the class system, the Tory Lords simply gave up.
Completely.
They knew they had been beaten.
They didn’t even vote on the Bill again, they just let it pass through.
The Rotten Boroughs were abolished, the number of people who could vote doubled, and government
became a lot more fairer.
Over the next century, more and more reforms would be introduced that gradually widened
the electorate; The 1867 Reform Act extended the vote to all head of households both in
cities and in the countryside.
In 1872, voting was made secret and in 1883 it became illegal to buy or sell votes, ending
major electoral fraud in Britain completely.
The people had won.
For now.
But this wasn’t the first or last that the conservative aristocracy had blocked important
reforms, and by the end of the 19th century, still only 60% of men and zero percent of
women could vote.
Eventually, someone had to do something about this.
Tune in next month, when we’ll take a look at how those obstructionist, aristocratic
Lords were finally put in their place, once and for all.