Why did chartism fail to reach its objectives?

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Why did Chartism fail to achieve its objectives? From the very beginning of the chartist movement, their main objective was the six points of the charter. The charter was a political document with six main political aims. These aims ranged from universal manhood suffrage, annual general elections, voting by secret ballot, the abolition of property qualifications of MP’s and equal electoral districts and redistribution of seats. These were the main problems that Britain was dealing with in the chartist movement. During the movement, there was a number of uprisings, protests and riots, which would always follow with the same result – mass arrests and deportations. Ultimately, the chartists did not achieve any of its objectives in their time, however, while the Chartist’s were unable to make their six points a reality themselves, they allowed future organisations to build from their successes. The result of the chartist movement in the long term was that all of the aims of the people’s charter was brought into the British political system today. Ultimately, the Chartists did not achieve any of their six aims whilst they were still an active organisation. This failure can be linked to a number of reasons, both internal and external to the Chartist movement. Internally, several divides prevented the Chartists being a united and a strong organisation. The most obvious divide was between those who supported the use of ‘moral’ force, led by William Lovett, and those who supported ‘physical’ force, led by Feargus O’Connor. The clashes of Lovett and O’Connor meant there was a lack of effective leadership at crucial times in the movement. This lack of leadership was the single most damaging factor to the Chartists. The constant leadership battles meant that the movement was too busy attacking itself and did not focus on achieving their set goals. The leadership and
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