Chartism was in effect Britain’s civil rights movement and petitioning was at its heart: it defined who the Chartists were as well as the “other” against which they were implacably opposed. Its history has been effectively narrated around its three national petitions (1839, 1842, and 1848), and its decline almost habitually and directly linked to circumstances surrounding the last of these. More than 3.3 million people signed the 1842 National Petition. Chartism’s history after 1842 is partly one of how the State learned to manage the movement in general and petitioning in particular. The question posed by the title is deliberately ambiguous: What did the Chartists petition for and, equally, why did they bother? The first issue will be answered by a close reading of the three texts (surprisingly not undertaken by previous historians of the movement). The second will answered through an analysis of the wider uses of petitioning. The third issue addressed by this article is how petitioning constructed Chartism. In every contributing locality, canvassing was a major intervention in political life. The subscriptional community created by its petitions were “the people,” a term that clearly included not only men but also women and children. This was a different and wider meaning of the term “the people” from that used by Chartism’s opponents and it was a profound departure. Petitioning shaped, articulated, and mobilized the politics of a nascent working class, “banded together in one solemn and holy league” but excluded from economic and political power.

中文翻译：

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宪章主义请愿书是为了什么？英国民主运动中的群众请愿书

宪章运动实际上是英国的民权运动，请愿是其核心：它定义了宪章主义者是谁以及他们坚决反对的“他者”。它的历史已经围绕它的三个国家请愿书（1839 年、1842 年和 1848 年）进行了有效的叙述，它的衰落几乎习惯性地与最后一个请愿书的情况直接相关。超过 330 万人签署了 1842 年的全国请愿书。宪章运动在 1842 年之后的历史部分是国家如何学会管理整个运动和特别是请愿的方式之一。标题提出的问题是故意模棱两可的：宪章主义者请求什么，同样，他们为什么要打扰？第一个问题将通过仔细阅读这三个文本来回答（令人惊讶的是，以前的运动历史学家没有这样做）。第二个将通过分析上访的更广泛用途来回答。本文讨论的第三个问题是请愿如何构建宪章主义。在每一个做出贡献的地方，拉票都是对政治生活的主要干预。由其请愿书创建的订阅社区是“人民”，这个词显然不仅包括男人，还包括妇女和儿童。这是与宪章运动的反对者所使用的“人民”一词不同且更广泛的含义，这是一个深刻的背离。请愿书塑造、表达并动员了新生工人阶级的政治，