"The Free-Born Englishman"

Chapter 4 (77–101) shows that patriotism and respect for authority was contrasted with a positive affirmation of the value of being let alone and hearty objection to an official or other authority that oversteps what is rightfully due him (an official was of course sometimes a queen, but was usually a man, in England). Though of a later era, the line from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pinafore is indicative: "For a British tar [sailor] is a soaring soul/As free as a mountain bird." The song was convincing even in a society where in fact a Captain ran the ship with an iron hand: for he only did so in a context where working sailors had the right to have a bit of fun when in port or to be Methodists.

The basic contrast here is that of reverence for the crown and church as responsible for the nation and its soul versus an affirmation of

freedom from absolutism (the constitutional monarchy), freedom from arbitrary arrest, trial by jury, equality before the law, the freedom of the home from arbitrary entrance and search, some limited liberty of thought, of speech, and of conscience, the vicarious participation in liberty (or in its semblance) afforded by the right of parliamentary opposition and by elections and election tumults (although the people had no vote they had the right to parade, huzza and jeer on the hustings), as well as freedom to travel, trade, and sell one's own labour. Nor were any of these freedoms insignificant; taken together, they both embody and reflect a moral consensus in which authority at times shared, and of which at all times it was bound to take account. (79)

The fundamental idea is "You can't push me around."

Again, the point is not that all poor men, in every situation, would think automatically about the proper limits of authority, about being free-born Englishmen (women were mostly not thought of as free born, though they were in fact often defended by the limits of authority involved in the legal version of the concept). In fact, there is a contrast between the notion that the upper classes know what they are doing and should be let do it, with coercion to back them up if necessary, and the idea "They can't push me around." As the relations of authority at work

and in politics changed over the forty years between 1790 and 1830, workers could interpret those changes in terms of the contrast. Conservative workers would recognize what radicals were talking about when they used the phrase free-born Englishmen , and the radicals would recognize the notion that society would come apart if the rulers were not respected.