Some people are truly nuts.

From the Wikipedia description of the Crystal Palace

http://andreakb.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/thermal-comfort-lechner-ch4/

The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and plate-glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's 990,000 square feet (92,000 m²) of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet (39 m). Because of the recent invention of the cast plate glass method in 1848, which allowed for large sheets of cheap but strong glass, it was at the time the largest amount of glass ever seen in a building and astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights, thus a "Crystal Palace".

Sounds charming. Well, not everyone thought so. Colonel Sibthorp, the Conservative English MP from the constituency of Lincoln in 1851 certainly did not think so. For him, it was a celebration of free trade. And he was right. And it was also the site of considerable social anxiety, carefully arranged so that the classes would not mingle. But there was a limit to how much they could prevent mingling, given that the middle and industrious and the idle aristocracy were all invited and welcomed and (the last least perhaps) celebrated. He, disliking free trade and despising class mingling, had this to say:

With regard to the flourishing state of trade and manufactures, let them go down to the city he had just left [Lincoln], and they would soon find what was thought there of free trade, and of that which he did most strenuously condemn-that fraud upon the public called a "Glass House"-the "Crystal Palace"-that accursed building, erected to encourage the foreigner at the expense of the already grievously-distressed English artisan. Would to God-he had often wished it-that a heavy hailstorm or a visitation of lightning would but a stop to the further progress of that work ! Their property, their wives and families would be at the mercy of pickpockets and whoremongers from every part of the earth. Oh, it would be a beautiful sight! There was a charming building, and there would be the most entertaining recreation provided. This was another specimen of the encouragement of free trade.

From Hansard, Feb. 4th 1851, c.106.

Photo by R. Hooghe [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The dangers of maximalism

I am fond of John Russell, former UK Prime Minister, and, next to Gladstone, perhaps most important in establishing Liberalism and liberalism as a popular philosophy in the 19th century. I am not fond of his argument here, against universal suffrage.

Historians are frequently being warned, and warning each other, to judge people by their times and places: so the racism of our ancestors is not really a fair subject of critique, as the past was more racist than the present. This is Whiggism at its worst: the presumption that the past was always worse. Of course, in many ways it wasn't. The USA was anxious, worried, uncertain about racial supremacy at its founding; it was triumphantly racist by 1850; and from 1860 to about 1880, racial egalitarianism flourished, conquered, was defended, and then ultimately fell. This is not progress.

But another problem is that this Whiggism is lazy: the vilest bigotry can be defended by saying "this was a different time, a different place." In reality, and while not denying the differences between the past and the present, the fact remains that in almost all times and places there was a rejoinder, an opposition, very frequently large and 'respectable.' I read many who invoke the 'past cannot be judged by the present' as saying : "this was a time when this opinion was more popular than now, when it could be expressed without sanction, and while sure there was a vocal and sizable opposition, and thus a space for non-racism, non-elitism, non-sexism, why would one give up small privileges for moral righteousness." And I find this position more defensible and certainly more accurate a description than the implied "they could not imagine another way." Of course they could; others, no more imaginative, did, and these others were loud, insistent, adamant, annoying, fanatical, and righteous (both as a moral assessment and an aggravating posture).

But digress. Back to Russell, which is--detached from its anti-universal suffrage context--a useful articulation of the argument that institutions cannot operate when their implications are maximally exploited for small gain.

The whole of the constitution of this country depends upon the moderation and forbearance with which its various powers are exercised. If the Sovereign were to exercise the extreme power of the prerogative-if the House of Lords were upon every occasion to indulge its own views and its own opinions, and exercise its power of rejecting all the Bills sent up from this House-if the House of Commons used its extreme power of constantly refusing all supplies, unless its will were complied with-I say, if the Sovereign, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, were all, or indeed any one of them, to use the powers which the constitution has vested in them, which by law they possess, and which cannot be denied to them-if they were to use all these powers, and push them to extremes, the constitution could not last a month. There would be an end of its powers, and at the same time there would be an end of the temperate liberties of this country. .... what I do say is, that the liberties we have inherited from our ancestors, and that temperate liberty of which we are now in the enjoyment, are enjoyed only by not pushing the rights of any parties to the extreme.

I am sympathetic to maximalism; this is in part a consequence of the constitutive experiences and texts that have shaped my experience. In reading history I see myself less with the defenders of the status quo, whatever this might be, than among the excluded. Hence, perhaps, my sympathy now for working class conservatives, for the Ulster rioters, and my great hesitation with liberal progressive triumphalism expressed in their pretensions to being 'reality based.' The feeling that one's interests are excluded, that one's lifestyle is looked down on, is a powerful one, even if it is felt by those with whom I disagree. 

And so that which is reasonable is often dressing for that which is exclusionary; and maximalism has the advantage of pushing whatever advantage one has. I believe that O'Connell's strategy for achieving emancipation was the aggressive use of whatever rights were enabled. The Catholic Association, the Catholic Rent, the use of the franchise by the 40 shilling freeholders to vote for their preferred candidate, rather than their landlord's candidate, the election of O'Connell itself, were all instances of maximalism. And they led Robert Peel to worry. Peel saw an evil that was “not force—not violence—not any act of which law could take cognizance” but rather “the peaceable and legitimate exercise of a franchise according to the will and conscience of the holder.” Long existing rights, which had maintained ultimate control in the landed élite, were being repurposed. It was the  

“novel exercise of constitutional franchises—in the application of powers recognised and protected by law—the power of meeting in public assemblies—the systematic and not unlawful application of all those powers to one definite purpose, namely, the organisation of a force which professed to be a moral force, but had for its objects to encroach step by step on the functions of regular government, to paralyse its authority, and to acquire a strength which might ultimately render irresistible the demand for civil equality” (O’Ferrall 1985, 202).

But still, I am fond of Russell. And so I read his opposition to maximalism with more sympathy than if it had been Peel, Wellington, or Inglis.

On filibustering...

... Robert Peel, having blocked several efforts to adjourn, states that he intends to block all public business until he gets what he wants.

all public business should be deferred until this question should be decided. This was the proposition he had to make to hon. Gentlemen opposite, and he assured them he made it in the most perfect good humour. And he would put it to them, was it not better that they should separate good humouredly upon this understanding, than they should continue a useless system of hostility and contention, such as they had that night witnessed.

T. Duncombe responds

[Duncombe wishes] the House and the country to understand what was the nature of the proposition which the right hon. Baronet had submitted. It was this-that because the House would not agree to encourage treating and bribery, the right hon. Baronet [Peel] would obstruct the progress of all public business. If hon. Gentlemen opposite should ever come into office again, he thought they could not  complain if those who might be in opposition to them, took a leaf out of their book. He thought the proposition of the right hon. Baronet would prove a most dangerous precedent in future cases.

And that's how you get the snowball rolling.