Government, and when both were thrown into prison for their presumption, and into a prison within a few hours march from Newhall Hill, the masses who felt it with indignant emotion moved not a foot beyond the shadow of their peaceful banner. If they had burst forth into violence under the pressure, and had been followed by thousands in other towns, the powerful and determined opponents of reform, who had all the military resources of the nation at their command, would have been able and willing to crush the movement by sword, bomb, and bayonet. But here was a force arrayed and engaged in close action, which neither Wellington nor Napoleon ever encountered on the field of battle. The Iron Duke could not withstand it nor delay its triumph. It carried the Reform Bill of 1832 against all the resistance that could be organized against it.
Thus, Birmingham was not merely the accidental scene of one of the greatest political events in English history. It organized the force that produced the event, that has governed the governments and guided the people of the kingdom from that day to this. It erected public opinion into a mighty power and enginery for the public good; a power ever ready to be worked against any evil that legislation could remove, or the enlightened mind and conscience of the people could abolish by moral action. It was
