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 April 4 serious business began with a proposal from Bronterre O'Brien, whose revolutionary enthusiasm now brought him once more to a meeting controlled by O'Connor. But he came not to bless but to curse, and poured abundant cold water on the ardent schemes of the executive. Bronterre upheld the view that, as the Convention only represented a small fraction of the nation, it should limit its action to presenting the new petition, and that a larger assembly should be summoned to consider ulterior measures. By this dilatory measure time would be gained to prepare for revolution. In opposition to this the executive moved resolutions that in the event of the petition being rejected, a National Assembly should be convoked. This body was to draw up a memorial to the Queen to dismiss her Whig Ministers and choose others who would make the Charter an immediate Cabinet question. Reynolds, the hero of the Trafalgar Square disturbances, had stepped into some prominence as a Chartist leader. He now moved an amendment to this, proposing that on the rejection of the Petition the Convention should declare itself in permanent session, and proclaim the Charter the law of the land.

In the end the Convention decided in favour of the convocation of a National Assembly, consisting of delegates appointed at public meetings, and empowered to present a National Memorial to the Queen and to remain in session until the adoption of the Charter. Elaborate plans for the constituting of the Chartist Commonwealth of the future were now in the air. The aim before the zealots was a Revolutionary assembly that would secure the extension of the Republic from France to England. Even before the Convention had met, O'Connor had sketched in the Star an ideal polity which had many affinities with the French Constitution of the Year Three, and included a House of Commons, elected after the Chartist fashion, a Senate or House of Elders, rather of the pattern of the Conseil des Anciens, and an Executive Council of five, like the Executive Directory, but with a President chosen for life. Local government was to be provided for by each electoral district choosing twelve justices of the peace, whose mandate was to magnify their office by overthrowing all centralisation. Projects of this sort show how the Chartist leaders had widened their platform. Unluckily they could not agree on the same plan, and events soon made their deliberations abortive.