Eng. Hist. [f. L. charta in sense ‘CHARTER’ + -ISM.] The democratic movement and principles of the Chartists, 1838–48.
1839. New Monthly Mag., LVII. 536. A sort of intellectual Chartism, very sublime and beautiful in theory, but very useless in practice.
1839. Carlyle (title), Chartism.
1859. Mill, Diss. & Disc., II. 189. The democratic movement among the operative classes, commonly known as Chartism, was the first open separation of interest, feeling, and opinion, between the labouring portion of the commonwealth and all above them.
1879. McCarthy, Own Times, II. xviii. 18. Chartism did not die of its own excesses; it became an anachronism.
