The existing Parliament was to be dissolved within a year, and in future there were to be biennial parliaments, equal constituencies, and manhood suffrage. Nothing was said of King or House of Lords, but the abolition of both was tacitly assumed. A declaration accompanied this draught constitution, by which freedom of conscience, freedom from impressment, and equality before the law were asserted to be the native rights of every Englishman—rights which no Parliament or Government had power to diminish or to take away. The officers had proposed a more limited monarchy—an adaptation of the old constitution to the new conditions which the Civil War had created. What the soldiers demanded was a democratic republic, based on a written constitution drawn up in accordance with abstract principles new to English politics.
The soldiers asked that their scheme, which they termed “The Agreement of the People,” should be at once submitted to the nation for its acceptance. Parliament was to be set aside by a direct appeal to the people as the only lawful source of all political authority. Against this, Cromwell and Ireton protested. The army, they said, had entered into certain engagements in its recent declarations to the nation, and the pledges made in them must be observed. Both declared that unless these public promises were kept they would lay down their commissions, and act no longer with the army. Equally strong were their objections to some of the principles which the “Agreement” contained, and the method in which it was proposed to impose it upon the nation. “This paper,” said Cromwell, “doth contain in it very great alterations of the government of the kingdom—alterations of that government it hath been under ever since it was a nation. What the consequences of such an alteration as this would be, even if there were nothing else to be considered, wise and godly men ought to consider.” The proposed constitution contained much that was specious and plausible, but also much that was very debatable. And while they were debating it, other schemes equally plausible might be put forward by other parties.
“And not only another and another, but many of this kind. And if so, what do you think the consequences of that would be? Would it not be confusion? Would it not be utter confusion? Would it not make England like Switzerland, one canton of the Swiss against another, and one county against another? And what would that produce but an absolute desolation to the nation? I ask you,” he concluded, “whether it be not fit for every honest man seriously to lay that upon his heart?”