Tory Ruffianism: Using the Unenfranchised as Shock-Troops and Enforcers

Some, like W.W. Baldwin, a leading lawyer and politician, believed on principle that the use of violence against political opponents was "in the strictest sense uncivilized." Moreover, it violated the rule of law, a fundamental principle of the British constitution as understood by Baldwin and other reformers; for this reason also it was unacceptable. The use of the unenfranchised as shock-troops and enforcers remained distinctly tory weapons. In offering a clear alternative to tory ruffianism, the reformers continued to discredit one of the most significant aspects of early tory governance.

--Carol Wilton, Popular Politics and Political Culture in Upper Canada, 1800-1850 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000), 202.