The idea that Mill was an apologist for middle-class interests was, of course, a later development. But what of his contemporaries’ views of the Essay on Government? For so short an essay, Mill’s Government proved to be remarkably controversial in his own day. Tories and Whigs thought its message wildly and even dangerously democratic, while many of Mill’s fellow Utilitarians—including Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and William Thompson—believed that he did not go nearly far enough in advocating an extension of the franchise. Although more “democratic” in private discussion, Mill publicly advocated extending the franchise to include all male heads of household over the age of forty, leaving them to speak for and represent the interests of younger men and all women: