British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854

by J. L. Morison

Moreover, before 1847 there were other good reasons for the existence of two distinct parties. It was true, as Sydenham had said, that the British party names were not quite appropriate to the parties in Canada who had adopted them. Yet there were some links between British and Canadian parties. The British and the Canadian Tories had, in 1840, many views in common. In a time of change both stood for a pronounced distrust of democracy; both regarded the creation of responsible government in Canada as disastrous to the connection; both were the defenders of Church and State. On the other hand, it was not unnatural, as Elgin came to see, to compare the party led by Baldwin and La Fontaine with the Reformers in England who looked to Lord John Russell as their true leader. Until the political traditions, which most of the recent immigrants had brought with them from Britain, had disappeared or been transformed into a new Canadian tradition, and so long as certain grave constitutional defects which cried for remedy remained unaltered, Canadian Tories and Reformers must exist, and government, as Metcalfe discovered, was impossible, unless it recognized in these provincial divisions the motive power of local administration.

But between 1847 and 1854 the foundations of these earlier parties had been, not so much undermined, as entirely removed. "The continuance of agitation on these intensely exciting questions," wrote Elgin in his latest despatch from Canada, "was greatly to be deprecated, and their settlement, on terms which command the general acquiescence of those who are most deeply interested, can hardly fail to be attended with results in a high degree beneficial."[[2]] Elgin had removed the reason for existence of both parties by settling the issues which divided them. At the same time, the growth of a political life different from that of Britain, had, year by year, made the British names more inappropriate. John A. Macdonald, the leader of those who had once called themselves Tories, was confessing the change when he wrote, in 1860, "While I have always been a member of what is called the Conservative party, I could never have been called a Tory, although there is no man who more respects what is called old-fogey Toryism than I do, so long as it is based upon principle."[[3]] The fierce battles over constitutional theories, which a series of British governors and governments had so long deprecated, had at last been eliminated by the natural development of Canadian political life.

The same natural development provided a substitute for the older party system. Elgin, as has been seen, belonged to the group of Peelites, who, during the lifetime of their leader and long after it, endeavoured to solve the new administrative problems of the nineteenth century without too strict an adherence to party programmes and lines of division. Curiously enough, he was the chief agent in stimulating a similar political movement in Canada. There was, however, this difference, that while in Peel's case, and still more in that of his followers, the British party tradition proved overwhelmingly powerful, in Canada, where tradition was weaker, and the need for sound administration far more vital, the movement became dominant in the form of Liberal-conservatism. In other words, in place of small violently antagonistic parties, moderate men inclined to come together to carry out a broad, non-controversial, national programme.

There are few more remarkable developments in Canada between 1840 and 1867 than this tendency towards government by a single party. It was Sydenham's shrewd insight into the Canadian political situation, even more than his desire to rule, which led him to govern Canada by a coalition of moderate men. His only mistake lay in trying to force on the province what should have come by nature. The Baldwin-La Fontaine compact, which really dominated Canadian politics from 1841, was a partial experiment in government by an alliance of groups; and when the great exciting questions, Responsible Government and Church Establishment, had been settled, and the end in view seemed simply to be the carrying on of the Queen's government, Liberal-conservatism entered gradually into possession. When Baldwin and La Fontaine made way for Hincks and Morin in 1851, the change was recognized as a step towards the re-union of the moderates. For, in the face of George Brown, and his advocacy of a more provocative radical programme, Francis Hincks declared for some kind of coalition: "I regret to say there have been indications given by a section of the party to which I belong, that it will be difficult indeed, unless they change their policy, to preserve the Union. I will tell these persons (the anti-state church reformers of Upper Canada) that if the Union is not preserved by them, as a necessary consequence, other combinations must be formed by which the Union may be preserved. I am ready to give my cordial support to any combination of parties by which the Union shall be maintained."[[4]] Three years later, the party of moderate reform which had co-operated with Elgin in creating a system of truly responsible government, and which had done so much to restore Canadian political equanimity, fell before a factious combination of hostile groups. But the succeeding administration, nominally Conservative, was actually Liberal-Conservative, and it remained in power chiefly because Francis Hincks, who had led the Reformers, desired his followers to assist it, as Peel and his immediate disciples kept the British Whigs in office after 1846. Robert Baldwin had been the leader of opposition during Sydenham's rule, and before it; indeed, he may be called the organizer of party division in the days before the grant of responsible government. Yet when the opponents of the compact of 1854 quoted his precedent of party division against Hincks' principle of union, Baldwin disowned his would-be supporters: "However disinclined myself to adventure upon such combinations, they are unquestionably, in my opinion, under certain circumstances, not only justifiable, but expedient, and even necessary. The government of the country must be carried on. It ought to be carried on with vigour. If that can be done in no other way than by mutual concessions and a coalition of parties, they become necessary."[[5]] In consequence, the autumn of 1854 witnessed the remarkable spectacle of a Tory government, headed by Sir Allan MacNab, carrying a bill to end the Clergy Reserve troubles, in alliance with Francis Hincks and their late opponents. The chief dissentients were the extreme radicals, who were now nicknamed the Clear-Grits.[[6]]

After 1854, and for ten years, the political history of Canada is a reductio ad absurdum of the older party system. Government succeeded government, only to fall a prey to its own lack of a sufficient majority, and the unprincipled use by its various opponents of casual combinations and alliances. Apart from a little group of Radicals, British and French, who advocated reforms with an absence of moderation which made them impossible as ministers of state, there were not sufficient differences to justify two parties, and hardly sufficient programme even for one. The old Tories disappeared from power with their leader, Sir Allan MacNab, in 1856. The Baldwin-Hincks reformers had distributed themselves through all the parties—Canadian Peelites they may be called. The great majority of the representatives of the French followed moderate counsels, and were usually sought as allies by whatever government held office. The broader principles of party warfare were proclaimed only by the Clear-Grits of Upper Canada and the Rouges of Lower Canada. The latter group was distinct enough in its views to be impossible as allies for any but like-minded extremists: "Le parti rouge," says La Minerve, "s'est formé à Montreal sous les auspices de M. Papineau, en haine des institutions anglaises, de notre constitution déclarée vicieuse, et surtout du gouvernement responsable regardé comme une duperie, avec des idées d'innovation en religion et en politique, accompagnées d'une haine profond pour le clergé, et avec l'intention bien formelle, et bien prononcée d'annexer le Canada aux Etats-Unis."[[7]]

As for the original Clear-Grits, their distinguishing features were the advocacy of reforming ideas in so extreme a form as to make them useless for practical purposes, an anti-clerical or extreme Protestant outlook in religion, and a moral superiority, partly real, but more largely the Pharisaism so inevitably connected with all forms of radical propaganda. They proved their futility in 1858, when George Brown and A. A. Dorion formed their two-days' administration, and extinguished the credit of their parties, and themselves, as politicians capable of existence apart from moderate allies. Until Canadian politics could have their scope enlarged, and the issues at stake made more vital, and therefore more controversial, it was obvious that the grant of responsible government had rendered the existing party system useless.

The significant moment in this period of Canadian history came in 1864, when all the responsible politicians in the country, and more especially the two great personal enemies, John A. Macdonald and George Brown, came together to carry out a scheme of confederation, which was too great to be the object of petty party strife, and which required the support of all parties to make it successful. Both political parties, as George Brown confessed, had tried to govern the country, and each in turn had failed from lack of steady adequate support. A general election was unlikely to effect any improvement in the situation, and the one hope seemed to lie in a frank combination between opponents to solve the constitutional difficulties which threatened to ruin the province. "After much discussion on both sides," ran the official declaration, "it was found that a compromise might probably be had in the adoption either of the federal principle for the British North American provinces, as the larger question, or for Canada alone, with provisions for the admission of the Maritime Provinces and the North-Western Territory, when they should express the desire": and to secure the most perfect unanimity the ministers, Sir E. P. Taché and Mr. Macdonald, "thereon stated that, after the prorogation, they would be prepared to place three seats in the Cabinet at the disposal of Mr. Brown."[[8]]

It is not within the scope of this essay to discuss developments after Confederation, yet it is an interesting speculation whether, up to a date quite recent, the grant of responsible government did not continue to make a two-party system on the British basis unnatural to Canada. Between 1847 and 1867, the destruction of the dual system, and the creation of government by coalition, were certainly the dominant facts in Canadian politics, and both were the products of the gift of autonomy. Since 1867, it is possible to contend that, while two sets of politicians offer themselves as alternative governments to the electors, their differentiation has reference rather to the holding of office than to a real distinction in programme. Alike in trade, imperial policy, and domestic progress, the inclination has been towards compromise, and either side inclines, or is forced, to steal the programme of the other. Responsible government was the last issue which arrayed men in parties, neither of which could quite accept a compromise with the other. It remains to be seen whether questions of freer trade, imperial organization, and provincial rights, will once more create parties with something deeper in their differences than mere rival claims to hold office.

If the creation of a Liberal-Conservative party was a direct result of the grant of autonomy, so also was the policy which led to Confederation. It is no part of the present volume to trace the growth of the idea of Confederation, or to determine who the actual fathers of Confederation were. The connection between Autonomy and Confederation in the province of Canada was that the former made the latter inevitable.