For some years after Brown's arrival in Canada, those questions in which politics and religion were blended were subordinated to a question purely political—colonial self-government. The atmosphere was not favourable to cool discussion. The colony had been in rebellion, and the passions aroused by the rebellion were always ready to burst into flame. French Canada having been more deeply stirred by the rebellion than Upper Canada, racial animosity was added there to party bitterness. The task of the Reformers was to work steadily for the establishment of a new order involving a highly important principle of government, and, at the same time, to keep the movement free from all suspicion of incitement to rebellion.
The leading figure of this movement is that of Robert Baldwin, and he was well supported by Hincks, by Sullivan, by William Hume Blake and others. The forces were wisely led, and it is not pretended that this direction was due to Brown. He was in 1844 only twenty-six years of age, and his position at first was that of a recruit. But he was a recruit of uncommon vigour and steadiness, and though he did not originate, he emphasized the idea of carrying on the fight on strictly constitutional and peaceful lines. His experience in New York and his deep hatred of slavery had strengthened by contrast his conviction that Great Britain was the citadel of liberty, and hence his utterances in favour of British connection were not conventional, but glowed with enthusiasm.
With 1849 came the triumph of Reform, and the last despairing effort of the old régime, dying out with the flames of the parliament buildings at Montreal. Now ensued a change in both parties. The one, exhausted and discredited by its fight against the inevitable coming of the new order, remained for a time weak and inactive, under a leader whose day was done. The other, in the very hour of victory, began to suffer disintegration. It had its Conservative element desiring to rest and be thankful, and its Radical element with aims not unlike those of Chartism in England. Brown stood for a time between the government and the Conservative element on the one side and the Clear Grits on the other. Disintegration was hastened by the retirement of Baldwin and Lafontaine. Then came the brief and troubled reign of Hincks; then a reconstruction of parties, with Conservatives under the leadership of Macdonald and Reformers under that of Brown.
The stream of politics between 1854 and 1864 is turbid; there is pettiness, there is bitterness, there is confusion. But away from this turmoil the province is growing in population, in wealth, in all the elements of civilization. Upper Canada especially is growing by immigration; it overtakes and passes Lower Canada in population, and thus arises the question of representation by population. Brown takes up this reform in representation as a means of freeing Upper Canada from the domination of the Lower Province. He becomes the "favourite son" of Upper Canada. His rival, through his French-Canadian alliance, meets him with a majority from Lower Canada; and so, for several years, there is a period of equally balanced parties and weak governments, ending in dead-lock.
If Brown's action had only broken this dead-lock, extricated some struggling politicians from difficulty, and allowed the ordinary business of government to proceed, it might have deserved only passing notice. But more than that was involved. The difficulty was inherent in the system. The legislative union was Lord Durham's plan of assimilating the races that he had found "warring in the bosom of a single state." The plan had failed. The line of cleavage was as sharply defined as ever. The ill-assorted union had produced only strife and misunderstanding. Yet to break the tie when new duties and new dangers had emphasized the necessity for union seemed to be an act of folly. To federalize the union was to combine the advantage of common action with liberty to each community to work out its own ideals in education, municipal government and all other matters of local concern. More than that, to federalize the union was to substitute for a rigid bond a bond elastic enough to allow of expansion, eastward to the Atlantic and westward to the Pacific. That principle which has been called provincial rights, or provincial autonomy, might be described more accurately and comprehensively as federalism; and it is the basic principle of Canadian political institutions, as essential to unity as to peace and local freedom.
The feeble, isolated and distracted colonies of 1864 have given place to a commonwealth which, if not in strictness a nation, possesses all the elements and possibilities of nationality, with a territory open on three sides to the ocean, lying in the highway of the world's commerce, and capable of supporting a population as large as that of the British Islands. Confederation was the first and greatest step in that process of expansion, and it is speaking only words of truth and soberness to say that confederation will rank among the landmarks of the world's history, and that its importance will not decline but will increase as history throws events into their true perspective. It is in his association with confederation, with the events that led up to confederation, and with the addition to Canada of the vast and fertile plains of the West, that the life of George Brown is of interest to the student of history.
Brown was not only a member of parliament and an actor in the political drama, but was the founder of a newspaper, and for thirty-six years the source of its inspiration and influence. As a journalist he touched life at many points. He was a man of varied interests—railways, municipal affairs, prison reform, education, agriculture, all came within the range of his duty as a journalist and his interest and sympathy as a man. Those stout-hearted men who amid all the wrangling and intrigue of the politicians were turning the wilderness of Canada into a garden, gave to Brown in large measure their confidence and affection. He, on his part, valued their friendship more than any victory that could be won in the political game. That was the standard by which he always asked to be judged. This story of his life may help to show that he was true to the trust they reposed in him, and to the principles that were the standards of his political conduct, to government by the people, to free institutions, to religious liberty and equality, to the unity and progress of the confederation of which he was one of the builders.