TOPICAL ANALYSIS
Causes:
1. The idea of union an old one in Canada and the Maritime Provinces; foreshadowed in Durham's Report.
2. Immediate cause in Canada was the question of representation by population; deadlock in Parliament.
3. Immediate cause in Maritime Provinces was the feeling between Britain and the Colonies and the United States over the Trent affair, the Alabama trouble, and the idea in the Northern States that the British Colonies favoured the cause of the South in the Civil War.
Steps toward Confederation:
1. Meeting of delegates from the Maritime Provinces in Charlottetown in 1864.
2. Meeting in Quebec, 1864, of delegates from all the provinces favours Confederation.
3. Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island reject the proposal, and delegates from Upper Canada (Ontario), Lower Canada (Quebec), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick proceed to London to secure an Act of Union from the Imperial Government.
4. Movement in favour of union hastened by United States giving notice in 1865 of the termination of the Reciprocity Treaty in a year, and by the Fenian Raid, 1866.