America: A history

by Robert Mackenzie

The disorders of the Lower Province had scarcely been quelled, when Mackenzie, followed by the more extreme and injudicious advocates of reform, precipitated in Upper Canada a movement equally insignificant and unsuccessful. These persons went to war avowedly to secure complete responsibility of government to the people. This was undeniably the prevailing desire of the province; but it was found that while many desired this excellent reform, few were prepared to incur for its sake the evils which rebellion must necessarily bring. Fifteen hundred men enrolled themselves under the banner of Mackenzie. An attack upon Toronto was devised, and was defeated with ease. Dec. 1837 A.D. Mackenzie fled to the United States, where he was able to organize some bands of lawless men for a marauding expedition into Canada. They, too, were routed, and order was easily restored.

These wretched disturbances served a purpose which peaceful agitation had thus far failed to accomplish—they compelled the earnest attention of the British Parliament to the wishes of the colonists. On the eve of the rebellion, Government had explicitly refused to grant the boon of ministerial responsibility, and carried an Act by which powers were given to the Governor to make certain payments which the Assembly had for some years refused to make. The British Government of the day was a Liberal Government. Lord John Russell was one of its members, a man who for many years had devoted himself to the cause of reform at home. It was Lord John Russell who now led the House of Commons in its denial to the colonies of that popular control over government which was deemed essential for England. No perception of the glaring inconsistency disturbed the minds of the most genuine reformers, for an erring theory of the true position and rights of colonists still prevailed. Even the Liberal party had not yet learned to recognize an Englishman who had taken up his abode in the valley of the St. Lawrence as the equal in political right of the Englishman who remained at home. A colony was still an association of persons who had established themselves on some distant portion of national territory, and whose affairs were to be administered with reference chiefly to the interests of the mother country. Colonists were not allowed to trade freely where they chose. They must purchase from England all the goods which they might require; all their surplus productions must be sent home for sale. Their attempts to manufacture were sternly repressed. It was expected of them that they should cultivate that portion of the national soil which had been assigned to them, reserving for the mother country the profitable supply of all their wants, the profitable disposal of all their productions. The ships of strangers were rigorously excluded; no foreign keel had ploughed the waters of the St. Lawrence since French ships bore home to Europe the men whom Wolfe defeated.

No less clear was the political inferiority of the colonist. A colony was still regarded as a subordinate and dependent portion of the empire, whose position rendered impossible its admission to equality of privilege. It could not be intrusted with the unqualified control of its own destinies; it must needs accept also the guidance of the Colonial Office. This was the tie which bound the colony to the mother country; but for this Canada would certainly yield to the influences of prosperous republicanism in its neighbourhood, and cast off the authority of the Crown. So reasoned the Whig statesmen of forty years ago; and their reasoning was replied to by widespread discontent, the depth of which was revealed by lurid and ominous flashes of rebellion. It became necessary to revise the traditional estimate of colonial right.

October, 1839 A.D. The progress of ministerial opinion made itself apparent in the despatches of Lord John Russell. His Lordship would not yet explicitly acknowledge the responsibility of the Executive to the representatives of the people. But he assured the colonists that Her Majesty would in future look to their “affectionate attachment” as the best security for permanent dominion, and that she would not maintain among them any policy which opinion condemned. The friends of responsible government perceived that their hour of triumph was near.

Many evils had flowed from the separation of the provinces effected by Pitt fifty years before. It still suited the interests of the unreforming party in the Upper Province and the French Canadians in the Lower to maintain the separation. But it was clear to all men who sought merely the public good that existing arrangements had become unendurable. The position of both colonies called urgently for measures of reconstruction. The constitution of Lower Canada had been suspended during the rebellion, and had not yet been restored. The finances of the Upper Province were in disorder; public works were discontinued; business was paralyzed; immigration had ceased. It was widely felt that industrial progress was fatally impeded by separation; that the only remedy for the evils under which Canada suffered was the legislative union of the two provinces.

The British Government was known to favour this measure; the Liberals in both provinces were eager in its support; the Conservatives of the Upper Province ceased from resistance under loyal impulses; the French Canadians had by their attitude during the late disturbances forfeited their claim to consideration. July, 1840 A.D. The Union Bill was passed by the Legislatures of both provinces and by the Imperial Parliament, and the enfeebling separation which the jealousies of an earlier time had imposed was finally cancelled.

Canada was henceforth to be ruled by a Governor, a Legislative Council, and a Legislative Assembly. The Governor and Council were appointed by the Crown; the Assembly was chosen by the people. The representation was shared equally by the provinces—ten members of Council, and forty-two members of Assembly being assigned to each. The Assembly had control of all branches of the public revenue. The Governor was advised by an Executive Council of eight members, who, if they were members of Assembly, required re-election when they accepted a place in the Council. When the Council no longer commanded a majority in the Assembly it ceased to hold office. The long-desired boon of responsible government was thus at length secured; the traditional inferiority of the colonist was cancelled; it was recognized that an Englishman who bore his part in building up new empires in distant places did not therefore forfeit the rights of a free-born English subject. To insure and hasten the use of this new method of colonial government, a command came to the Governor-General, in the Queen’s name, to the effect that he should rule in accordance with the feelings and opinions of the people, as these were expressed by the popular representatives. For a few years there was an imperfect application of a principle hitherto unknown in Canadian history; but gradually the people learned to enforce and the Government to recognize the newly conferred privilege. The great revolution which raised the Canadians to the rank of a fully self-governing people was complete.

The foundations were now laid upon which the colonists could peacefully build themselves up into a great industrial nation. But the antipathies of race which had hitherto vexed and frustrated them were not immediately allayed. The united British population of the two provinces now outnumbered the French, and was able to give law to the colony. The French element was surrounded by a British element of superior strength, of superior intelligence and energy, attracting continually reinforcements from the mother country. The hope of erecting a French power in the valley of the St. Lawrence was now extinct, and the Frenchmen had no longer any higher prospect than that of peaceful citizenship under the rule of men whom they regarded as foreigners. They remained apart, following their own customs, cherishing their own prejudices, refusing to intermingle with the British population among whom they lived.

Political animosity was for some years exceptionally bitter. Soon after the union it was roused to unwonted fury by a proposal to compensate those persons in Lower Canada who had suffered destruction of their property during the rebellion. The British Conservative party offered a discreditable resistance to this proposal. It was not intended that any persons engaged in the rebellion should participate in the benefits of the measure. But the unreasonable British asserted that they, the loyal men, were being taxed for the advantage of rebels. 1849 A.D. When the Bill was passed, the rabble of Montreal pelted with stones Lord Elgin, who was then Governor-General; they threatened, in their unbridled rage, to annex themselves with the United States; they invaded and dispersed the Assembly; they burned to the ground the building in which their Parliament held its sittings. From that day Montreal ceased to be the seat of Government. For a few years Parliament alternated between Quebec and Toronto. That system having been found inconvenient, the Queen was requested to select a permanent home for the Government of the colony. 1858 A.D. Her Majesty’s choice fell upon Bytown, a thriving little city, occupying a situation of romantic beauty, on the river which divided the provinces. The capital of the Dominion received a name more fully in keeping with its metropolitan dignity, and was henceforth styled Ottawa.