To these arguments he afterwards added that a union of such widely scattered provinces was geographically difficult, and that it would arouse the suspicion and hostility of the United States.
These reasons, feeble enough at best, were at least political; unfortunately he had other reasons, deeper and more personal.
There can be no doubt that if he had gone to Charlottetown and Quebec, as one of the delegates, he would have thrown himself heartily into the project, and left his mark on the proposed constitution. It galled him that the Quebec scheme had been completed to the minutest detail, and published to the world, without any assistance from himself. He soon found that the people of the Maritime Provinces generally were averse to the scheme, and that many were already arrayed in downright opposition to it. What was he to do? He paused for a little. Two courses were open, one noble, one less noble. Not only in youth has Hercules' Choice to be made. Stern principle called on him to take one course, a hundred pleasant voices called on the other side. Was he to be the lieutenant of Dr Tupper, the man who had taken the popular breeze out of his sails, who had politically annihilated him for a time, with whom, too, his contest had been mainly personal, for no great political question had been involved between them; or was he to put himself at the head of old friends and old foes, regain his proper place, and steer the ship in his own fashion? In the circumstances, only a hero could have done his duty. There are few heroes in the world, and it is doubtful if modern statecraft conduces to make men heroic. And Howe was an egoist. Friends and colleagues had known his weakness before, but had scarce ventured to speak of it in public. In his cabinets he had suffered no rival. To those who submitted he was sweet as summer. He would give everything to or for them, keeping nothing for himself. They might have the pelf if he had the power. Proposals that did not emanate from himself got scant justice in council or caucus. This egoism, which long feeding on popular applause had developed into a vanity almost incomprehensible in one so strong, was not known to the outside world. But now, in his hour of trial, his sin had found him out. The real reason of his opposition was given in his savage words to a friend: 'I will not play second fiddle to that d—d Tupper.'
But the egoist was also 'a bonny fighter.' He flung himself into the fray as wild with excitement as any soldier on a stricken field. With every artifice of the orator he wrought the people of Nova Scotia to madness. It was poor stuff, most of it; coarse jokes, recrimination, crowd-catching claptrap. Eighty cents per head of population was, according to the agreement, to be the subsidy from the federal to the provincial government. 'We are sold for the price of a sheep-skin,' was Howe's slogan on a hundred platforms. Dr Tupper had passed a measure, instituting compulsory primary education, based on direct local assessment. In his heart of hearts Howe knew that it was a noble measure, such as he himself had wished to introduce but dared not; yet he did not scruple to play upon the hatred of the farmer against direct taxation. Instead of rousing, as of old, their love of Nova Scotia till it included all British North America and widened ever outward till the whole Empire was within, he made of it a bitter, selfish thing, localism and provincialism incarnate. Yet as an orator he was supreme.
Darkened so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel.
When the ablest speakers on behalf of federation met him on the platform, they were swept away in the blast of his ridicule and his passion.
In the midst of it his nobler self shone out again. The Reciprocity Treaty between Canada and the United States, negotiated by Lord Elgin in 1854, had been denounced by the government of the United States. To discuss this action, a great convention of representatives of the Boards of Trade and other commercial bodies of the northern and western States met in Detroit in August 1865, and was visited by Canadian delegates, of whom Howe was one. On the 14th of August he spoke as the representative of the British North American provinces. The audience at first was hostile. Gradually the skill and fire of the orator warmed them. At the last these hundreds of hard-headed business men rose spontaneously to their feet, and, amid tumultuous cheering, by a unanimous standing vote passed a resolution recommending the renewal of the treaty. Seldom can orator have won a more signal triumph.
For a time his anti-federation campaign went merrily, and received an impetus from the defeat in 1865 of the pro-federation government of New Brunswick. But Howe reckoned without the unflinching will of Tupper, a political bull-dog with a touch of fox. Though the province was obviously against him, the Conservative leader had a majority in the legislature in his favour. That this majority had been elected on other issues, and that the proper constitutional course was to consult the people, mattered not to him. Here was a big thing to do, and he was not the man to be squeamish on a point of constitutional correctness. He held his majority together by the strong hand. In 1866 he succeeded in getting a resolution passed, authorizing the sending of 'delegates to arrange with the Imperial government a scheme of union which will effectively ensure just provisions for the rights and interests of the province.' The Quebec Resolutions were not mentioned, but it was to support the Quebec Resolutions that the delegates went.
Howe also visited London, and endeavoured to sidetrack the federation scheme by a revival of his old idea of an organic union of the Empire with colonial representation in the Imperial parliament. To the pamphlet in which he put forward his views Tupper published a smashing reply, which consisted solely of extracts from Howe's own previous speeches in favour of British North American union. Against Howe he set Howe, and seldom was an opponent more effectively demolished. Meanwhile conferences between the representatives of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, presided over by the British secretary of state for the Colonies, wrought out the British North America Act. In March 1867 it became law, and on the 1st of July 1867 it came into force.