The government offices having been removed from Toronto, parliament met at Quebec on January 29th, for the government offices were not removed to Ottawa till 1865, where the first session was held in 1866. During this year the principle of Confederation began to be broached tentatively but surely, by the opposition party led by Mr. George Brown. A reform convention in Toronto held in November drew up a series of resolutions which, when compared with the British North American act of 1867, show a clear family likeness. At Montreal similar meetings were held under the auspices of Messrs. Dorion, Drummond, McGee and others for the same purpose of approving a federal union, but as yet the movement was weak in Lower Canada.
The sixth parliament met at Quebec for its fourth and last session on the 16th of March, 1861. By a proclamation of the governor-general on the 10th of June it came to an end.
On the 8th of November there occurred in mid-ocean, during the Civil war in the States between the North and South, the “Trent Incident,” which caused a commotion at Montreal and throughout Canada. The British Mail steamer Trent had on board the Confederate envoys, Messrs. Mason and Slidell, when they were forcibly taken prisoners by Captain Wilkes of the United States sloop of war San Jacinto. War looked inevitable and the Canadian Volunteers were augmented, drilled and ready for war. Regular military troops arrived also from England. The first day of the new year, 1862, saw the envoys delivered back to England and the danger of war was over. One result of the “Trent” affair was a great deepening of the Canadian sympathy, especially at Montreal, with the southern Confederacy.
In 1862 the Cartier-Macdonald government fell, on the occasion of their “Militia Bill,” on May 21st, and on the 24th the Macdonald (J.S.)-Sicotte ministry was sworn in, being succeeded on May 26, 1863, by the Macdonald (J.S.)-Dorion combination, which only lasted till the 2d of March, 1864, when the Taché-Macdonald (J.A.) again came into power. It was agreed upon, that the government should be pledged to introduce the federal principle into Canada and to aim at a confederation in which all British America should be “united under a general legislature based upon the federal principle.”
The idea of confederation as a remedy for government ills had occupied attention at intervals with increasing acuteness even before the Union of 1841. It had not been confined to Upper and Lower Canada, for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island had long discussed the idea of a union among themselves. Various political dreamers had forecasted it, no doubt following the lead of the United States. A meeting for the purpose being called at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, the coalition government of Canada sent eight ministers[3] to confer with their representatives on the merits of a larger scheme of union between all the provinces with the result that by agreement a further convention was to be held at Quebec on a day named by the governor general. His excellency fixed upon October 10th and notified the respective lieutenant governors of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. The result was the pledge to promote the projected confederation.
During the fall of this year, 1864, Montreal was the scene of the St. Alban’s Raid prosecutions. As already said, Canada and Montreal especially had sympathized with the Southerners. Many refugees had found a home here. Canada being so close to the frontier was, therefore, frequently used as the basis of southern plots. In the summer two vessels plying on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, belonging to American merchants, had been seized and partially plundered by the southern refugees. In September St. Albans, a little town in Vermont, on the frontier, was raided by twenty-three southerners from Canada under the command of Bennett H. Young, an ex-Confederate soldier, who escaped to Canada on captured horses with $223,000 booty, after having plundered three local banks and shot one of the cashiers. Their excuse was that they were representatives of the Confederate States of America and they were there to retaliate the outrages committed by General Sherman. In November the trial of the captured rioters took place at Montreal and on March 30th they were discharged.
Parliament met on the 19th of January. It was prorogued on the 18th of March. During the following month four of the administration, J.A. Macdonald, Cartier, Brown and Galt, proceeded to England to discuss with the imperial government the scheme of confederation. The delegates returned in time for the opening of the last session of the Canadian legislature at Quebec on the 8th of August. The premier, Sir E.P. Taché, had died full of honours on the 30th of July. He was succeeded by Sir N.F. Belleau. During this session the bill was passed to carry out the recommendation of the commissioners appointed in 1857 “to reduce into one code to be called the civil code of Lower Canada those provisions of the laws of Lower Canada which relate to civil matters and are of a general and permanent character.” Attorney-General Cartier who had introduced the bill appointing the commission in 1857 had the satisfaction of seeing its labours adopted in 1865. The code came into operation in 1866. This was welcomed by the jurists of Montreal and Quebec, as it simplified the law, reducing order out of chaos; the abolition of the seigneurial tenure act of 1854 had rendered the codification very necessary. Parliament closed on the 18th of September. The public offices were removed to Ottawa during the autumn, but for a time the cabinet meetings were held at Montreal.
In the beginning of 1866 a delegation was sent by the government to Washington to obtain a renewal of the reciprocity treaty which came to an end this year. The mission was a failure. St. Patrick’s day, March 17th, was looked forward to in Canada by more than those of Irish nationality. For although during the year 1865 rumours had gone around that the Fenian Brotherhood of the States, organized about this time with a branch in Ireland to liberate Ireland, had determined to invade Canada as a base of their operations against England, they were not taken very seriously. But in 1866 the announcement of combined movements upon Canada to commence on St. Patrick’s day forced serious preparation for their reception and caused great anxiety over the country and much recruiting in volunteer circles. St. Patrick’s day passed and nothing happened. Beginning, however, in April and gaining strength in May and June, the filibustering Fenians massed their forces at various points, such as that marked by the raid under O’Neill upon the Niagara frontier in June, that of Ogdensburg, menacing a march upon Ottawa, and that at St. Albans on the Vermont frontier, where 1,800 men had collected on June 7th to pass over into Canada. In Montreal doubtless they hoped to find some sympathizers. None of these movements met eventual success and quiet was successfully maintained on the frontier by both governments. But these were the occasion of military ardour, shown by the enrollments of the militia and of general patriotism.
The parliament met at Ottawa on the 8th of June in the midst of the Fenian excitement. The address of His Excellency, the governor general, forecasted the hope that the next time parliament met at Ottawa it would be under the confederation of Province. It lasted to the 15th of August. About three months later a joint delegation of the representatives of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick met on December 4th in London at the Westminster Palace Hotel and a conference was held. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland had seceded from the project. The upshot of the negotiations was such that on the 22d of May, 1867, the Confederation Act, technically known as “the British North American Act, 1867,” was proclaimed at Windsor Castle by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, appointing the 1st of July following as the date upon which it should come into force. This act joined Canada (Upper and Lower), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into one Dominion, under the name of CANADA. There should be one federal parliament, consisting of the Queen, represented by the governor general, an upper house consisting of seventy-two life members appointed by the Crown, and a House of Commons elected on the principle of representation by population. Its jurisdiction was to affect matters concerning the Dominion at large. Each of the four provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick was to have a provincial legislature to manage its internal affairs. Each was to have a lieutenant governor. In Ontario the legislature consisted only of a house of assembly. In the other three provinces a council was added.