Autonomy Government

Consequences of Canadian Autonomy

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History

(I)n spite of the great change in French opinion wrought by Elgin’s acceptance of French ministers, there was a little band of French extremists, the Rouges, entirely disaffected towards England. At their head, at first, was Papineau. Papineau’s predilections, according to one who knew him well, were avowedly democratic and republican,[35] and his years in Europe, at the time when revolution was in the air, had not served to moderate his opinions. The election address with which he once more entered public life, at the end of 1847, betrays everywhere hatred of the British government, a decided inclination for things American, and a strong dash of European revolutionary sentiment, revealed in declamations over patriotes and oppresseurs.[See La Revue Canadienne, 21 December, 1847]. Round him gathered a little band {332} of anti-clericals and ultra-radicals, as strongly drawn to the United States as they were repelled by Britain. Even after Papineau had reduced himself to public insignificance, the group remained, and in 1865 Cartier, the true representative of French-Canadian feeling, spoke of the Institut Canadien of Montreal as an advocate, not of confederation, but of annexation.[Confederation Debates, p. 56. In answer to Cartier, “the Hon. Mr. Dorion said that was not the case. The honorable gentleman had misquoted what had passed there (i.e. at the Institut). The Hon. Mr. Cartier said he was right. If resolutions were not passed, sentiments were expressed to that effect. Then the organ of the Institute—L’Ordre he thought—had set forth that the interests of Lower Canada would be better secured by annexation to the United States than by entering into a Confederation with the British American Provinces.”]

After the years of famine in Ireland, there was more than a possibility that, in Canada, as in the United States, the main body of Irish immigrants would be hostile to Britain, and Elgin watched with anxious eyes for symptoms of a rising, sympathetic with that in Ireland, and fostered by Irish-American hatred of England. Throughout the province the Irish community was large and often organized—in 1866 D’Arcy M’Gee counted thirty counties in which the Irish-Catholic votes ranged from a third to a fifth of the whole constituency.[The Irish Position in British, and in Republican North America—a lecture, p. 13] Now while, in 1866, M’Gee spoke with boldness of the loyalty of his countrymen, it is undoubtedly true that, in 1848 and 1849, there were hostile spirits, and an army of Irish patriots across the border, only too willing to precipitate hostilities.

For the rest, there were Americans in the province who still thought their former country the perfect state, and who did not hesitate to use British liberty to promote republican ends; there were radicals and grumblers of half a hundred shades and colours, who connected their sufferings with the errors of British rule, and who spoke loosely of annexation as a kind of general remedy for all their public ills. For it cannot be too distinctly asserted that, from that day to this, there has always been a section of discontented triflers to whom annexation, a word often on their lips, means nothing more than their fashion of damning a government too strong for them to assail by rational processes.

The annexation cry found echoes throughout the province, both in the press and on the platform, and it continued to reassert its existence long after the outburst of 1849 had ended. Cartwright declares that, even after 1856, he discovered in Western Ontario a sentiment both strong and widespread in favour of union with the United States. But the actual movement, which at first seemed to have a real threat implicit in it, came to a head in 1849, and found its chief supporters within the city of Montreal. “You find in this city,” wrote Elgin in September, 1849, “the most anti-British specimens of each class of which our community consists. The Montreal French are the most Yankeefied French in the province; the British, though furiously anti-Gallican, are with some exceptions the least loyal; and the commercial men the most zealous annexationists which Canada furnishes.”[Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 3 September, 1849].

Two circumstances, apparently unconnected with annexationism, intensified that movement, the laissez faire attitude of British politicians towards their colonies, and the behaviour of the defeated Tory party in Canada. Of the first enough has already been said; but it is interesting to note that The Independent, which was the organ of the annexationists, justified its views by references to “English statesmen and writers of eminence,” and that the Second Annexation Manifesto quoted largely from British papers.[Allin and Jones, op. cit. pp. 91 and 164]. The second fact demands some examination. The Tories had been from the first the party of the connection, and had been recognized as such in Britain. But the loss of their supremacy had put too severe a strain on their loyalty, and it has already been seen that when Elgin, obeying constitutional usage, recognized the French as citizens, equally entitled to office with the Tories, and passed the Rebellion Losses Bill in accordance with La Fontaine’s wishes, the Tory sense of decency gave way. Many of them, not content with abusing the governor-general, and petitioning for his recall, actually declared themselves in favour of independence, or joined the ranks of the annexation party. In an extraordinary issue of the Montreal Gazette, a recognized Tory journal, the editor, after speaking of Elgin as the last governor of Canada, proclaimed that “the end has begun. Anglo-Saxons! You must live for the future. Your blood and race will now be supreme, if true to yourselves. You will be English at the expense of not being British.”[Montreal Gazette, 25 April, 1849]

But other journals and politicians were not content with the half-way house of independence, and the majority of those who signed the first annexation manifesto belonged to the Tory party. John A. Macdonald, who was shrewd and cool-headed enough to refuse to sign the manifesto, admitted that “our fellows lost their heads”; but he cannot be allowed to claim credit for having advocated the formation of another organization, the British-American League, as a safety-valve for Tory feeling.[Pope, Life of Sir John Macdonald, i. p. 71]. Unfortunately for his accuracy, the League was formed in the spring of 1849; it held its first convention in July; and the manifesto did not appear till late autumn. Still, it is true that the meetings of the League provided some occupation for minds which, in their irritable condition, might have done more foolish things, and Mr. Holland MacDonald described the feelings of the wiser of his fellow-leaguers when he said at Kingston: “I maintain that there is not an individual in this Assembly, at this moment, prepared to go for annexation, although some may be suspected of having leanings that way.”[Convention of the British American League, 1849, p. li] It was a violent but passing fit of petulance which for the moment obscured Tory loyalty. When it had ended, chiefly because Elgin acted not only with prudence, but with great insight, in pressing for a reciprocity treaty with the United States, the British American League and the Annexation Manifesto vanished into the limbo of broken causes and political indiscretions.

The truth was that every great respectable section of the Canadian people was almost wholly sound in its allegiance. Regarded even racially, it is hard to find any important group which was not substantially loyal. The Celtic and Gallic sections of the populace might have been expected to furnish recruits for annexation; and disaffection undoubtedly existed among the Canadian Irish. Yet Elgin was much more troubled over possible Irish disaffection in 1848 than he was in 1849; the Orange societies round Toronto seem to have refused to follow their fellow Tories into an alliance with annexationists; and, as has been already seen, D’Arcy M’Gee was able, in 1866, to speak of the Irish community as wholly loyal.

The great mass of the French-Canadians stood by the governor and Britain. Whatever influence the French priesthood possessed was exerted on the side of the connection; from Durham to Monck there is unanimity concerning the consistent loyalty of the Catholic Church in Canada. Apart from the church, the French-Canadians, when once their just rights had been conceded, furnished a stable, conservative, and loyal body of citizens. Doubtless they had their points of divergence from the ideals of the Anglo-Saxon west. It was they who ensured the defeat of the militia proposals of 1862, and there were always sufficient Rouges to raise a cry of nationality or annexation. But the national leaders, La Fontaine and Cartier, were absolutely true to the empire, and journalists like Cauchon flung their influence on the same side, even if they hinted at “jours qui doivent nécessairement venir, que nous le voulions ou que nous ne le voulions pas”—to wit, of independence.[ Joseph Cauchon, L’Union des provinces de L’Amerique Britannique du Nord, p. 51]

Of the English and Scottish elements in the population it is hardly necessary to say that their loyalty had increased rather than diminished since they had crossed the Atlantic; but at least one instance of Highland loyalty may be given. It was when Elgin had been insulted, and when the annexation cause was at its height. Loyal addresses had begun to pour in, but there was one whose words still ring with a certain martial loyalty, and which Elgin answered with genuine emotion. The Highlanders of Glengarry county, after assuring their governor of their personal allegiance to him, passed to more general sentiments: “Our highest aspirations for Canada are that she may continue to flourish under the kindly protection of the British flag, enjoying the full privilege of that constitution, under which the parent land has risen to so lofty an eminence; with this, United Canada has nothing to covet in other lands; with less than this, no true Briton would rest satisfied.”[Further Papers relative to the Affairs of Canada (7 June, 1849), p. 25].

As all the distinctive elements in the population remained true to Britain, so too did all the statesmen of eminence. It would be easy to prove the fact by a political census of Upper and Lower Canada; but let three representative men stand for those groups which they led—Robert Baldwin for the constitutional reformers, George Brown for the Clear-Grits and progressives, John A. Macdonald for the conservatives. Robert Baldwin was the man whom Elgin counted worth two regiments to the connection, and who had expressed dismay at Lord John Russell’s treason to the Empire. When the annexation troubles came on, he made it perfectly clear to one of his followers, who had trifled with annexation, that he must change his views, or remain outside the Baldwin connection.”I felt it right to write to Mr. Perry, expressing my decided opinions in respect of the annexation question, and that I could look upon those only who are in favour of the continuance of the connection with the mother country as political friends; those who are against it as political opponents…. I believe that our party are hostile to annexation. I am at all events hostile to it myself, and if I and my party differ upon it, it is necessary we should part company. It is not a question upon which a compromise is possible.”[Quoted from Dent, The Last Forty Years, ii. pp. 181-2].

Loyalty so strong as this seems natural in a Whig like Baldwin, but one associates agitation and radicalism with other views. The progressive, when he is not engaged in decrying his own state, often exhibits a philosophic indifference to all national prejudice—he is a cosmopolitan whose charity begins away from home. There were those among the Canadian Radicals who were as bad friends to Britain as they were good friends to the United States, but the Clear-Grit party up to confederation was true to Britain, largely because their leader, after 1850, was George Brown, and because Brown was the loyalest Scot in Canada. Brown was in a sense the most remarkable figure of the time in his province. Fierce in his opinions, a vehement speaker, an agitator whose best qualities unfitted him for the steadier work of government, he committed just those mistakes which make the true agitator’s public life something of a tragedy, or at least a disappointment. But Brown’s work was done out of office. His passionate advocacy of the policy of Abraham Lincoln and the abolition of slavery kept relations with the United States calm through a diplomatic crisis. He it was who made confederation not possible, but necessary, by his agitation for a sounder representation.

His work as opposition leader, and as the greatest editor known to Canadian journalism, saved Canadian politics from becoming the nest of jobs and corruption which—with all allowance for his good qualities—John A. Macdonald would have made them. Never before, and certainly never since his day, has any Canadian influenced the community as Brown did through The Globe. “There were probably many thousand voters in Ontario,” says Cartwright,[Sir Richard Cartwright, Reminiscences, pp. 9-10] “especially among the Scotch settlers, who hardly read anything except their Globe and their Bible, and whose whole political creed was practically dictated to them by the former.” Now that influence was exerted, from first to last, in favour of Britain. In his maiden speech in parliament Brown protested against a reduction of the governor’s salary, and on the highest ground: “The appointment of that high authority is the only power which Great Britain still retains. Frankly and generously she has one by one surrendered all the rights which were once held necessary to the condition of a colony—the patronage of the Crown, the right over the public domain, the civil list, the customs, the post office have all been relinquished … she guards our coasts, she maintains our troops, she builds our forts, she spends hundreds of thousands among us yearly; and yet the paltry payment to her representative is made a topic of grumbling and popular agitation.”[Life and Speeches of the Hon. George Brown, p. 50].

In the same spirit he fought annexation, and killed it, among his followers; and, when confederation came, he helped to make the new dominion not only Canadian, but British. In that age when British faith in the Empire was on the wane, it was not English statesmanship which tried to inspire Canadian loyalty, but the loyalty of men like Brown which called to England to be of better heart. “I am much concerned to observe,” he wrote to Macdonald in 1864, “that there is a manifest desire in almost every quarter that ere long, the British American colonies should shift for themselves, and in some quarters, evident regret that we did not declare at once for independence. I am very sorry to observe this, but it arises, I hope, from the fear of invasion of Canada by the United States, and will soon pass away with the cause that excites it.”[Written from England. Pope, Life of Sir John Macdonald, ii. p. 274].

Of Sir John Macdonald’s loyalty it would be a work of supererogation to speak. His first political address proclaimed the need in Canada of a permanent connection with the mother country,[Written from England. Pope, Life of Sir John Macdonald, ii. p. 32] and his most famous utterance declared his intention of dying a British subject. But Macdonald’s patriotism struck a note all its own, and one due mainly to the influence of Canadian autonomy working on a susceptible imagination. He was British, but always from the standpoint of Canada. He had no desire to exalt the Empire through the diminution of Canadian rights. For the old British Tory, British supremacy had necessarily involved colonial dependence; for Macdonald, the Canadian Conservative, the glory of the Empire lay in the fullest autonomous development of each part. “The colonies,” he said in one of his highest flights, “are now in a transition stage. Gradually a different colonial system is being developed—and it will become, year by year, less a case of dependence on our part, and of over-ruling protection on the part of the Mother Country, and more a case of healthy and cordial alliance. Instead of looking upon us as a merely dependent colony, England will have in us a friendly nation—a subordinate but still a powerful people—to stand by her in North America in peace or in war. The people of Australia will be such another subordinate nation. And England will have this advantage, if her colonies progress under the new colonial system, as I believe they will, that though at war with all the rest of the world, she will be able to look to the subordinate nations in alliance with her, and owning allegiance to the same Sovereign, who will assist in enabling her again to meet the whole world in arms, as she has done before.”[Confederation Debates, p. 44].

These words serve as a fitting close to the argument and story of Canadian autonomy. A review of the years in which it attained its full strength {345} gives the student of history but a poor impression of political foresight. British and Canadian Tories had predicted dissolution of the Empire, should self-government be granted, and they described the probable stages of dissolution. But all the events they had predicted had happened, and the Empire still stood, and stood more firmly united than before. British progressives had advocated the grant, while they had denied that autonomy need mean more than a very limited and circumscribed independence. But the floods had spread and overwhelmed their trivial limitations, and the Liberals found themselves triumphant in spite of their fears, and the restrictions which these fears had recommended.

Canadian history from 1839 to 1867 furnishes certain simple and direct political lessons: that communities of the British stock can be governed only according to the strictest principles of autonomy; that autonomy, once granted, may not be limited, guided, or recalled; that, in the grant, all distinctions between internal and imperial, domestic and diplomatic, civil authority and military authority, made to save the face of British supremacy, will speedily disappear; and that, up to the present time, the measure of local independence has also been the measure of local loyalty {346} to the mother country. It may well be that, as traditions grow shadowy, as the old stock is imperceptibly changed into a new nationality, and as, among men of the new nationality, the pride in being British is no longer a natural incident of life, the autonomy of the future may prove disruptive, not cohesive. Nothing, however, is so futile as prophecy, unless it be pessimism. The precedents of three-quarters of a century do not lend themselves to support counsels of despair. The Canadian community has, after its own fashion, stood by the mother country in war; it may be that, in the future, the attempt to seek peace and ensue it will prove a more lasting, as it must certainly be a loftier, reason for continued union. (1)

Resources

Notes

1. J. L. Morison, “British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government 1839-1854” (1919), Toronto, S. B. Gundy

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This entry was last updated: October 29, 2016