Lower Canada

History of Lower Canada

Developments in Lower Canada Prior to the Uprisings of 1837-1838

The first election campaign, with 50 seats at stake, was held in 1792. There were no structured political parties or party leaders. The campaign resulted in the election of 34 French-speaking and 16 English-speaking members. The House of Assembly of Lower Canada officially opened in December of 1793 at the Bishop’s residence in Québec City.
The first debate concerned the selection of a Speaker or President of the Assembly. Jean-Antoine Panet was elected on December 18. The language issue immediately haunted Assembly debates, and as a result the members were divided into two blocs. Although the French language had no legal status in Canada, official documents had been published in both languages since the Conquest. After a long and noisy debate, the Assembly passed a law decreeing that both languages were official. Nevertheless, London disagreed and imposed English as the only official language of Lower Canada. French was admitted only as a translation language.

This first Parliament adopted only four laws of significance, covering the judiciary, the militia, finance and highways.

Two parties began to take shape: the Tory Party, which brought together English-speaking members, and the Canadian Party, whose members were French-speaking and were in the majority in the House of Assembly. The bills introduced in the Assembly by the Canadian Party were strongly attacked by the Tories and, in most cases, were blocked by the Legislative Council.

In 1805, the British business class founded The Quebec Mercury, a political paper that gave voice to their business, national and political ambitions. To show their opposition to the English, the Canadians founded a paper called Le Canadien in 1806. There were now two clearly defined classes in this new society: English merchants and Canadians.

Over the years, the tension increased between these two groups as each defended its own interests. Some powerful Canadian spokespeople were already coming to the fore, notably Pierre-Stanislas Bédard, François Blanchet and Louis-Joseph Papineau.

The Canadian Party won the election of 1808 and immediately voted to expel two English members. Furious, Governor James Henry Craig prorogued the House and called a new election. He also had the presses of Le Canadien seized. The Canadian Party again won the election.

In addition to its internal struggles, Lower Canada was soon under threat from outside forces. Motivated by expansionist fervor, the United States declared war on Great Britain in 1812. The Americans fielded a large army of 12,000 soldiers, though poorly trained and under inept leadership. The war ended in 1814 after England sent 14,000 well-trained soldiers under good leadership to America. One outcome of this conflict was that it enabled both English- and French-speaking citizens of British North America to discover that they could co-operate in defending their common interests.

The subsequent easing of tension between the two groups was short-lived, however, as both wanted to impose their own social structures. The Tories pushed for a society cast in the British mould, characterized by political power in the hands of the aristocracy, intense trade, unconditional attachment to royalty and the British Empire, and a culture pervaded by Protestant reform.

In contrast, the Canadian Party preached a society based on local sovereignty, with power exercised on behalf of the working classes by the middle classes, and supported by agriculture, domestic trade, the Custom of Paris, Catholicism and local markets.

Both coalitions, sometimes with no regard for their own interests, fell back to stubborn, intransigent positions, which effectively stymied Lower Canada’s development and led to armed conflict.

The Patriot Insurrection (1837-1838)

Several events contributed to the rise of nationalism, which found its outlet in the insurrection of 1837. Apart from the numerous conflicts that pitted the two groups against each other, a major issue worsened the situation, namely the question of subsidies. Subsidies were the amounts of money that the Assembly granted to the governor and the Executive Council to balance the budget. In 1818, the Assembly approved the subsidies requested by the Governor, but demanded that numerous abuses be rectified, such as pensions for deceased individuals, paying people to do nothing, salaries for non-residents, and fictitious salaries.

Nothing was done. The following year, Governor Charles Gordon Lennox, Duke of Richmond, submitted a request containing the same abuses. The Assembly voted on the budget section by section, refusing to allocate funds for abusive expenditures. The Legislative Council blocked the effort.

The abuses multiplied year after year, to the benefit of a group of individuals under the Governor’s wing. In 1827, 87,000 people signed a petition denouncing the abuses perpetrated by this so-called “château clique.”

While the subsidy crisis was fomenting, another major problem arose, this time concerning the sharing of customs duties between Upper and Lower Canada. Due to its geographical position, Upper Canada had no seaport and was thus entirely at Lower Canada’s mercy, as customs duties were the main source of revenue for the colony.

In 1797, it was determined that the lower province — Lower Canada — had to remit a share of the customs duties collected according to its regulations and in proportion to the quantity of goods entering at Côteau du Lac. The issue was again raised in 1817, at which time it was agreed that one-fifth of the customs duties collected by Lower Canada were to be remitted to Upper Canada.

However, the crisis that developed in 1819 meant that the necessary calculations were not made, and Upper Canada found itself deprived of its share. The feeling was growing that the existence of two completely separate colonies was inadequate.

The British in Montreal felt that uniting the English forces of both Canadas was their only hope for becoming leaders of a majority, which would allow them to develop unhindered the business opportunities along the St. Lawrence Valley. They used the pretext of the administrative crisis to demonstrate the inadequacy of the 1791 constitution.

In 1822, the English merchants managed to make a secret presentation to London advocating unification of the two Canadas. The plan called for each “section” to be represented by a maximum of 60 members in a new, single legislature. The merchants figured they could get about 20 members elected in Lower Canada, and therefore the 200,000 English people in both Canadas would be represented by 80 members, compared with 40 members for the 300,000 French Canadians. At the heart of the matter was who would truly hold power and be able to impose their law.
When introducing the bill in London, the English merchant asked for a quick vote to avoid a counterproductive flood of protest. However, the opposition refused to co-operate. The bill was withdrawn, but it was not completely dead. In September, news of the manoeuvre reached the colonies. Meetings were called immediately and petitions began to circulate.

Ethnic tensions mounted. Some 60,000 signatures were collected, and two delegates, pro-French journalist John Neilson and Speaker of the House Louis-Joseph Papineau, were selected to go to London to present the petitions and fight against union. The British ministers heard their statements, as well as one from Governor Dalhousie, who had returned to England for a short stay. They decided to reject the bill, and assured the two men that it would not be studied again during the 1823 session. Moreover, it would never be considered again without the interested parties having had an opportunity to express their views.

Nonetheless, Governor Dalhousie did not give up and continued to believe that union of the two Canadas was absolutely necessary to the interests of British colonization. Upon his return to Canada, Dalhousie feared the worst for the 1824 session. An administrative scandal then came to light that seemed to justify the Assembly’s claims regarding the administration of public funds. An inquiry showed that the Receiver General John Caldwell, who administered the public funds, was guilty of misappropriation. Some 100,000 pounds sterling had been used for speculative transactions and had been lost.

Furthermore, Papineau was becoming an increasingly formidable opponent to Governor Dalhousie’s plans. Dalhousie called an election in 1827 in the hope of getting rid of this bothersome opponent. Election results were disastrous for the English party, and Papineau was re-elected Speaker of the Assembly. It was too much for Dalhousie, who refused to approve the choice and immediately prorogued the legislature.

The protest movement intensified. A delegation of three members — John Neilson, Denis-Benjamin Viger and Augustin Cuvillier — was mandated to go to London to present a petition containing 87,000 signatures and a series of resolutions that dealt with much more than the issue of subsidies. The work they did led to the creation of a special committee of the British House of Commons, responsible for studying and reporting on the Canadian question.
Overall, the grievances of the delegation from Lower Canada were recognized as well founded in the ensuing report. In 1828, Governor Dalhousie was replaced by Sir James Kempt. After the report from the House of Commons, the political climate improved throughout the colony. The new governor took advantage of the general lull created by the expectation of corrective measures from London.

In 1830, a new governor, Lord Matthew Aylmer, landed in Quebec with new instructions. Meanwhile, the House of Assembly wanted to settle the question of subsidies, and made control of all the colony’s revenues and expenses a point of principle. Governor Aylmer, however, informed the House that the next subsidy act would have to respect the requirements of the Crown. Once again the situation was deadlocked. Any hopes raised by the actions of 1827, the report of the special committee of the British Commons, and the statements of the English ministers were dashed.

In February 1834, exasperated Assembly members passed ninety-two resolutions that summarized their requests and grievances, and sent them to the government in London. The resolutions denounced all the injustices that the Assembly had noted, similar to the memorandum that the Canadian Party — now the Patriot Party — had submitted in 1828. This time, however, the tone was different, and the proposed solutions were of such an uncompromising nature that they rattled the faith of those who had put their trust in the wisdom of the British parliamentary system.
Meanwhile, London had fallen into a position where it could not intervene quickly. A domestic political crisis had caught the full attention of the imperial Parliament: in the space of 11 months, there had been four different ministers responsible for the colonies. Despite this overriding concern, a commission of inquiry was created to study the Canadian situation. During this time, the House of Assembly of Lower Canada decided it would not approve any more budgets so long as London did not accept its demands.

The official response from England arrived three years later, in May 1837. The British Parliament was in possession of the report from the investigative commission, which rejected the theses of the Patriot Party and recommended that the moderate reform begun in 1828 be continued. Armed with this report, the imperial government felt justified in imposing its views on the radicals in Lower Canada.

As a follow-up, the British Parliament adopted the Russell resolutions, which placed an estoppel against the demands from the Lower Canada House of Assembly. The Russell resolutions also authorized the colonial government to do without the consent of the Assembly in the use of public funds, upheld the requirement for a civil list (to cover administrative expenses), confirmed the privileges of the British American Land Company, and raised the threat of unifying the two Canadas if they continued to get in each other’s way.

By forcing Papineau and his followers to choose between submission and revolt, these resolutions only served to increase the momentum for rebellion.

Discontent peaked in Lower Canada in the spring of 1837. Despite the repeated requests of the Patriot Party, London still refused to reconstitute the Legislative Council as an elected body or to make the Executive Council answerable to the House of Assembly. Protest meetings, soon to be prohibited by Governor Gosford, were held everywhere. Rebellion finally broke out in the fall. “Patriots,” often poorly organized, took up arms against the English army at St. Denis, St. Charles and St. Eustache.

The crackdown was swift: villages were burned, members of the public were attacked, and women and children were put out of their homes just as winter was setting in.

Several Patriots who had taken refuge in the United States were eager to take up the struggle again. In February 1838, under the direction of Robert Nelson, they proclaimed the Republic of Lower Canada and invited volunteer Americans to join them. The American president did not co-operate, however, and threatened to imprison anyone who compromised his government’s neutrality.

In November, the Patriots attacked English troops at Lacolle and Odeltown, but the operation was a fiasco. The second crackdown was worse than the first. More villages were pillaged and burned. Almost 1000 people were arrested, twice as many as in 1837. Of these, 108 were put on trial, about 60 were deported, and 12 were hanged in the Pied-du-Courant prison in Montreal.

The Catholic clergy was not inactive during this time of revolt. Monsignor Lartigue, the Bishop of Montreal, spoke out against the insubordination of the Patriots and warned the faithful that those who promoted revolt and disobedience might well find themselves refused the sacraments. The Bishop even went so far as to publish a notice that defended the established powers. The Bishop of Québec adopted the same attitude.

The Durham Report (1839)

Read about the Durham Report (1839) here.

Act of Union (1841)

Read about the Act of Union in its entry in this legal Encyclopedia.

Law is our Passion

This entry about Lower Canada has been published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0) licence, which permits unrestricted use and reproduction, provided the author or authors of the Lower Canada entry and the Encyclopedia of Law are in each case credited as the source of the Lower Canada entry. Please note this CC BY licence applies to some textual content of Lower Canada, and that some images and other textual or non-textual elements may be covered by special copyright arrangements. For guidance on citing Lower Canada (giving attribution as required by the CC BY licence), please see below our recommendation of "Cite this Entry".

• APA
• MLA
• MLA 7
• CHICAGO
• OSCOLA

Usage Metrics

208 Views

Google Scholar: Search for Lower Canada Related Content

 

Schema Summary

This entry was last updated: February 15, 2017