Government Members - - - - 24French Members - - - - - - 20Moderate Reformers - - - - 20Ultra Reformers - - - - - 5Compact Party - - - - - - 7Doubtful - - - - - - - - - 6Special Return - - - - - - 1Double Return - - - - - - 1--84[39]
In the confusion of groups, Sydenham still trusted to the centre—a party almost precisely similar to that which in 1867 was called Liberal-Conservative. This centre he hoped to create out of moderate Conservatives who had enlarged their earlier views, and moderate Reformers who anxiously desired to see Sydenham's proposed improvements carried out.[40] A shrewd observer, himself a member, and appreciatively critical of Sydenham's work, counted at least five parties in the new parliament. Three of these groups came from Upper Canada—the Conservatives under Sir Allan MacNab; the Ministerialists, that is the Reformers and moderate Conservatives, under the Attorney-General Draper, and the Secretary Harrison, and the ultra-reformers who looked to Robert Baldwin for guidance. From Lower Canada came the French nationalists, with some British supporters, under Morin, Neilson, and Aylwin, and the defenders of the Union policy, chiefly British, but with a few conservative French allies. "The division lists of the session 1841," writes the same observer, "cannot fail to strike anyone acquainted with the state of parties, as extraordinary. Mr. Baldwin on several occasions voted with considerablemajorities in opposition to the Government, while as frequently he was in insignificant minorities. There was a decided tendency towards a coalition with the Reformers of French origin, on the part of Sir Allan MacNab and the Upper Canada Conservatives. The Ministerial strength lay in the support which it received from the British party of Lower Canada, and from the majority of the Upper Canada Reformers."[41] Well might Sydenham speak of the delusive nature of the party nicknames borrowed by his legislators from England.
Whatever were the characteristic faults of the parliament in 1841, sloth was not one of them. All through the summer it worked with feverish energy. Writing to his brother at the end of August, Sydenham boasted—"The five great works I aimed at have been got through—the establishment of a board of works with ample powers; the admission of aliens; a new system of county courts; the regulation of the public lands ceded by the Crown under the Union Act; and lastly the District Council Bill. I think you will admit this to be pretty good work for one session, especially when superadded to half a dozen minor measures, as wellas the fact of having set up a government, brought together two sets of people, who hated each other cordially, and silenced all the threatened attacks upon the Union, which were expected to be so formidable.... What do you think of this, you miserable people in England, who spend two years upon a single measure?"[42]
But the chief significance of the session lies in the persistent warfare waged between Sydenham and the advocates of a more extended system of autonomy. The result, as will be shewn, was indecisive, but, under the circumstances a drawn battle was equivalent to defeat for the governor-general.
Sydenham had never before flung himself so completely into the fight. "I actually breathe, eat, drink, and sleep nothing but government and politics," was his own description of life in Kingston. He had accomplished with little resistance from others all that his opening speech had promised. His ministry owned him as their actively directing head. His power of managing individuals in spite of themselves passed into a jest. Playing with men's vanity, tampering with their interests, their passions and their prejudices, placing himself in a position of familiarity with those from whomhe might at once obtain assistance and information—such, according to an eccentric writer of the day, were the secrets of Sydenham's success.[43] Few men ever played the part of benevolent despot more admirably, and his achievements were the more creditable because he could count on no allegiance except that which he induced by his persuasive arts, and by the proofs he had given of a sincere desire to promote Canadian prosperity.
Nevertheless, throughout the summer months, there occurred a series of sharp encounters with a half-organized party of reform; and the end of the session, while it saw Sydenham successful, saw also his adversaries as eager as ever, and much more learned than they had been in the ways of political opposition and agitation. The opposition leaders massed their whole strength on one fundamental point—the claim to possess as fully as their fellow-citizens in Great Britain did, the cabinet and party system of government. In other words, if any group, or coalition of groups, should succeed in establishing an ascendency in the popular assembly, that ascendency must receive acknowledgment by the creation of a cabinet, and the appointment ofa prime minister, approved by the parliamentary majority and responsible to them; and Sydenham's ingenious device of an eclectic ministry responsible to him alone was denounced as unconstitutional. The first encounter came, two days before the session started, and Robert Baldwin of Toronto was the leader of the revolt. In February, 1840, Sydenham had invited Robert Baldwin to be his Solicitor-General in the Upper Province. Baldwin, although his powers were not those of a politician of the first rank, was perhaps the soundest constitutionalist in Western Canada. He had been from the first a reformer, but he had never encouraged the wild ideas of the rebels of 1837. Sir F. B. Head had called him to his councils in 1836, as a man "highly respected for his moral character, moderate in his politics and possessing the esteem and confidence of all parties,"[44] and only Head's impracticability had driven him from public service. There is not a letter or official note from his pen, which does not bear the stamp of unusual conscientiousness, and a very earnest desire to serve his country. So little was he a self-seeker, that he earned the lasting ill-will of his eldest son by passing a bill abolishing primogeniture, and thusending any hopes that existed of founding a great colonial family. The Earl of Elgin, who saw much of him after 1847, regarded him not merely as a great public servant, but as one who was worth "two regiments to the British connection," and perhaps the most truly conservative statesman in the province.[45] In his quiet, determined way, he had made up his mind that responsible government, in the sense condemned by both Sydenham and Russell, must be secured for Canada, and Sydenham's benevolent plans did not disguise from him the insidious attempt to limit what he counted the legitimate constitutional liberty of the colony. It cannot justly be objected that his acceptance of office misled the governor-general, either in 1840 or in 1841. "I distinctly avow," he wrote publicly in 1840, "that, in accepting office, I consider myself to have given a public pledge that I have a reasonably well-grounded confidence that the government of my country is to be carried on in accordance with the principles of Responsible Government which I have ever held.... I have not come into office by means of any coalition with the Attorney-General,[46] or with any others now inthe public service, but have done so under the governor-general, and expressly from my confidence in him."[47] In the same way, when Sydenham chose him for the Solicitor-Generalship of Upper Canada in the Union Ministry, Baldwin, who had no belief in Sydenham's cabinet of all the talents, wrote bluntly to say that he "had an entire want of political confidence in all of his colleagues except Mr. Dunn, Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Daly."[48] In view of his later action, his critics charged him with error in thus accepting an office which placed him in an impossible position; but Baldwin's ready answer was: "The head of the government, the heads of departments in both provinces, and the country itself, were in a position almost anomalous. That of the head of the government was one of great difficulty and embarrassment. While he (Baldwin) felt bound to protect himself against misapprehensions as to his views and opinions, he also felt bound to avoid, as far as possible, throwing any difficulties in the way of the governor-general. At the time he was called to a seat in the Executive Council, he was already one of those public servants, the political characternewly applied to whose office made it necessary for them to hold seats in that Council. Had he, on being called to take that seat, refused to accept it, he must of course have left office altogether, or have been open to the imputation of objecting to an arrangement for the conduct of public affairs which had always met with his most decided approbation."[49] At worst, the Solicitor-General can only be blamed for letting his abnormally sensitive conscience lead him into political casuistry, the logic of which might not appear so cogent to the governor as to himself, when the crisis should come. How sensitive that conscience was, may be gathered from the fact that his acceptance of office in 1841 was accompanied with an avowal of want of confidence, made openly to those colleagues with whom he disagreed. It was further illustrated when he made a difficulty with Sydenham over taking the Oath of Supremacy, which, in a country, many of whose inhabitants were Roman Catholics protected in their religion by treaty rights, declared that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction,power, superiority, pre-eminence of authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual within this realm."[50]
The crisis came, as Baldwin expected it to come, when parliament met. Already, as has been seen, the French Canadians had organized their forces and formed the most compact group in the Assembly, while the little band of determined reformers from Upper Canada made up in decision and principle what they lacked in numbers. Hincks, who was one of the latter group, says that, before parliament met, the two sections consulted together concerning the government, and although La Fontaine had lost his election through a display of physical force on the other side, Baldwin was able to lead the combined groups into action. On June 12th, he wrote to Sydenham stating that the United Reform Party represented the political views of the vast majority of Canadians, that four ministers—Sullivan, Ogden, Draper, and Day—were hostile to popular sympathies and ideals, and that he thought the accession of Lower Canada Reformers absolutely essential to a sound popular administration. It was a perfectly consistent, if somewhat unhappily executed, attempt to securethe absolute responsibility of the Executive Council to the representatives of the people; and a week later, in the Assembly, when no longer in office, he defended his action. He believed that when the election had determined of what materials the House of Assembly was to be composed, it then became his duty to inform the head of the government that the administration did not possess the confidence of the House of Assembly, and to tender to the representative of his sovereign the resignation of the office which he held, having first, as he was bound to do, offered his advice to his Excellency that the administration of the country should be reconstructed.[51]
It was the directest possible challenge to Sydenham's system. Baldwin's claim was that, once the representatives of the people had made known the people's will, it was the duty of the ministry to reflect that will in their programme and actions, or to resign. As for the governor-general, he must obviously adjust whatever theories he might have, to a situation where colonial ministers were content to hold office only where they had the confidence of the people.
The action of the governor-general wascharacteristically summary. His answer to Baldwin reproved him for a "proposal in the highest degree unconstitutional, as dictating to the crown who are the particular individuals whom it should include in the ministry"; intimated the extreme displeasure of his Excellency, and assumed the letter to be equivalent to resignation.[52] To the home government he spoke of the episode with anger and some contempt: "Acting upon some principle of conduct which I can reconcile neither with honour nor common sense, he strove to bring about this union (between Upper and Lower Canadian reformers), and at last, having as he thought effected it, coolly proposed to me, on the day before Parliament was to meet, to break up the Government altogether, dismiss several of his colleagues, and replace them by men whom I believe he had not known for 24 hours—but who are most of them thoroughly well known in Lower Canada as the principal opponents of any measure for the improvement of the province."[53]
The crisis once passed, Sydenham hoped, and not without justification, that Baldwin would carry few supporters over to the opposition, andthat the Assembly would settle quietly down to enact the measures so bountifully set out in the opening speech. The first day of Assembly saw the party of responsible government make a smothered effort to state their views in the debate on the election of a speaker. On June 18th, an elaborate debate, nominally on the address, really on the fundamental point, found the attorney-general stating the case for the government, and Baldwin and Hincks pushing the logic of responsible government to its natural conclusion. Baldwin once more grappled with the problem of the responsibility of the members of council, and the advice they should offer to the governor-general. He admitted freely that unless the representative of the sovereign should acquiesce in the measures so recommended, there would be no means by which that advice could be made practically useful; but this consideration did not for a moment relieve a member of the council from the fulfilment of an imperative duty. If his advice were accepted, well and good; if not, his course would be to tender his resignation.[54]
The government came triumphantly out of the ordeal, and all amendments, whether affecting the Union, or responsible government, were defeated by majorities, usually of two to one. "I have got the large majority of the House ready to support me upon any question that can arise," Sydenham wrote at the end of June; "and, what is better, thoroughly convinced that their constituents, so far as the whole of Upper Canada and the British part of Lower Canada are concerned, will never forgive them if they do not."[55]
But the enemy was not so easily routed. There had been much violence at the recent elections; and, among others, La Fontaine had a most just complaint to make, for disorder, and, as he thought, government trickery had ousted him from a safe seat at Terrebonne. Unfortunately the protests were lodged too late, and a furious struggle sprang up, as to whether the legal period should, in the cases under consideration, be extended, or whether, as the government contended, an inquiry and amendments affecting only the future should suffice. It was ominous for the cause of limited responsibility, that the government had to own defeat in the Lower House, and saved itself onlyby the veto of the Legislative Council. Nor was that the end. A mosaic work of opposition, old Tories, French Canadians, British anti-unionists, and Upper Canada Reformers, was gradually formed, and at any moment some chance issue might lure over a few from the centre to wreck the administration. Most of the greater measures passed through the ordeal safely, including a bill reforming the common schools and another establishing a Board of Works. The critical moment of the latter part of the session, however, came with the introduction of a bill to establish District Councils in Upper Canada, to complete the work already done in Lower Canada. The forces in opposition rallied to the attack, Conservatives because the bill would increase the popular element in government, Radicals because the fourth clause enacted that the governor of the province might appoint, under the Great Seal of the province, fit and proper persons to hold during his pleasure the office of Warden of the various districts;[56] and, as Sydenham himself hinted, there were those who regretted the loss to members of Assembly of a great opportunity for jobbery. One motion passed by the chairman's casting vote;and nothing, in the governor-general's judgment, saved the bill but the circumstance of his having already established such councils in Lower Canada.[57]
There was one more attack in force before the session ended. On September 3rd, Baldwin, seconded by a French Canadian, moved "that the most important as well as the most undoubted of the political rights of the people of the province, is that of having a provincial parliament for the protection of their liberties, for the exercise of a constitutional influence over the executive departments of the government, and for legislation upon all matters, which do not on the ground of absolute necessity constitutionally belong to the jurisdiction of the Imperial parliament, as the paramount authority of the Empire."[58] The issue was stated moderately but quite directly, and there are critics of Sydenham who hold that his answer—for it was his voice that spoke—surrendered the whole position. That answer took the form of resolutions, moved by the most moderate reformer in the Assembly, S. B. Harrison:
(i) That the head of the provincial executivegovernment of the province, being within the limits of his government the representative of the Sovereign, is not constitutionally responsible to any other than the authority of the Empire.
(ii) That the representative of the Sovereign, for the proper conduct and efficient disposal of public business, is necessarily obliged to make use of the advice and assistance of subordinate officers in the administration of his government.
(iii) That in order to preserve the harmony between the different branches of the Provincial Parliament which is essential to the happy conduct of public affairs, the principal of such subordinate officers, advisers of the representative of the Sovereign, and constituting as such the provincial administration under him ... ought always to be men possessed of the public confidence of the people, thus affording a guarantee that the well-understood wishes and interests of the people, which our gracious Sovereign has declared shall be the rule of the Provincial Government, will on all occasions be faithfully represented and advocated.
(iv) That the house has the constitutional right of holding such advisers politically responsible for every act of the Provincial Government of a localcharacter sanctioned by such government while such advisers continue in office."[59]
Of Sydenham's own doctrine of colonial government the outlines are unmistakeable. A governor-general existed, responsible for his actions solely to the imperial authority. Under that government the people had full liberty to elect their representatives, through whom their desires could be made known. It was the duty of the governor-general to consult, on every possible detail, the popular will. Sydenham therefore held it essential that the governor-general in Canada should be one trained in the Imperial Parliament to interpret and to guide popular expression of opinion; and he believed that in such parliamentary diplomacy the governor-general would have to make many minor surrenders. But he never recoiled from a position, which was also that of Durham, that, as the proclamation of Union asserted, the grant of local autonomy was subject to certain limitations, and that these limitations no action of the Provincial Legislature could affect. Nor did he admit that his own responsibility to the Crown could be modified by the existence of a responsibility on thepart of his ministers to the Canadian people. Moreover, his own imperious temper and sense of superior enlightenment made him act in the very spirit of his doctrine with a resolution which few imperial servants of his time could have surpassed. It may be then that the final resolutions, and especially the last of them, were marked by a gentler mode of expression than before, but they were actually a reaffirmation of Sydenham's early views, and were quite consistent with the initial despatch of the colonial secretary.
The end was now near. Sydenham had already applied for and received permission, first to leave Canada, should his health require that step, and then, to resign. He had delayed to act on this permission, until he should see the end of the session, and the accomplishment of his ambitions. But, on September 4th, a fall from horseback inflicted injuries which grew more complicated through his generally enfeebled condition, and he died on Sunday, September 19th. On the preceding day, one of the most useful and notable sessions in the history of the Canadian Parliament came to an end.
Both by his errors, and by his acts of statesmanship, Sydenham contributed more than any otherman, except Elgin, to establish that autonomy in Canada which his theories rejected. Before self-government could flourish in the colony, there must be some solid material progress, and two years of incessant legislation and administrative innovation, all of it suggested by Sydenham, had turned the tide of Canadian fortunes. It was necessary, too, that some larger field than a trivial provincial assembly with its local jobs should be provided for the new adventure in self-government; and Sydenham not only engineered a difficult Act of Union past all preliminary obstacles, but, of his own initiative, gave Canada the local institutions through which alone the country could grow into disciplined self-dependence.
But even his errors aided Canadian development. Acting for a government in whose counsels there was no hesitation, Sydenham expounded in word and practice a perfectly self-consistent theory of colonial government. It was he who, by the virility of his thought and action, forced those who demanded responsible government to test and think over again their own position. The criticism which Elgin passed on him in 1847 is final: "I never cease to marvel what study of human nature, or of history, led him to the conclusionthat it would be possible to concede to a pushing and enterprising people, unencumbered by an aristocracy, and dwelling in the immediate vicinity of the United States, such constitutional privileges as were conferred on Canada at the time of Union, and yet restrict in practice their powers of self-government as he proposed."[60] Yet he had raised the question, for both sides, to a higher level, and his adversaries owed something of their triumph, when it came, to the man who had taught them a more spacious view of politics.
But it may be urged that he roused the French, insulted them, excluded them, and almost precipitated a new French rising. Undoubtedly he was an enemy to French claims, but, at the time, most of these claims were inadmissible. The French had brought the existing system of local government to a standstill. Few of those who took part in the Rebellion had any reasonable or adequate conception of a reformed constitution. As a people they had set themselves to obstruct the statesmen who came to assist them, and to oppose a Union which was doubtless imperfect as an instrument of government, but which was a necessary stage in the construction of abetter system. Here again Sydenham aimed at carrying out a perfectly clear and consistent programme, the political blending of the French with the British colonists. Unfortunately that programme was impossible. It had been constructed by men who did not understand the racial problem, and who, even if they had understood it, would not have accepted the modern solution. Yet French nationalism, between 1839 and 1841, had certain negative lessons still to learn. As, in Upper Canada, Robert Baldwin discovered from his opposition to the governor-general the methods and limits of parliamentary opposition, so La Fontaine, the worthiest representative of French Canada, began in these years to substitute constitutional co-operation with the reformers of the West, for the old sullen negative nationalism which had failed so utterly in 1837, as the most suitable means for maintaining the rights of his people.
[1] I disregard Cathcart's tenure of office. For all practical purposes it was merely that of an acting governor.
[2] Instructions to the Right Hon. C. Poulett Thomson, 7 September, 1839.
[3]Ibid.
[4] Lord John Russell to the Rt. Hon. C. Poulett Thomson, 14 October, 1839.
[5] Lord John Russell to the Right Hon. C. P. Thomson, 16 October, 1839.
[6] Greville,A Journal of the Reigns of George IV. and William IV., iii. p. 330.
[7] Quoted fromThe Kingston Chronicle and Gazette, 19 October, 1839.
[8]Lord Durham's Report(Lucas), ii. p. 307.
[9] Poulett Scrope,Life of Lord Sydenham, p. 148.
[10] Poulett Scrope, p. 168.
[11]Journals of the Special Council of Lower Canada, 13 November, 1839.
[12] The Right Hon. C. P. Thomson to Lord John Russell, 18 November, 1839.
[13] Sir John Colborne to Lord Normanby, 19 August, 1839.
[14] The Right Hon. C. P. Thomson to Lord John Russell, 15 December 1839.
[15] Poulett Scrope, pp. 148-9.
[16] The Right Hon. C. P. Thomson to Lord John Russell, 15 December, 1839.
[17]Ibid.
[18] Poulett Scrope, p. 163.
[19]Correspondence relative to the Reunion of Upper and Lower Canada(23rd March, 1840), p. 20.
[20]Ibid.p. 33.
[21] Sydenham to Russell, 13 January, 1841.
[22] Poulett Scrope, p. 164.
[23] Poulett Scrope, p. 183. "I have done nothing for two days, but pass under triumphal arches, and receive addresses of thanks and praise."
[24] Correspondence relative to the Affairs of Canada (1841): The Right Hon. C. P. Thomson to Lord John Russell, 16 September, 1840.
[25] Poulett Scrope, p. 198.
[26] Baldwin Correspondence: La Fontaine to Baldwin, 26 July, 1845, "You know that I do not like the Whigs."
[27] Poulett Scrope, p. 181.
[28] See a report from the agent for emigration at Toronto, made to Sydenham, 6 January, 1841.
[29] Sydenham to Russell, 26 January, 1841.
[30] Sydenham to Russell, 22 February, 1841.
[31] The Right Hon. C. P. Thomson to Lord John Russell, 27 June, 1840.
[32] Sydenham to Russell, 26 February, 1841.
[33] Merritt,Life of the Hon. W. H. Merritt, M.P.See under the years 1840 and 1841.
[34] Sydenham to Russell, 6 March, 1841. The italics are my own.
[35] Poulett Scrope, p. 205.
[36]The Kingston Chronicle and Gazette, 12 February, 1841. "A powerful struggle will be made at the next election to secure the return of representatives, who will coincide with the views of the French party in the Lower Province."
[37] Sydenham to Russell, 26 February, 1841.
[38]Ibid., 1 June, 1841.
[39] Poulett Scrope, p. 217. As the Canadian portion of the biography was the work of Sydenham's secretary, Murdoch, it carries with it considerable authority. Murdoch was, indeed, one of the most competent of the men round Sydenham.
[40] Sydenham to Russell, 26 June, 1841.
[41] Hincks,Lecture on the Political History of Canada, 1840-1855, pp. 22-23.
[42] Poulett Scrope, p. 243.
[43] Richardson, in his curious characterization of the man inEight Years in Canada.
[44] Sir F. B. Head to Lord Glenelg, February, 1836.
[45] The references to Baldwin in the Elgin-Grey Correspondence are, without exception, most cordial, and usually complimentary.
[46] The Hon. W. H. Draper, a moderate Conservative.
[47] Quoted in Hincks,Lecture on the Political History of Canada, p. 19.
[48]Ibid.pp. 18-19.
[49] Baldwin's own explanation, furnished to a volumeThe Irishman in Canada. He was peculiarly fond of memoranda or declarations, written in the third person.
[50] Sydenham to Russell, 28 May, 1841. Sydenham dispensed with the oath on the advice of his legal officials.
[51]The Mirror of Parliament(published in Kingston), 23 June, 1841.
[52] Sydenham to Baldwin, 13 June, 1841.
[53]Ibid., 23 June, 1841.
[54]The Mirror of Parliament, reporting Baldwin's speech of 18th June. I have chosen to give Baldwin's own language in all its awkwardness and stiffness.
[55] Poulett Scrope, p. 233.
[56] District Municipal Council Act (1841), Cl. IV.
[57] Sydenham to Russell, 28 August, 1841.
[58]Journals of the House of Assembly, 3 September, 1841.
[59] I have used as my chief authority here the reports inThe Quebec Gazette, more especially the issue of Friday, 10 September, 1841.
[60] Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 26 April, 1847.