If a union, either partial or complete, should hereafter be proposed with the concurrence of all the Provinces to be united, I am sure that the matter would be weighed in this country both by the public, by Parliament, and by Her Majesty's Government, with no other feeling than an anxiety to discern and promote any course which might be the most conducive to the prosperity, the strength and the harmony of all the British communities in North America.
Nova Scotia, always to the front on the question, had declared for either a general union or a union of the Maritime Provinces, and this had drawn the dispatch of the Duke of Newcastle. A copy of this dispatch was sent to Lord Monck, the governor-general of Canada, for his information and guidance, so that the attitude of the Imperial authorities was generally known. It remained for the various provincial Cabinets to confer and to arrange a course of action. The omens pointed to union in the near future. But, as it happened, a new Canadian ministry, that of Sandfield Macdonald, had shortly before assumed office, and its members were in no wise pledged to theunion project. In fact, as was proved later, several of them, notably the prime minister himself, with Dorion, Holton, and Huntington, regarded federation with suspicion and were its consistent opponents until the final accomplishment.
The negotiations for the joint construction of an intercolonial railway had been proceeding for some time. These the ministry continued, but without enthusiasm. The building of this line had been ardently promoted for years. It was the necessary link to bind the provinces together. To secure Imperial financial aid in one form or another delegates had more than once gone to London. The Duke of Newcastle had announced in April 1862 that the nature and extent of the guarantee which Her Majesty's government would recommend to parliament depended upon the arrangements which the provinces themselves had to propose.[4] There was a conference in Quebec. From Nova Scotia came Howe and Annand, who two years later fought Confederation; from New Brunswick came Tilley and Peter Mitchell, who carried the cause to victory in their province. Delegates from the Quebec meetingwent to London, but the railway plan broke down, and the failure was due to Canada. The episode left a bad impression in the minds of the maritime statesmen, and during the whole of 1863 it seemed as if union were indefinitely postponed. Yet this was the very eve of Confederation, and forces already in motion made it inevitable.
[1]Canada and the Canadian Question, by Goldwin Smith, p. 143.
[2]Life of Henry Pelham, fifth Duke of Newcastle, by John Martineau, p. 292.
[3] Between 1852 and 1870 there were thirteen colonial secretaries.
[4] Dispatch of the colonial secretary to the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick.
The acceptance of federation in the province of Canada came about with dramatic simplicity. Political deadlock was the occasion, rather than the cause, of this acceptance. Racial and religious differences had bred strife and disunion, but no principle of any substance divided the parties. The absence of large issues had encouraged a senseless rivalry between individuals. Surveying the scene not long after, Goldwin Smith, fresh from English conditions, cynically quoted the proverb: 'the smaller the pit, the fiercer the rats.' The upper and lower branches of parliament were elective, and in both bodies the ablest men in the country held seats. In those days commerce, manufacturing, or banking did not, as they do now, withhold men of marked talent from public affairs. But personal antipathies, magnified into feuds, embittered the relations of men who naturally held many views incommon, and distracted the politics of a province which needed nothing so much as peace and unity of action.
The central figures in this storm of controversy were George Brown and John A. Macdonald, easily the first personages in their respective parties. The two were antipathetic. Their dispositions were as wide asunder as the poles. Brown was serious, bold, and masterful. Macdonald concealed unrivalled powers in statecraft and in the leadership of men behind a droll humour and convivial habits. From the first they had been political antagonists. But the differences were more than political. Neither liked nor trusted the other. Brown bore a grudge for past attacks reflecting upon his integrity, while Macdonald, despite his experience in the warfare of party, must often have winced at the epithets of theGlobe, Brown's newspaper. During ten years they were not on speaking terms. But when they joined to effect a great object, dear to both, a truce was declared. 'We acted together,' wrote Macdonald long after of Brown, 'dined in public places together, played euchre in crossing the Atlantic and went into society in England together. And yet on the day after he resigned we resumed our old positionsand ceased to speak.'[1] To imagine that of all men those two should combine to carry federation seemed the wildest and most improbable dream. Yet that is what actually happened.
George Brown. From a photograph in the possession of Mrs Freeland Barbour, Edinburgh.George Brown.From a photograph in the possession of Mrs Freeland Barbour, Edinburgh.
George Brown. From a photograph in the possession of Mrs Freeland Barbour, Edinburgh.George Brown.From a photograph in the possession of Mrs Freeland Barbour, Edinburgh.
In June 1864, during the session of parliament in Quebec, government by party collapsed. In the previous three years there had been two general elections, and four Cabinets had gone to pieces. And while the politicians wrangled, the popular mind, swayed by influences stronger than party interest, convinced itself that the remedy lay in the federal system. Brown felt that Upper Canada looked to him for relief; and as early as in 1862 he had conveyed private intimation to his Conservative opponents that if they would ensure Upper Canada's just preponderance in parliamentary representation, which at that date the Liberal ministry of Sandfield Macdonald refused to do, they would receive his countenance and approval. In 1864 he moved for a select committee of nineteen members to consider the prospects of federal union. It sat with closed doors. A few hours before the defeat of the Taché-Macdonald ministry inJune, he, the chairman of the committee, reported to the House that
a strong feeling was found to exist among the members of the committee in favour of changes in the direction of a federative system, applied either to Canada alone, or to the whole British North American provinces, and such progress has been made as to warrant the committee in recommending that the subject be referred to a committee at the next session of Parliament.
Three years later, on the first Dominion Day, theGlobe,[2] in discussing this committee and its work, declared that 'a very free interchange of opinion took place. In the course of the discussions it appeared probable that a union of parties might be effected for the purpose of grappling with the constitutional difficulties.' Macdonald voted against the committee's report. Brown was thoroughly in earnest, and the desperate nature of the political situation gave him an opportunity to prove his sincerity and his unselfishness.
On the evening of Tuesday, June 14, 1864, immediately after the defeat of the ministry on an unimportant question, Brown spoke to two Conservative members and promised to co-operate with any government that would settle the constitutional difficulty. These members, Alexander Morris and John Henry Pope, were on friendly terms with him and became serviceable intermediaries. They were asked to communicate this promise to Macdonald and to Galt. The next day saw the reconciliation of the two leaders who had been estranged for ten years. They met 'standing in the centre of the Assembly Room' (the formal memorandum is meticulously exact in these and other particulars), that is, neither member crossing to that side of the House led by the other. Macdonald spoke first, mentioning the overtures made and asking if Brown had any 'objection' to meet Galt and himself. Brown replied, 'Certainly not.' Morris arranged an interview, and the following day Macdonald and Galt called upon Brown at the St Louis Hotel, Quebec. Negotiations, ending in the famous coalition, began.
The memorandum read to the House related in detail every step taken to bring about the coalition, from the opening conversationwhich Brown had with Morris and Pope. It was proper that a full explanation should be given to the public of a political event so extraordinary and so unexpected. But the narrative of minute particulars indicates the complete lack of confidence existing between the parties to the agreement. The relationships of social life rest upon the belief that there is a code of honour, affecting words and actions, which is binding upon gentlemen. The memorandum appeared to assume that in political life these considerations did not exist, and that unless the whole of the proceedings were set forth in chronological order, and with amplitude of detail, some of the group would seek to repudiate the explanation on one point or another, while the general public would disbelieve them all. To such a pass had the extremes of partyism brought the leading men in parliament. If, however, the memorandum is a very human document, it is also historically most interesting and important. The leaders began by solemnly assuring each other that nothing but 'the extreme urgency of the present crisis' could justify their meeting together for common political action. The idea that the paramount interests of the nation, threatened by possible invasion and bycommercial disturbance, would be ground for such a junction of forces does not seem to have suggested itself. After the preliminary skirmishing upon matters of party concern the negotiators at last settled down to business.
Mr Brown asked what the Government proposed as a remedy for the injustice complained of by Upper Canada, and as a settlement of the sectional trouble. Mr Macdonald and Mr Galt replied that their remedy was a Federal Union of all the British North American Provinces; local matters being committed to local bodies, and matters common to all to a General Legislature.[3]
Mr Brown rejoined that this would not be acceptable to the people of Upper Canada as a remedy for existing evils. That he believed that federation of all the provinces ought to come, and would come about ere long, but it had not yet been thoroughly considered by the people; and even were this otherwise, there wereso many parties to be consulted that its adoption was uncertain and remote.
Mr Brown was then asked what his remedy was, when he stated that the measure acceptable to Upper Canada would be Parliamentary Reform, based on population, without regard to a separating line between Upper and Lower Canada. To this both Mr Macdonald and Mr Galt stated that it was impossible for them to accede, or for any Government to carry such a measure, and that, unless a basis could be found on the federation principle suggested by the report of Mr Brown's committee, it did not appear to them likely that anything could be settled.
At this stage, then, Brown thought federation should be limited to Canada, believing the larger scheme uncertain and remote, while the others preferred a federal union for all the provinces. At a later meeting Cartier joined the gathering and a confidential statement was drawn up (the disinclination to take one another's word being still a lively sentiment), so that Brown could consult his friends. The ministerial promise in its final terms was as follows:
The Government are prepared to pledge themselves to bring in a measure next session for the purpose of removing existing difficulties by introducing the federal principle into Canada, coupled with such provisions as will permit the Maritime Provinces and the North-West Territory to be incorporated into the same system of government. And the Government will seek, by sending representatives to the Lower Provinces and to England, to secure the assent of those interests which are beyond the control of our own legislation to such a measure as may enable all British North America to be united under a General Legislature based upon the federal principle.
This basis gave satisfaction all round, and the proceedings relapsed into the purely political diplomacy which forms the least pleasant phase of what was otherwise a highly patriotic episode, creditable in its results to all concerned. Brown fought hard for a representation of four Liberals in the Cabinet, preferring to remain out of it himself, and, when his inclusion was deemed indispensable, offering to join as a minister without portfolio or salary.Finally Macdonald promised to confer with him upon the personnel of the Conservative element in the Cabinet, so that the incoming Liberals would meet colleagues with whom harmonious relations should be ensured. The fates ordained that, since Brown had been the first to propose the sacrifice of party to country, the arrangement arrived at was the least advantageous to his interests. He had the satisfaction of feeling that the Upper Canada Liberals in the House supported his action, but those from Lower Canada, both English and French, were entirely unsympathetic. The Lower Canada section of the ministry accordingly remained wholly Conservative.
It does not require much depth of political experience to realize the embarrassment of Brown's position. The terms were not easy for him. In a ministry of twelve members he and two colleagues would be the only Liberals. The leadership of Upper Canada, and in fact the real premiership, because Taché was frail and past his prime, would rest with Macdonald. The presidency of the Executive Council, which was offered him, unless joined to the office of prime minister, was of no real importance. Some party friends throughout the countrywould misunderstand, and more would scoff. He had parted company with his loyal personal friends Dorion and Holton. If, as Disraeli said, England does not love coalitions, neither does Canada. For the time being, and, as events proved, for a considerable time, the Liberal party would be divided and helpless, because the pledge of Brown pledged also the fighting strength of the party. Although the union issue dwarfed all others, questions would arise, awkward questions like that of patronage, old questions with a new face, on which there had been vehement differences. For two of his new colleagues, Macdonald and Galt, Brown entertained feelings far from cordial. Cautious advisers like Alexander Mackenzie and Oliver Mowat counselled against a coalition, suggesting that the party should support the government, but should not take a share in it. All this had to be weighed and a decision reached quickly. But Brown had put his hand to the plough and would not turn back. With the dash and determination that distinguished him, he accepted the proposal, became president of the Executive Council, with Sir Etienne Taché as prime minister, and selected William McDougall and Oliver Mowat as his Liberal colleagues. Amazement andconsternation ran like wildfire throughout Upper Canada when the news arrived from Quebec that Brown and Macdonald were members of the same government. At the outset Brown had feared that 'the public mind would be shocked,' and he was not wrong. But the sober second thought of the country in both parties applauded the act, and the desire for union found free vent. Posterity has endorsed the course taken by Brown and justly honours his memory for having, at the critical hour and on terms that would have made the ordinary politician quail, rendered Confederation possible. There is evidence that the Conservative members of the coalition played the game fairly and redeemed their promise to put union in the forefront of their policy. On this issue complete concord reigned in the Cabinet. The natural divergences of opinion on minor points in the scheme were arranged without internal discord. This was fortunate, because grave obstacles were soon to be encountered.
If George Brown of Upper Canada was the hero of the hour, George Cartier of Lower Canada played a rôle equally courageous and honourable. The hostile forces to be encountered by the French-Canadian leader wereformidable. Able men of his own race, like Dorion, Letellier, and Fournier, prepared to fight tooth and nail. The Rouges, as the Liberals there were termed, opposed him to a man. The idea of British American union had in the past been almost invariably put forward as a means of destroying the influence of the French. Influential representatives, too, of the English minority in Lower Canada, like Dunkin, Holton, and Huntington, opposed it. Joly de Lotbinière, the French Protestant, warned the Catholics and the French that federation would endanger their rights. The Rouge resistance was not a passive parliamentary resistance only, because, later on, the earnest protests of the dissentients were carried to the foot of the throne. But all these influences the intrepid Cartier faced undismayed; and Brown, in announcing his intention to enter the coalition, paid a warm tribute to Cartier for his frank and manly attitude. This was the burial of another hatchet, and the amusing incident related by Cartwright illustrates how it was received.
Sir George Cartier. From a painting in the Château de Ramezay.Sir George Cartier.From a painting in the Château de Ramezay.
Sir George Cartier. From a painting in the Château de Ramezay.Sir George Cartier.From a painting in the Château de Ramezay.
In that memorable afternoon when Mr Brown, not without emotion, made hisstatement to a hushed and expectant House, and declared that he was about to ally himself with Sir George Cartier and his friends, for the purpose of carrying out Confederation, I saw an excitable, elderly little French member rush across the floor, climb up on Mr Brown, who, as you remember, was of a stature approaching the gigantic, fling his arms about his neck, and hang several seconds there suspended, to the visible consternation of Mr Brown and to the infinite joy of all beholders, pit, box, and gallery included.
At last statesmanship had taken the place of party bickering, and, as James Ferrier of Montreal, a member of the Legislative Council, remarked in the debates of 1865, the legislators 'all thought, in fact, that a political millennium had arrived.'
[1]Memoirs of Sir John Macdonald, by Sir Joseph Pope, vol. i, p. 265.
[2] This portion of the lengthy survey of the new Dominion in theGlobeof July 1, 1867, is said to have been written by George Brown himself.
[3] Sir Joseph Pope states that in the printed copy of this memorandum which Sir John Macdonald preserved there appears, immediately following the word 'Legislature' at the end of this paragraph, in the handwriting of Mr Brown, these words: 'Constituted on the well-understood principles of federal gov.'
Not an instant too soon had unity come in Canada. The coalition ministry, having adjourned parliament, found itself faced with a situation in the Maritime Provinces which called for speedy action.
Nova Scotia, the ancient province by the sea, discouraged by the vacillation of Canada in relation to federation and the construction of the Intercolonial Railway, was bent upon joining forces with New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The proposal was in the nature of a reunion, for, when constitutional government had been first set up in Nova Scotia in 1758, the British possessions along the Atlantic coast, save Newfoundland, were all governed as one province from Halifax. But the policy in early days of splitting up the colonies into smaller areas, for convenience of administration, was here faithfully carried out. In 1770 a separate government was conferredupon Prince Edward Island. In 1784 New Brunswick was formed. In the same year the island of Cape Breton was given a governor and council of its own. Cape Breton was reunited to the parent colony of Nova Scotia in 1820, but three separate provinces remained, each developing apart from the others, thus complicating and making more difficult the whole problem of union when men with foresight and boldness essayed to solve it. Nova Scotia had kept alive the tradition of leadership. The province which has supplied three prime ministers to the Canadian Dominion never lacked statesmen with the imagination to perceive the advantages which would flow from the consolidation of British power in America.
In 1864, a few weeks before George Brown in the Canadian House had moved for his select committee on federal union, Dr Charles Tupper proposed, in the legislature of Nova Scotia, a legislative union of the Maritime Provinces. The seal of Imperial authority had been set upon this movement by the dispatch, already quoted, from the Duke of Newcastle to Lord Mulgrave in 1862.
A word concerning the services of Charles Tupper to the cause of union will be in order here. None of the Fathers of Confederationfought a more strenuous battle. None faced political obstacles of so overwhelming a character. None evinced a more unselfish patriotism. The overturn of Tilley in New Brunswick, of which we shall hear presently, was a misfortune quickly repaired. The junction of Brown, Cartier, and Macdonald in Canada ensured for them comparatively plain sailing. But the Nova Scotian leader was pitted against a redoubtable foe in Joseph Howe; for five years he faced an angry and rebellious province; he gallantly gave up his place in the first Dominion ministry in order that another might have it; and at every turn he displayed those qualities of pluck, endurance, and dexterity which compel admiration. The Tuppers were of Puritan stock.[1] The future prime minister, a practising physician, had scored his first political victory at the age of thirty-four by defeating Howe in Cumberland county. Throughout his long and notable career, a superabundance of energy, and a characteristic which may be defined in a favourable sense as audacity, never failed him.
When the motion was presented to appoint delegates to a conference at Charlottetown, to consider a legislative union for the three maritime provinces, the skies were serene. The idea met with a general, if rather languid, approval. There was not even a flavour of partisanship about the proceedings, and the delegates were impartially selected from both sides. The great Howe regarded the project with a benignant eye. At this time he was the Imperial fishery commissioner, and it was his duty to inspect the deep-sea fishing grounds each summer in a vessel of the Imperial Navy. He was invited to go to Charlottetown as a delegate, and declined in the following terms:
I am sorry for many reasons to be compelled to decline participation in the conference at Charlottetown. The season is so far advanced that I find my summer's work would be so seriously deranged by the visit to Prince Edward Island that, without permission from the Foreign Office, I would scarcely be justified in consulting my own feelings at the expense of the public service. I shall be home in October, and will be very happy to co-operate incarrying out any measure upon which the conference shall agree.
A more striking evidence of his mood at this juncture is afforded by a speech which he delivered at Halifax in August, when a party of visitors from Canada were being entertained at dinner.
I am not one of those who thank God that I am a Nova Scotian merely, for I am a Canadian as well. I have never thought I was a Nova Scotian, but I have looked across the broad continent as the great territory which the Almighty has given us for an inheritance, and studied the mode by which it could be consolidated, the mode by which it could be united, the mode by which it could be made strong and vigorous while the old flag still floats over the soil.[2]
In the time close at hand Howe was to find these words quoted against him. Meanwhile they were a sure warrant for peace and harmony.
In addressing the Assembly Tupper stated that his visit to Canada during the previousyear had convinced him that for some time the larger union was impracticable. He had found in Upper Canada a disinclination to unite with the Maritime Provinces because, from their identity of interest and geographical position, they would strengthen Lower Canada. Lower Canada was equally averse from union through fear that it would increase the English influence in a common legislature. Tupper favoured the larger scheme, and looked forward to its future realization, which would be helped, not hindered, by the union of the Maritime Provinces as a first step. Other speakers openly declared for a general union, and consented to the Charlottetown gathering as a convenient preliminary. The resolution passed without a division; and, though the members expressed a variety of opinion on details, there was no hint of a coming storm.
The conference opened at Charlottetown on September 1, the following delegates being present: from Nova Scotia, Charles Tupper, William A. Henry, Robert B. Dickey, Jonathan McCully, Adams G. Archibald; from New Brunswick, S. L. Tilley, John M. Johnston, John Hamilton Gray, Edward B. Chandler, W. H. Steeves; from Prince Edward Island, J. H. Gray, Edward Palmer, W. H. Pope,George Coles, A. A. Macdonald. Newfoundland, having no part in the movement, sent no representatives. Meanwhile Lord Monck, at the request of his ministers, had communicated with the lieutenant-governors asking that a delegation of the Canadian Cabinet might attend the meeting and lay their own plans before it. This was readily accorded. The visitors from Canada arrived from Quebec by steamer. They were George Brown, John A. Macdonald, Alexander T. Galt, George E. Cartier, Hector L. Langevin, William McDougall, D'Arcy McGee, and Alexander Campbell. No official report of the proceedings ever appeared. It is improbable that any exists, but we know from many subsequent references nearly everything of importance that took place. On the arrival of the Canadians they were invited to address the convention at once. The delegates from the Maritime Provinces took the ground that their own plan might, if adopted, be a bar to the larger proposal, and accordingly suggested that the visitors should be heard first. The Canadians, however, saw no reason to fear the smaller union. They believed that Confederation would gain if the three provinces by the sea could be treated as a single unit.But, being requested to state their case, they naturally had no hesitation in doing so. During the previous two months the members of the coalition must have applied themselves diligently to all the chief points in the project. It may be supposed that Galt, Brown, and Macdonald made a strong impression at Charlottetown. They spoke respectively on the finance, the general parliament, and the constitutional structure of the proposed federation. These subjects contained the germs of nearly all the difficulties. When the delegates reassembled a month later at Quebec, it is clear, from the allusions made in the scanty reports that have come down to us, that the leading phases of the question had already been frankly debated.
Having heard the proposals of Canada, the delegates of the Maritime Provinces met separately to debate the question that had brought them together. Obstacles at once arose. Only Nova Scotia was found to be in favour of the smaller union. New Brunswick was doubtful, and Prince Edward Island positively refused to give up her own legislature and executive. The federation project involved no such sacrifice; and, as Aaron's rod swallowed up all the others, the dazzling prospects held out by Canada eclipsed the other proposal, since theyprovided a strong central government without destroying the identity of the component parts. The conference decided to adjourn to Halifax, where, at the public dinner given to the visitors, Macdonald made the formal announcement that the delegates were unanimous in thinking that a federal union could be effected. The members, however, kept the secrets of the convention with some skill. The speeches at Halifax, and later on at St John, whither the party repaired, abounded in glowing passages descriptive of future expansion, but were sparing of intimate detail. A passage in Brown's speech at Halifax created favourable comment on both sides of the ocean.
In these colonies as heretofore governed [he said] we have enjoyed great advantages under the protecting shield of the mother country. We have had no army or navy to sustain, no foreign diplomacy to sustain,—our whole resources have gone to our internal improvement,—and notwithstanding our occasional strifes with the Colonial Office, we have enjoyed a degree of self-government and generous consideration such as no colonies in ancient or modern history ever enjoyed at the hands of aparent state. Is it any wonder that thoughtful men should hesitate to countenance a step that might change the happy and advantageous relations we have occupied towards the mother country? I am persuaded there never was a moment in the history of these colonies when the hearts of our people were so firmly attached to the parent state by the ties of gratitude and affection as at this moment, and for one I hesitate not to say that did this movement for colonial union endanger the connection that has so long and so happily existed, it would have my firm opposition.
These and other utterances, equally forceful and appealing directly to the pride and ambition of the country, were not without effect in moulding public opinion. The tour was a campaign of education. By avoiding the constitutional issues the delegates gave little information which could afford carping critics an opportunity to assail the movement prematurely. It is true, some sarcastic comments were made upon the manner in which the Canadians had walked into the convention and taken possession. At the Halifax dinner the governor of Nova Scotia, Sir Richard GravesMacdonnell, dropped an ironical remark on the 'disinterested' course of Canada, which plainly betrayed his own attitude. But the gathering was, in the main, highly successful and augured well for the movement.
The Charlottetown Conference was therefore an essential part of the proceedings which culminated at Quebec. The ground had been broken. The leaders in the various provinces had formed ties of intimacy and friendship and favourably impressed each other. At this time were laid the foundations of the alliance between Macdonald and Tilley, the Liberal leader in New Brunswick, which made it possible to construct the first federal ministry on a non-party basis and which enlisted in the national service a devoted and trustworthy public man. Tilley's career had few blemishes from its beginning to its end. He was a direct descendant of John Tilley, one of the English emigrants to Massachusetts in theMayflower, and a great-grandson of Samuel Tilley, one of the Loyalists who removed to New Brunswick after the War of Independence. He had been drawn into politics against his wishes by the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens. A nominating convention at which he was not present had selected him forthe legislature, and his first election had taken place during his absence from the country. Yet he had risen to be prime minister of his province; and his was the guiding hand which brought New Brunswick into the union. His defeat at first and the speedy reversal of the verdict against Confederation form one of the most diverting episodes in the history of the movement.
The ominous feature of the Charlottetown Conference was the absence of Joseph Howe, the most popular leader in Nova Scotia. This was one of the accidents which so often disturb the calculations of statesmen. When the delegates resumed their labours at Quebec he was in Newfoundland, and he returned home to find that a plan had been agreed upon without his aid. From him, as well as from the governors of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the cause of federation was to receive its next serious check.
[1] SeeRecollections of Sixty Years in Canada, p. 2. The original Tupper in America came out from England in 1635. Sir Charles Tupper's great-grandfather migrated from Connecticut to Nova Scotia in 1763.
[2]The Speeches and Public Letters of Joseph Howe, edited by J. A. Chisholm, vol. ii, p. 433. Halifax, 1909.
The Quebec Conference began its sessions on the 10th of October 1864. It was now the task of the delegates to challenge and overcome the separatist tendencies that had dominated British America since the dismemberment of the Empire eighty years before. They were to prove that a new nationality could be created, which should retain intact the connection with the mother country. For an event of such historic importance no better setting could have been chosen than the Ancient Capital, with its striking situation and its hallowed memories of bygone days. The delegates were practical and experienced men of affairs, but they lacked neither poetic and imaginative sense nor knowledge of the past; and it may well be that their labours were inspired and their deliberations influenced by the historic associations of the place.
The gathering was remarkable for the variedtalents and forceful character of its principal members. And here it may be noted that the constitution was not chiefly the product of legal minds. Brown, Tilley, Galt, Tupper, and others who shared largely in the work of construction were not lawyers. The conference represented fairly the different interests and occupations of a young country. It is to be recorded, too, that the conclusions reached were criticized as the product of men in a hurry. Edward Goff Penny, editor of the MontrealHerald, a keen critic, and afterwards a senator, complained that the actual working period of the conference was limited to fourteen days. Joseph Howe poured scorn upon Ottawa as the capital, stating that he preferred London, the seat of empire, where there were preserved 'the archives of a nationality not created in a fortnight.' Still more vigorous were the protests against the secrecy of the discussions. A number of distinguished journalists, including several English correspondents who had come across the ocean to write about the Civil War, were in Quebec, and they were disposed to find fault with the precautions taken to guard against publicity. The following memorial was presented to the delegates:
The undersigned, representatives of English and Canadian newspapers, find that it would be impossible for them satisfactorily to discharge their duties if an injunction of secrecy be imposed on the conference and stringently carried into effect. They, therefore, beg leave to suggest whether, while the remarks of individual members of your body are kept secret, the propositions made and the treatment they meet with, might not advantageously be made public, and whether such a course would not best accord with the real interests committed to the conference. Such a kind of compromise between absolute secrecy and unlimited publicity is usually, we believe, observed in cases where an European congress holds the peace of the world and the fate of nations in its hands. And we have thought that the British American Conference might perhaps consider the precedent not inapplicable to the present case. Such a course would have the further advantage of preventing ill-founded and mischievous rumours regarding the proceedings from obtaining currency.[1]
This ingenious appeal was signed by S. Phillips Day, of the LondonMorning Herald, by Charles Lindsey of the TorontoLeader, and by Brown Chamberlain of the MontrealGazette. Among the other writers of distinction in attendance were George Augustus Sala of the LondonDaily Telegraph, Charles Mackay ofThe Times, Livesy ofPunch, and George Brega of the New YorkHerald. But the conference stood firm, and the impatient correspondents were denied even the mournful satisfaction of brief daily protocols. They were forced to be content with overhearing the burst of cheering from the delegates when Macdonald's motion proposing federation was unanimously adopted. The reasons for maintaining strict secrecy were thus stated by John Hamilton Gray,[2] a delegate from New Brunswick, who afterwards became the historian of the Confederation movement:
After much consideration it was determined, as in Prince Edward Island, that the convention should hold itsdeliberations with closed doors. In addition to the reasons which had governed the convention at Charlottetown, it was further urged, that the views of individual members, after a first expression, might be changed by the discussion of new points, differing essentially from the ordinary current of subjects that came under their consideration in the more limited range of the Provincial Legislatures; and it was held that no man ought to be prejudiced, or be liable to the charge in public that he had on some other occasion advocated this or that doctrine, or this or that principle, inconsistent with the one that might then be deemed best, in view of the future union to be adopted.... Liberals and Conservatives had there met to determine what was best for the future guidance of half a continent, not to fight old party battles, or stand by old party cries, and candour was sought for more than mere personal triumph. The conclusion arrived at, it is thought, was judicious. It ensured the utmost freedom of debate; the more so, inasmuch as the result would be in no way binding upon those whose interests were to be affected until and unless adopted after thegreatest publicity and the fullest public discussions.