1867 by Christopher Moore Read Free Book Online

“two or more local governments” for Canada East and West. In 1859, western alienation still pointed toward separation, and when Clear Grit calls for a pure-and-simple dissolution roused cheers, Brown went far to accommodate them. The convention’s final resolution declared there would only be “some joint authority” to regulate matters of mutual interest between what would be two largely autonomous provinces.
    In 1859, George Brown professed himself satisfied with only a restricted and inexpensive central government. But he talked no more of “organic change,” of abandoning British political traditions to pursue a presidential constitution. With a platform of federalism to propose, Brown no longer wanted to demand new political processes. The convention would leave it to the legislature to decide on the details of federal union. After the St. Lawrence Hall convention, Brown’s was still a minority party excluded from power. He was still derided or made a bogey by both conservatives and rival reformers. Yet Brown had accepted that, even as a minority politician,perhaps condemned to perpetual opposition, he could do something useful, could perhaps see his causes brought to attention and to fruition.
    In 1864, Brown was proven right. In the interim, he had struggled against both radical reformers impatient for “organic change” and moderate reformers still reluctant to change the union at all. Sandfield Macdonald, the most moderate of reformers and the union’s warmest champion, had put aside the rep-by-pop principle and formed a government, in alliance for a time with Antoine-Aimé Dorion. Brown, meanwhile, had taken a break from politics and made his first return visit in Britain. The visit mostly confirmed his commitment to Canada, but while in Edinburgh, Brown, then forty-three, fell suddenly in love. Within five weeks he was married. Anne Nelson at once became his steadiest and most secure commitment. Friends declared that her influence made Brown less impetuous, more thoughtful and tranquil. Better educated and more widely cultured than he was, she could hold her own in discussion with him. Maurice Careless pointed to her, through her influence on Brown, as a plausible “mother of confederation.”
    By the spring of 1864, Sandfield Macdonald was out of power, and Macdonald and Cartier had returned once more to the cabinet room. The constant effort to construct a government without the impossible man, who commanded the largest bloc of Canada West’s representatives but would only enter government if he could change the union to a federation, was coming to an end. Brown’s instinct that Parliament could provide a solution finally bore fruit in May 1864. Even though Macdonald and Cartier were in power, the legislature approved Brown’s resolution to create an all-party legislative committee on constitutional matters. Even John A. Macdonald voted in favour, and Brown himself was appointed chairman. Power eluded Brown as much as ever, but Parliament would listen to his ideas.
    In the House committee, parliamentarians of all shades of opinion discussed the constitutional deadlock: Canada West’s insistence onvoting power to match its population; Canada East’s refusal to surrender to an English and Protestant majority; the widespread reluctance to abandon the union; the persistent ambitions to unite all the British provinces of North America. When the committee reported to the legislature (just as the Macdonald–Cartier government collapsed), Brown got the chance to make his historic offer. On June 17, Brown stood up in the hot, crowded legislative chamber in Quebec City and broke the mould of union politics.
    He offered to go into coalition with his hated rivals. He accepted the impossibility of forming a government of his own choosing, and offered to sustain Macdonald and Cartier in office. They had only to accept the constitutional solutions that his parliamentary committee had recently endorsed: either