Scott W. See. The History of Canada. Second Edition

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Mackenzie’s Call to Arms

As is the case with many rebellions in history, the rationale for

violently opposing the existing form of government was presented by

literate people with access to the press. William Lyon Mackenzie,

Upper Canada’ s most energetic and articulate advocate of severing

the colony’s ties with Great Britain, used newspapers and printed

handbills to encourage others to join in his cause. One such appeal, a

broadside that was distributed in late November 1837, is presented

below. Noteworthy in this document are Mackenzie’s skillful use of

rhetorical questions and his reliance on provocative language to make

his points.

BRAVE CANADIANS! God has put into the bold and honest hearts

of our brethren in Lower Canada to revolt—not against “lawful” but

against “unlawful authority.” The law says we shall not be taxed

without our consent by the voices of the men of our choice, but a

wicked and tyrannical government has trampled upon that law—

robbed the exchequer—divided the plunder—and declared that,

regardless of justice they will continue to roll their splendid carriages,

and riot in their palaces, at our expense—that we are poor spiritless

ignorant peasants, who were born to toil for our betters. But the

peasants are beginning to open their eyes and to feel their strength. . . .

CANADIANS! Do you love freedom? I know you do. Do you hate

oppression? Who dare deny it? Do you wish perpetual peace, and a

government founded upon the eternal heaven-born principle of the

Lord Jesus Christ—a government bound to enforce the law to do to

Margaret Fairley, ed. The Selected Writings of William Lyon Mackenzie (Toronto:

Oxford University Press, 1960), 222–225.

Mackenzie’s Call to Arms 307

each other as you would be done by? Then buckle on your armour,

and put down the villains who oppress and enslave our country—put

them down in the name of that God who goes forth with the armies of

his people, and whose bible shows us that it is by the same human

means whereby you put to death thieves and murderers, and imprison

and banish wicked individuals, that you must put down, in the

strength of the Almighty, those governments which, like these bad

individuals, trample on the law, and destroy its usefulness. . . .We

contend, that in all laws made, or to be made, every person shall be

bound alike—neither should any tenure, estate, charter, degree, birth

or place, confer any exemption from the ordinary course of legal

proceedings and responsibilities whereunto others are subjected. . . .

MARK MY WORDS, CANADIANS! The struggle is begun—it

might end in freedom—but timidity, cowardice, or tampering on our

part will only delay its close. We cannot be reconciled to Britain—we

have humbled ourselves to the Pharaoh of England, to the Ministers,

and great people, and they will neither rule us justly nor let us go—we

are determined never to rest until independence is ours—the prize is a

splendid one. A country larger than France or England; natural

resources equal to our most boundless wishes—a government of equal

laws—religion pure and undefiled—perpetual peace—education to

all—millions of acres of lands for revenue—freedom from British

tribute—free trade with all the world—but stop—I never could

enumerate all the blessings attendant on independence!

UP THEN, BRAVE CANADIANS! Get ready your rifles, and make

short work of it; a connection with England would involve us in all

her wars, undertaken for her own advantage, never for ours; with

governors from England, we will have bribery at elections,

corruption, villainy and perpetual discord in every township, but

Independence would give us the means of enjoying many blessings.

Our enemies in Toronto are in terror and dismay—they know their

wickedness and dread our vengeance. . . .Aye, and now’s the day and

the hour! Woe be to those who oppose us, for “In God is our trust.”

308 Mackenzie’s Call to Arms

A Perspective of Life in the

Backwoods

Many accounts remain that document the challenges that people

faced when they emigrated to the interior of British North American,

carved out farmland, and constructed homes. Two British-born

sisters, Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill, experienced the

rigors and joys of settling in Upper Canada; they were among the

most prolific and widely published authors of the mid-nineteenth

century on the subject of life in British North America. The following

excerpts come from two letters written by Traill. The first, written in

1834, was addressed to her friends James and Emma Bird. The

second was sent to Canon Richard Gwillym and written in 1845. In

the latter Traill references her most popular work, The Backwoods of

Canada, which was published in London in 1836.

To James and Emma Bird:

[Our son] James has his youthful faults and who has or had them

not at his age but on the whole he is a good boy and I hope will prove

himself worthy of parents of whom he is justly proud. He has his ups

and downs in this country all classes have their trials and hardship,

they may be called with truth, and James’s situation does not exempt

him from his share. They will I trust fit him the better for a settler’s life

when he becomes his own master, a period as yet distant. At present

he is become intimately acquainted with the customary work of a

Carl Ballstadt, Elizabeth Hopkins, Michael A. Peterman, eds., I Bless You in My

Heart: Selected Correspondence of Catharine Parr Traill (Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 1996), 40–41, 51–52.

A Perspective of Life in the Backwoods 309

Canadian farm. I could edify his Suffolk friends by telling them of

chopping, under-brushing logging making brush heaps and log

heaps, burning and branding a fallow, sowing and harrowing in

wheat and rye, planting corn, ie Indian corn, for we do not here mean

all sorts of grain by the term corn as at home, setting pumpkinseed

and turnips, raising potato-hills etc. He could talk very learnedly of

Raising-Bees, Logging Bees, Carpentering Bees and Husking Bees.

Discuss the merits of Buck & Bright, the orthodox names for

Canadian oxen, go through the logging exercise with stentorian

lungs. . . .

We are now comfortably settled in our new house. . . .When writers

in this country speak of the rapid manner in which houses are put up

upon one day or two they mean the icy walls merely. If you do not

mean to live in a habitation divested of all comfort, much longer time

is required. The difficulty of measuring lumber sawn board is

inconceivable especially if it so happens you are distant from a saw

mill or a town. The badness of roads in this country, the slowness of

conveyance, want of proper artificers etc. etc. are seldom taken into

consideration by writers who write only to sell a book. When they

talk of the advantages and comforts of a settlers life they pass over the

intervening and necessary hardships and privations and talk of the

future as if the present. . . .

To Canon Richard Gwillym:

Your opinion of my Backwoods was very gratifying to me coming

from a scholar, and a gentleman. I suppose it has merits in spite of

many faults by the interest it has excited and the friends it has won for

me. One thing bear in mind my dear brother that my work was not

written with the design of inducing any one to leave their own fair

homes in Britain to seek a wooden hut in Canada but rather to cheer

and advise such as were by stern necessity compelled to emigrate to

make the best of a bad bargain and if any one has been nerved to

energy and to the encouraging of a contented spirit by my little book

the end for which it was written has been gained. After twelve years

residence in Canada my opinions remain much as they were. I love the

310 A Perspective of Life in the Backwoods

country on many accounts and I have some valued friends in it but

misfortunes have fallen heavily upon us and kept us back. [O]ur own

state is less prosperous than when full of hope I wrote my Backwoods

but this is merely the result of untoward circumstances. [W]hile we

have made little advance others who started with less means have

pressed on and are far ahead of us in all comforts but I blame not my

adopted country for this, and I rejoice in the increasing prosperity of

its inhabitants and hope yet to see my sons and daughters happy and

honorable members of society beneath the shades of her mighty

forests.

A Perspective of Life in the Backwoods 311

The Argument in Favor

of Confederation

Strident arguments in favor of Confederation were advanced by a

number of political luminaries in the 1860s, but two stand out for

their clear and eloquent arguments of the many reasons for the union

of the British North American colonies. The following excerpts come

from the Confederation debates in the Province of Canada in 1865.

The first is from a speech delivered by John A. Macdonald, who at the

time was Attorney General West in the Province of Canada; the

second passage comes from a speech by one of the most influential

francophones in support of Confederation, Attorney General East

George-Étienne Cartier. Of particular interest in Macdonald’s text

are the many references to the weaknesses in the American system of

governance. Cartier echoed some of Macdonald’s thoughts on the

challenge presented by the United States and paid close attention to

the idea that Confederation would provide a positive context for

racial collaboration.

Hon. John A. Macdonald:

All the statesmen and public men who have written or spoken on

the subject admit the advantages of a union, if it were practicable: and

now when it is proved to be practicable, if we do not embrace this

opportunity the present favorable time will pass away, and we may

never have it again. . . .If we are not blind to our present position, we

must see the hazardous situation in which all the great interests of

P.B. Waite, ed., The Confederation Debates in the Province of Canada, 1865,

2nd ed. (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), 22–30.

The Argument in Favor of Confederation 313

Canada stand in respect to the United States. I am no alarmist. I do

not believe in the prospect of immediate war. I believe that the

common sense of the two nations will prevent a war; still we cannot

trust to probabilities. . . .

The Conference having come to the conclusion that a Legislative

union, pure and simple, was impracticable, our next attempt was to

form a government upon federal principles, which would give to the

General Government the strength of a legislative and administrative

union, while at the same time it preserved that liberty of action for the

different sections which is allowed by a Federal union. And I am

strong in the belief—that we have hit upon the happy medium in

those resolutions, and that we have formed a scheme of government

which unites the advantages of both, giving us the strength of a

Legislative union and the sectional freedom of a Federal union, with

protection to local interests. In doing so we had the advantage of the

experience of the United States. It is the fashion now to enlarge on the

defects of the Constitution of the United States, but I am not one of

those who look upon it as a failure. I think and believe that it is one of

the most skilful works which human intelligence ever created; is one

of the most perfect organizations that ever governed a free people. To

say that it has some defects is but to say that it is not the work of

Omniscience, but of human intellects. We are happily situated in

having had the opportunity of watching its operation, seeing its

working from its infancy till now. . . .[The Americans] commenced, in

fact, at the wrong end. They declared by their Constitution that each

state was a sovereignty in itself, and that all the powers incident to a

sovereignty belonged to each state, except those powers which, by the

Constitution, were conferred upon the General Government and

Congress. Here we have adopted a different system. We have

strengthened the General Government. We have given the General

Legislature all the great subjects of legislation. We have conferred on

them, not only specifically and in detail, all the powers which are

incident to sovereignty, but we have expressly declared that all

subjects of general interest not distinctly and exclusively conferred

upon the local governments and local legislatures, shall be conferred

upon the General Government and Legislature. We have thus avoided

that great source of weakness which has been the cause of the

disruption of the United States. . . .

314 The Argument in Favor of Confederation

One of the great advantages of Confederation is, that we shall have

a united, a concerted, and uniform system of defence. . . .The criminal

law too—the determination of what is a crime and what is not and

how crime shall be punished—is left to the General Government. This

is a matter almost of necessity. It is of great importance that we

should have the same criminal law throughout these provinces—that

what is a crime in one part of British America, should be a crime in

every part—that there should be the same protection of life and

property as in another. It is one of the defects in the United States

system, that each separate state has or may have a criminal code of its

own. . . .

Hon. George-Étienne Cartier:

Confederation was, as it were, at this moment almost forced upon

us. . . .The matter resolved itself into this, either we must obtain

British American Confederation or be absorbed in an American

Confederation. The question for us to ask ourselves was this: Shall we

be content to remain separate—shall we be content to maintain a

mere provincial existence, when, by combining together, we could

become a great nation?

Nations were now formed by the agglomeration of communities

having kindred interests and sympathies. Such was our case at the

present moment. Objection had been taken to the scheme now under

consideration, because of the words “new nationality.” Now, when

we were united together, if union were attained, we would form a

political nationality with which neither the national origin, nor the

religion of any individual, would interfere. It was lamented by some

that we had this diversity of races, and hopes were expressed that this

distinctive feature would cease. The idea of unity of races was

Utopian—it was impossible. Distinctions of this kind would always

exist. Dissimilarity, in fact, appeared to be the order of the physical

world and of the moral world, as well as of the political world. But

with regard to the objection based on this fact, to the effect that a

great nation could not be formed because Lower Canada was in great

part French and Catholic, and Upper Canada was British and

The Argument in Favor of Confederation 315

Protestant, and the Lower Provinces were mixed, it was futile and

worthless in the extreme. Look, for instance, at the United Kingdom,

inhabited as it was by three great races. Had the diversity of race

impeded the glory, the progress, the wealth of England? Had they not

rather each contributed their share to the greatness of the Empire? Of

the glories of the senate, the field, and the ocean, of the successes of

trade and commerce, how much was contributed by the combined

talents, energy and courage of the three races together? In our own

Federation we should have Catholic and Protestant, English, French,

Irish and Scotch, and each by his efforts and his success would

increase the prosperity and glory of the new Confederacy. He viewed

the diversity of races in British North America in this way: we were of

different races, not for the purpose of warring against each other, but

in order to compete and emulate for the general welfare. We could

not do away with the distinctions of race. We could not legislate for

the disappearance of the French Canadians from American soil, but

British and French Canadians alike could appreciate and understand

their position relative to each other. They were placed like great

families beside each other, and their contact produced a healthy spirit

of emulation. It was a benefit rather than otherwise that we had a

diversity of races.

316 The Argument in Favor of Confederation