List the reasons for and against Confederacy. Did financial matters take priority?
In the 1850s and 1860s, cracks in the relationship between Britain and British North America began to appear due to North Brunswick stamps being bought by cents, not pence, and they had Charles Connell’s, not Queen Victoria’s, face on them. There were many Canadians during the nineteenth century who felt that uniting with the United States of America was impractical, unpopular, unnatural, but entirely necessary. There were many Canadians who felt that they had so much more in common with the United States that it made sense to unite together from an economic, cultural, defensive and historical perspective. Nonetheless, this essay will argue that the reason why a confederation between all the British North American colonies was a financial priority. There will be an examination of the reasons for and against a confederacy between these two countries before reaching a conclusion on the reasons why a confederacy never happened.
Many French-Canadians felt that their best chance for survival was to maintain their identity was under British rule as the 1774 Quebec Act ensured that French Canadians possessed the constitutional right to be distinct, whereas if they joined the United States they would have been drowned in American culture. A petition of the inhabitants of Nova Scotia was presented to the British Parliament in 1866 arguing against a confederation because many people in Nova Scotia were happy with the legal institutions there as well as the trade that they enjoy with two hundred and fifty million people worldwide. Many people in Nova Scotia resented sacrificing this power to a federal Canadian government that would destroy its right to decide its own tariffs. Political and financial matters were accounted for the overriding opposition to a confederation of Canada.
However, there were important reasons to support a confederacy. Macdonald and Brown, who were arguing for a British North American confederacy, loved the idea of gaining the same status as the likes of Washington in the United States. George Etienne Carter, a member of the militant Fils de la Liberte, made a speech in 1865 suggesting that a united nationality would actually make the British Canadians of Upper Canada and French Canadians of Lower Canada unite together to create a nation as diverse and powerful as the United Kingdom. Brown explained that a united Canada makes sense for legal reasons because all citizens would enjoy the benefits of one constitution as opposed to having legal rights in different colonies. Defence was also another key reason why Brown believed that a confederation between the North American colonies was essential because whilst advocating that he was not a ‘warmonger’, he still believed that the best form of defence for Canada in the future was to unite as one colony. Defence and legal reasons were also key in ensuring a confederation of Canada was possible.
Despite this, there were many economic arguments behind creating a North American nation free from the shackles of British rule due to economic reasons that included the British resorting to buying resources from the cheapest sources, which made Canadian exports like wheat incredibly uncompetitive. A united British North American nation was seen as one effective way to create an internal market between the colonies after Canada lost its second biggest market in the United States due to the Reciprocity Agreement that was abandoned by the United States during the American Civil War. George Brown, the founder of the newspaper Toronto Globe, argued that a confederation between the North American colonies would ensure that four million Canadians were open to a market of four million people that can trade with each other. Brown had ambitions to make Canada a rich maritime colony as he felt that areas like Prince Edward Island would benefit from trading its fishing products from within Canada as well as export them to other countries that included Britain and the United States. By uniting the different provinces, Brown felt that this would ensure the many different cities in Canada would increase their revenues as they could expand their communications by creating railways and other public works that would build up cities and enhance the profitability of those cities. Joseph Howe, a leading politician and journalist in Canada during the nineteenth century, argued that because each colony possessed a considerable number of mariners and fishermen between them as well as a considerable number of shipping, could combine together to form a powerful country ‘like Hungary or Poland.’ Therefore, financial matters were an important priority in attempting to establish a confederacy in Canada.
In conclusion, despite the political and legal importance of a Canadian confederation, financial matters were a priority in creating this confederation. Politicians like Brown and Howe wanted a confederation to create an internal market that would allow Canadians to trade internally and increase the maritime power of Canada respectively. It was felt that Canada as a united country could be just as rich and prosperous as independent countries like Hungary and Poland too. With the United States abandoning its trading relationship with Canada as a result of the American Civil War, many felt that a confederation between the North American colonies was the only way to ensure that Canada could continue to prosper from trade as a result of losing this key trading partner.
Bibliography
Belshaw, John Douglas. Canadian History: Pre-Confederation. Victoria: BCCampus, 2012.
Thorner, Thomas and Thor Frohn-Nielson, A Few Acres of Snow: Documents in Pre- Confederation Canadian History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
