George Brown Part 1

George Brown.

by John Lewis.

PREFACE

The t.i.tle of this series, "Makers of Canada," seemed to impose on the writer the obligation to devote special attention to the part played by George Brown in fas.h.i.+oning the inst.i.tutions of this country. From this point of view the most fruitful years of his life were spent between the time when the _Globe_ was established to advocate responsible government, and the time when the provinces were confederated and the bounds of Canada extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The ordinary political contests in which Mr. Brown and his newspaper engaged have received only casual notice, and the effort of the writer has been to trace Mr. Brown's connection with the stream of events by which the old legislative union of Canada gave place to the confederated Dominion.

After the establishment of responsible government, the course of this stream is not obscure. Brown is found complaining that Upper Canada is inadequately represented and is dominated by its partner. Various remedies, such as dissolution of the union, representation by population and the "double majority," are proposed; but ultimately the solution is found in federation, and to this solution, and the events leading up to it, a large part of the book is devoted. Mr. Brown was also an ardent advocate of the union with Canada of the country lying west to the Rocky Mountains, and to this work reference is made.

Mr. Brown was one of those men who arouse strong friends.h.i.+ps and strong animosities. These have been dealt with only where they seemed to have a bearing upon history, as in the case of Sir John A.

Macdonald and of the Roman Catholic Church. It seems to be a profitless task for a biographer to take up and fight over again quarrels which had no public importance and did not affect the course of history.

The period covering Mr. Brown's career was one in which the political game was played roughly, and in which strong feelings were aroused. To this day it is difficult to discuss the career of the Hon. George Brown, or of Sir John A. Macdonald, without reviving these feelings in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of political veterans and their sons; and even one who tries to study the time and the men and to write their story, finds himself taking sides with men who are in their graves, and fighting for causes long since lost and won. The writer has tried to resist the temptation of building up the fame of Brown by detracting from that of other men, but he has also thought it right in many cases to present Brown's point of view, not necessarily as the whole truth, but as one of the aspects of truth.

In dealing with the question of confederation, my endeavour has been simply to tell the story of Brown's work and let it speak for itself, not to measure the exact proportion of credit due to Brown and to others. It is hard to believe, however, that the verdict of history will a.s.sign to him a place other than first among the public men of Canada who contributed to the work of confederation. Events, as D'Arcy McGee said, were probably more powerful than any of them.

If any apology is needed for the s.p.a.ce devoted to the subject of slavery in the United States, it may be found not only in Brown's life-long opposition to slavery, but in the fact that the Civil War influenced the relations between the United States and Canada, and indirectly promoted the confederation of the Canadian provinces, and also in the fact, so frequently emphasized by Mr. Brown, that the growth of the inst.i.tution of slavery on this continent was a danger to which Canada could not be indifferent.

Among the works that have been found useful for reference are John Charles Dent's _Last Forty Years_ (Canada since the union of 1841); _Gray on Confederation_; Cote's _Political Appointments and Elections in the Province of Canada_; Dr. Hodgins' _Legislation and History of Separate Schools in Upper Canada_; the lives of _Lord Elgin_, _Dr.

Ryerson_ and _Joseph Howe_ in "The Makers of Canada" series; the Hon.

Alexander Mackenzie's _Life and Speeches of the Hon. George Brown_; the Hon. James Young's _Public Men and Public Life in Canada_. Mr.

Mackenzie's book contains a valuable collection of letters, to which frequent reference is made in the chapters of this book dealing with confederation. The account of the relations of the Peel government with Governor Sir Charles Bagot is taken from the _Life of Sir Robert Peel_, from his correspondence, edited by C. S. Parker. The files of the _Banner_ and the _Globe_ have been read with some care; they were found to contain an embarra.s.sing wealth of most interesting historical material.

To Dr. James Bain, Librarian of the Toronto Free Library, and to Mr.

Avern Pardoe, of the Library of the Legislative a.s.sembly, I am deeply indebted for courtesy and a.s.sistance.

JOHN LEWIS.

CHAPTER I

FROM SCOTLAND TO CANADA

George Brown was born at Alloa, a seaport on the tidal Forth, thirty-five miles inward from Edinburgh, on November 29th, 1818. His mother was a daughter of George Mackenzie, of Stornoway, in the Island of Lewis. His father, Peter Brown, was a merchant and builder. George was educated at the High School and Southern Academy in Edinburgh.

"This young man," said Dr. Gunn, of the Southern Academy, "is not only endowed with high enthusiasm, but possesses the faculty of creating enthusiasm in others." At the risk of attaching too much significance to praise bestowed on a school-boy, it may be said that these words struck the keynote of Brown's character and revealed the source of his power. The atmosphere of the household was Liberal; father and son alike hated the inst.i.tution of slavery, with which they were destined to become more closely acquainted. "When I was a very young man," said George Brown, denouncing the Fugitive Slave Law before a Toronto audience, "I used to think that if I ever had to speak before such an audience as this, I would choose African Slavery as my theme in preference to any other topic. The subject seemed to afford the widest scope for rhetoric and for fervid appeals to the best of human sympathies. These thoughts arose far from here, while slavery was a thing at a distance, while the horrors of the system were unrealized, while the mind received it as a tale and discussed it as a principle.

But, when you have mingled with the thing itself, when you have encountered the atrocities of the system, when you have seen three millions of human beings held as chattels by their Christian countrymen, when you have seen the free inst.i.tutions, the free press and the free pulpit of America linked in the unrighteous task of upholding the traffic, when you have realized the manacle, and the lash, and the sleuth-hound, you think no more of rhetoric, the mind stands appalled at the monstrous iniquity, mere words lose their meaning, and facts, cold facts, are felt to be the only fit arguments."

Again, as George grew to manhood, the struggle which ended in the disruption of the Church of Scotland was approaching its climax, and the sympathies of the Brown household were with those who declared that it "is the fundamental law of this Church that no pastor shall be intruded on any congregation contrary to the will of the people."

In 1838 reverses in business led the father and son to seek their fortunes in America. Arriving in New York, Peter Brown turned to journalism, finding employment as a contributor to the _Albion_, a weekly newspaper published for British residents of the United States. The Browns formed an unfavourable opinion of American inst.i.tutions as represented by New York in that day. To them the republic presented itself as a slave-holding power, seeking to extend its territory in order to enlarge the area of slavery, and hostile to Great Britain as a citadel of freedom. They always regarded the slave-holding element in the United States as that which kept up the tradition of enmity to England. An American book ent.i.tled, _The Glory and Shame of England_, aroused Peter Brown's indignation, and he published a reply in a little volume bearing the name of _The Fame and Glory of England Vindicated_. Here he paid tribute to British freedom, contrasted it with the domination of the slave holders, and instanced the fact that in Connecticut a woman had been mobbed and imprisoned for teaching coloured girls to read. Further light is thrown upon the American experience of the Browns by an article in the _Banner_, their first Canadian venture in journalism. The writer is answering an accusation of disloyalty and Yankee sympathies, a stock charge against Reformers in that day. He said: "We have stood in the very heart of a republic, and fearlessly issued our weekly sheet, expressing our fervent admiration of the limited monarchy of Great Britain, though surrounded by Democratic Whigs, Democratic Republicans, Irish Repealers, slave-holders, and every cla.s.s which breathes the most inveterate hostility to British inst.i.tutions. And we are not to be turned from maintaining the genuine principles of the const.i.tution because some of our contemporaries are taken with a fit of sycophancy, and would sacrifice all at the shrine of power."

In December, 1842, the Browns established in New York the _British Chronicle_, a paper similar to the _Albion_, but apparently designed more especially for Scottish and Presbyterian readers in the United States and Canada. In an effort to promote Canadian circulation, George Brown came to Canada early in 1843. The _Chronicle_ had taken strong ground on the popular side of the movement then agitating the Church of Scotland; and this struggle was watched with peculiar interest in Canada, where the relations between Church and State were burning questions. Young Brown also met the members of a Reform administration then holding power under Governor Metcalfe, and the ministers became impressed with the idea that he would be a powerful ally in the struggle then impending.

There is on record an interesting pen picture of George Brown as he appeared at this time. The writer is Samuel Thompson, editor of the _Colonist_. "It was, I think, somewhere about the month of May, 1843, that there walked into my office on Nelson Street a young man of twenty-five years, tall, broad-shouldered, somewhat lantern-jawed and emphatically Scottish, who introduced himself to me as the travelling agent of the New York _British Chronicle_, published by his father.

This was George Brown, afterwards editor and publisher of the _Globe_ newspaper. He was a very pleasant-mannered, courteous, gentlemanly young fellow, and impressed me favourably. His father, he said, found the political atmosphere of New York hostile to everything British, and that it was as much as a man's life was worth to give expression to any British predilections whatsoever (which I knew to be true).

They had, therefore, thought of transferring their publication to Toronto, and intended to continue it as a thoroughly Conservative journal. I, of course, welcomed him as a co-worker in the same cause with ourselves, little expecting how his ideas of Conservatism were to develop themselves in subsequent years." His Conservatism--a.s.suming that the young man was not misunderstood--was perhaps the result of a reaction from the experience of New York, in which democracy had presented itself in an unlovely aspect. Contact with Toronto Toryism of that day would naturally stiffen the Liberalism of a combative man.

As a result of George Brown's survey of the Canadian field, the publication of the _British Chronicle_ in New York ceased, and the Browns removed to Toronto, where they established the _Banner_, a weekly paper partly Presbyterian and partly political, and in both fields championing the cause of government by the people. The first number was issued on August 18th, 1843. Referring to the disruption of the "Scottish Church" that had occurred three months before, the _Banner_ said: "If we look to Scotland we shall find an event unparalleled in the history of the world. Nearly five hundred ministers, backed by several thousand elders and perhaps a million of people, have left the Church of their fathers because the civil courts have trampled on what they deem the rights of the Christian people in Scotland, exhibiting a lesson to the world which must produce results that cannot yet be measured. The sacrifice made by these devoted ministers of the Gospel is great; their reward is sure."

The columns of the _Banner_ ill.u.s.trate in a striking way the intermingling, common in that day, of religion and politics. The _Banner's_ chief antagonist was the _Church_, a paper equally devoted to episcopacy and monarchy. Here is a specimen bit of controversy. The _Church_, arguing against responsible government, declares that as G.o.d is the only ruler of princes, princes cannot be accountable to the people; and perdition is the lot of all rebels, agitators of sedition, demagogues, who work under the pretence of reforming the State. All the troubles of the country are due to parliaments constantly demanding more power and thereby endangering the supremacy of the mother country. The _Banner_ is astonished by the unblus.h.i.+ng avowal of these doctrines, which had not been so openly proclaimed since the days of "High Church and Sacheverell," and which if acted upon would reduce the people to the level of abject slaves. Whence, it asks, comes this doctrine of the irresponsibility of kings? "It has been dug up from the tombs of Roman Catholic and High Church priests and of Jacobite bigots. Wherever it gets a footing it carries bloodshed and persecution in its train. It cramps the freedom of thought. It represses commercial enterprise and industry. It dries up the springs of the human understanding. To what does Britain owe all her greatness but to that free range of intellectual exertion which prompted Watt and Arkwright in their wonderful discoveries, which carried Anson and Cook round the globe, and which enabled Newton to scale the heavens?

Is the dial to be put back? Must the world once more adopt the doctrine that the people are made for kings and not kings for the people? Where will this treason to the British Const.i.tution find the slightest warrant in the Word of G.o.d? We know that power alone proceeds from G.o.d, the very air we breathe is the gift of His bounty, and whatever public right is exercised from the most obscure elective franchise to the king upon his throne is derived from Him to whom we must account for the exercise of it. But does that accountability take away or lessen the political obligations of the social compact?--a.s.suredly not."

This style of controversy was typical of the time. Tories drew from the French Revolution warnings against the heedless march of democracy. Reformers based arguments on the "glorious revolution of 1688." A bill for the secularization of King's College was denounced by Bishop Strachan, the stalwart leader of the Anglicans, in language of extraordinary vehemence. The bill would hold up the Christian religion to the contempt of wicked men, and overturn the social order by unsettling property. Placing all forms of error on an equality with truth, the bill represented a principle "atheistical and monstrous, destructive of all that was pure and holy in morals and religion." To find parallels for this madness, the bishop referred to the French Revolution, when the Christian faith was abjured, and the G.o.ddess of Reason set up for wors.h.i.+p; to pagan Rome, which, to please the natives she had conquered, "condescended to a.s.sociate their impure idolatries with her own."

These writings are quoted not merely as ill.u.s.trations of extravagance of language. The language was the natural outcome of an extraordinary situation. The bishop was not a voice crying in the wilderness; he was a power in politics as well as in the Church, and had, as executive councillor, taken an important part in the government of the country.

He was not making extravagant pretensions, but defending a position actually held by his Church, a position which fell little short of absolute domination. Religious equality was to be established, a great endowment of land converted from sectarian to public purposes, and a non-sectarian system of education created. In this work Brown played a leading part, but before it could be undertaken it was necessary to vindicate the right of the people to self-government.

In November, 1843, the resignation of Metcalfe's ministers created a crisis which soon absorbed the energy of the Browns and eventually led to the establishment of the _Globe_. In the issue of December 8th, 1843, the principles of responsible government are explained, and the _Banner_ gives its support to the ministers. It cannot see why less confidence should be bestowed by a governor-general in Canada than by a sovereign in the British empire. It deplores the rupture and declares that it still belongs to no political party. It has no liking for "Democracy," a word which even Liberals at that time seemed to regard with horror. It asks Presbyterians to stand fast for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty. It exhorts the people of Canada to be firm and patient and to let no feeling of disappointment lead their minds to republicanism. Those who would restrict the liberties of Canada also dwell on the evils of republicanism, but they are the very people who would bring it to pa.s.s. The _Banner's_ ideal is a system of just and equal government. If this is pursued, a vast nation will grow up speaking the same language, having the same laws and customs, and bound to the mother country by the strongest bonds of affection. The _Banner_, which had at first described itself as independent in party politics, soon found itself drawn into a struggle which was too fierce and too momentous to allow men of strong convictions to remain neutral. We find politics occupying more and more attention in its columns, and finally on March 5th, 1844, the _Globe_ is established as the avowed ally of Baldwin and Lafontaine, and the advocate of responsible government. It will be necessary to explain now the nature of the difference between Metcalfe and his ministers.

CHAPTER II

METCALFE AND THE REFORMERS

The Browns arrived in Canada in the period of reconstruction following the rebellion of 1837-8. In Lord Durham's Report the rising in Lower Canada was attributed mainly to racial animosity--"two nations warring in the bosom of a single state"--"a struggle not of principles but of races." The rising in Upper Canada was attributed mainly to the ascendency of the "family compact"--a family only in the official sense. "The bench, the magistracy, the high offices of the episcopal church, and a great part of the legal profession, are filled by their adherents; by grant or purchase they have acquired nearly the whole of the waste lands of the province; they are all-powerful in the chartered banks, and till lately shared among themselves almost exclusively all offices of trust and profit. The bulk of this party consists, for the most part, of native born inhabitants of the colony, or of emigrants who settled in it before the last war with the United States; the princ.i.p.al members of it belong to the Church of England, and the maintenance of the claims of that Church has always been one of its distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics." Reformers discovered that even when they triumphed at the polls, they could not break up this combination, the executive government remaining constantly in the hands of their opponents. They therefore agitated for the responsibility of the executive council to the legislative a.s.sembly.

Lord Durham's remedy was to unite Upper and Lower Canada, and to grant the demand for responsible government. He hoped that the union would in time dispose of the racial difficulty. Estimating the population of Upper Canada at four hundred thousand, the English inhabitants of Lower Canada at one hundred and fifty thousand, and the French at four hundred and fifty thousand, "the union of the two provinces would not only give a clear English majority, but one which would be increased every year by the influence of English immigration; and I have little doubt that the French, when once placed by the legitimate course of events and the working of natural causes, in a minority, would abandon their vain hopes of nationality."

The future mapped out by Lord Durham for the French-Canadians was one of benevolent a.s.similation. He under-estimated their tenacity and their power of adapting themselves to new political conditions. They not only retained their distinctive language and customs, but gained so large a measure of political power that in time Upper Canada complained that it was dominated by its partner. The union was effected soon after the report, but the granting of responsible government was long delayed. From the submission of Lord Durham's Report to the time of Lord Elgin, the question of responsible government was the chief issue in Canadian politics. Lord Durham's recommendations were clear and specific. He maintained that harmony would be restored "not by weakening but strengthening the influence of the people on its government; by confining within much narrower bounds than those hitherto allotted to it, and not by extending, the interference of the imperial authorities on the details of colonial affairs." The government must be administered on the principles that had been found efficacious in Great Britain. He would not impair a single prerogative of the Crown, but the Crown must submit to the necessary consequences of representative inst.i.tutions, and must govern through those in whom the representative body had confidence.

These principles are now so well established that it is hard to realize how bold and radical they appeared in 1839. Between that time and 1847, the British government sent out to Canada three governors, with various instructions. Whatever the wording of these instructions was, they always fell short of Durham's recommendations, and always expressed a certain reluctance to entrusting the government of Canada unreservedly to representatives of the people.

From 1842 to 1846 the government in Great Britain was that of Sir Robert Peel, and it was that government which set itself most strongly against the granting of autonomy to Canada. It was Conservative, and it probably received from correspondents in Canada a good deal of misinformation and prejudiced opinion in regard to the aims of the Reformers. But it was a group of men of the highest character and capacity, concerning whom Gladstone has left on record a remarkable testimony. "It is his conviction that in many of the most important rules of public policy, that government surpa.s.sed generally the governments which have succeeded it, whether Liberal or Conservative. Among them he would mention purity in patronage, financial strictness, loyal adherence to the principle of public economy, jealous regard to the rights of parliament, a single eye to the public interest, strong aversion to extension of territorial responsibilities, and a frank admission of the rights of foreign countries as equal to those of their own."

With this high estimate of the general character of the Peel government must be coupled the undoubted fact that it entirely misunderstood the situation in Canada, gave its support to the party of reaction, and needlessly delayed the establishment of self-government. We may attribute this in part to the distrust occasioned by the rebellion; in part to the use of partisan channels of information; but under all this was a deeper cause--inability to conceive of such a relation as exists between Great Britain and Canada to-day. In that respect Peel and his colleagues resembled most of the public men of their time. They could understand separation; they could understand a relation in which the British government and its agents ruled the colonies in a kindly and paternal fas.h.i.+on; but a union under which the colonies were nations in all but foreign relations pa.s.sed their comprehension. When the colonies asked for complete self-government it was supposed that separation was really desired.

Some were for letting them go in peace. Others were for holding them by political and commercial bonds. Of the latter cla.s.s, Stanley, colonial secretary under Peel, was a good type. He believed in "strong" governors; he believed in a system of preferential trade between Great Britain and the colonies, and his language might have been used, with scarcely any modification, by the Chamberlain party in the recent elections in Great Britain. When, in 1843, he introduced the measure giving a preference to Canadian wheat, he expressed the hope that it would restore content and prosperity to Canada; and when that preference disappeared with the Corn Laws, he declared that the basis of colonial union was destroyed.

From the union to September, 1842, no French-Canadian name appears in a Canadian government. French-Canadians were deeply dissatisfied with the terms of the union; there was a strong reluctance to admitting them to any share of power, and they complained bitterly that they were politically ostracized by Sydenham, the first governor. His successor, Bagot, adopted the opposite policy, and earned the severe censure of the government at home.

On August 23rd, 1842, Sir Robert Peel wrote to Lord Stanley in terms which indicated a belief that Governor Bagot was experiencing great difficulty in carrying on the government. He spoke of a danger of French-Canadians and Radicals, or French-Canadians and Conservatives, combining to place the government in a minority. He suggested various means of meeting the danger, and said, "I would not voluntarily throw myself into the hands of the French party through fear of being in a minority."

Before instructions founded on this letter could reach the colony, the governor had acted, "throwing himself," in the words of Peel's biographer, "into the hands of the party tainted by disaffection."

What had really happened was that on September 16th, 1842, the Canadian government had been reconstructed, the princ.i.p.al change being the introduction of Lafontaine and Baldwin as its leading members.

This action aroused a storm in Canada, where Bagot was fiercely a.s.sailed by the Tories for his so-called surrender to rebels. And that view was taken also in England.

On October 18th, 1842, Mr. Arbuthnot wrote to Sir Robert Peel: "The Duke [Wellington] has been thunderstruck by the news from Canada.

Between ourselves, he considers what has happened as likely to be fatal to the connection with England; and I must also, in the very strictest confidence, tell you that he dreads lest it should break up the cabinet here at home."

On October 21st, Sir Robert Peel wrote to Lord Stanley, pointing out the danger of the duke's strong and decisive condemnation: "In various quarters the Duke of Wellington denouncing the arrangement as a tame surrender to a party tainted with treason, would produce an impression most dangerous to the government, if it could get over the effects produced by the first announcement of his retirement, on the ground of avowed difference of opinion." After reading Sir Charles Bagot's explanations, he admitted that the governor's position was embarra.s.sing. "Suppose," he said in a subsequent letter, "that Sir C.

Bagot was reduced to such difficulties that he had no alternative but to take the best men of the French-Canadian party into his councils, and that it was better for him to do this before there was a hostile vote; still, the manner in which he conducted his negotiations was a most unwise one. He makes it appear to the world that he courted and rejoiced in the necessity for a change in his councils." On October 24th the Duke of Wellington wrote expressing his agreement with Peel, and adding: "However, it appears to me that we must consider the arrangement as settled and adopted by the legislature of Canada. It will remain to be considered afterwards what is to be done with Sir Charles Bagot and with his measures."