The Hon. Alexander Mackenzie : his life and times

Front matter

from

the estate of

J. Stuart Fleming

Introduction

HE history of an individual is often the history of a nation. The domination of a single mind may determine for centuries the course of a nation’s life. The mere statement of this proposition calls up such names as Cromwell, Chatham, Peel.

The writer of biography is not, however, an historian, He has to do with the forces which make history rather than with history itself. He has to look from the effect to the cause — from the cleft sea to the wondrous rod in the leader’s hand. The effect of social environment on the subject of his narrative, the influence upon him of education, of business, of wealth or of poverty, he is bound to consider ; but while doing so he is ever conscious of the fact that many millions of the race whose biographies, happily, have not been written, were similarly conditioned. He finds that thousands of American citizens toiled upon the farm and split rails as did Abraham Lincoln ; yet only one of these thousands became President of the United States. Scotland had generations of peasant ploughmen ; yet only one was a Robert Burns. England produced many novelists and brilliant adventurers ; yet only one ever became Premier. Why this discrimination is what constantly occurs to the biographer. Is it owing to native

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talent ? If so, how did that talent first express itself ? How was it first discovered ? Or, was success owing to some adventitious circumstance, which would be equally effective in securing distinction for the many thousands whose names have passed into oblivion?

The subject of this memoir was not presented to the world as an object of admiration, because of ancestral lineage or rank. No doubt his presence gladdened his Highland home, as such “ sweet pledges of immortality ” gladden other homes. At his father’s fireside, or at the parish school, he was like other boys. It seems no one in early life smoothed down his flaxen curls, and whispered in his ear, prophetically, the story of his future greatness. Not even when toiling in the “bothy” with his fellow masons did any prescient comrade see in him the germs of statesmanship ; and yet there must have been at work even in those early days that hidden growth of mind and character, which afterwards developed into a great leader of public opinion. How strange is destiny ! See in the humble stonemason, shaping, with mallet and chisel, the rough granite of his native country into the stately column or the well-proportioned capital, a future Premier of Canada, shaping the policy of a great country, and giving it an enduring name among the nations of the world, and explain in advance, if you can, how it is to be brought about.

Mr. Mackenzie’s early days in Canada were as uneventful as his Scottish life. Like thousands of others, who clambered over the bulwarks of an emigrant ship to seek subsistence in the colonies, he came unheralded. His was no well-filled purse. He had no letters of introduction to men of wealth or influence. He bowed at no man’s door for preferment. But though his wealth did not consist in current coin of the realm, yet he was not poor. He had a trade ; he had health ;

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he had self-reliance ; he had energy ; he had character ; and with such possessions who would call him poor ? Without waiting for anybody to take him by the hand, he applied himself to his trade. What he thought of his new home at that time, no one can now tell. It may be he often longed for his native hills — for the dreamy twilight of the summer months — for a sight of his Scottish home— -for his friends. Or it may be, that he saw the great possibilities of the land of his adoption, although still held by nature in its rugged grasp. Whatever may have been his thoughts, certain it is, he was no laggard. “ Whatsoever his hand found to do, he did it wuth his might,” unobtrusively and unostentatiously. For nearly twenty years after his arrival in this country, he was, in the strictest sense of the term, a working-man — all honour to him. But, while toiling with his hands, his mind was active. He combined with the dignity of labour, the thoughtfulness of the student. He felt he was a citizen, not an alien, and that as such his country had claims upon him.

The questions engaging public attention were peculiarly congenial to a man of his temperament. Upper Canada, which contained the great bulk of the English-speaking population, had just been united to Lower Canada as a counterpoise to the influence of the French race. Responsible government, the great balance-wheel of the British constitution, was on its trial, and, in spite of partisan governors and cabinets, promised well. The commercial growth of the country sought freer channels with the United States in the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854. Religious liberty and equality were clamouring ior the secularization of the clergy reserves and the abolition of rectories. The advocates of a broader education were appealing for the establishment of free schools. Great issues were before the country — issues which, to Mr. Mackenzie, were fraught with

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momentous results, and which, no doubt, gave the direction to his political career. As a Nonconformist in Scotland, knowing and feeling the disabilities under which Nonconformists laboured, not only in the United Kingdom, but in every colony of the Empire, he could, without reserve, take up the policy of the Liberal party on that question.

His great leader, Mr. Brown, had said in 1851 : “ By means “ of Church Endowments, church has been set against church, “family against family, sectarian hatred has been fostered, “ religion has been brought into contempt by the scramble for “ public plunder, and infidelity has been in no small degree “ promoted by the sight of men preaching one day the worth- “ lessness of lucre, and battling on the next to clutch a little of “ that same commodity, though gained by the grossest partiality “ and injustice — and all this to serve the cause of religion.”

With these sentiments he heartily coincided. To fight the battles of the Liberal party, then, was simply to express his own convictions. And every one who heard him speak in. those days felt that he was not the mere champion of liberalism, but an embodiment of liberalism itself.

Long before Mr. Mackenzie entered Parliament, his ability as a debater was recognized by all who knew him. His stunning blows and corrosive humour were felt and feared by every antagonist With a courage that never quailed, with a logic as inexorable as one of Euclid’s demonstrations, and in language, simple, exact and forcible, none the less effective because of its Scottish accent, he would tear into tatters the arguments of the enemy. The interruptions of his opponents but assisted in their discomfiture, for he was a master at repartee, and no one ever crossed swords with him without realizing that he had a foeman worthy of his steel.

But these were only the training days of the young athlete ;

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he had not reached the maturity of his power, although he entered Parliament in his thirty-ninth year. The great demand upon his time and physical strength by his vocation made it impossible for him to give much time to public matters. Hio whole attention was now, however, at least for a considerable portion of the year, to be given to politics. He was brought face to face with men who directed the public opinion of the day. He had a parliamentary library at his elbow, and it remained to be seen whether the platform champion of the rural school-house and the dimly-lighted town-hall would hold his own with the Ruperts of parliamentary debate. His friends had not long to wait. Modestly, but with an unaffected consciousness of power, he took part in the debates ; and parliament, with its traditional consideration for young members, heard him with respect.

His advancement was unusually rapid. In 1864, he was an active member of the party caucus. In 1865, he was asked by Sir John Macdonald to join his Government. In 1867, he was the acknowledged leader of the Liberal party. And, in 1873, just eleven years after first subscribing to the roll as a member of parliament, he was Premier of Canada. Few men, even with the assistance of wealth and social position, can furnish such a record. Of him it may be truly said ;

“We build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,

And we mount to the summit round by round.”

The writers of Mr. Mackenzie’s biography have sought to show the public what manner of man he was, by simply stating how he conducted himself in the various positions in which he was placed. His career from the time he entered parliament until he ceased to be the leader of his party in 1881 supplies a

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sufficient test of every quality of head and heart which our readers can have any desire to know.

As a private member of parliament he was attentive to his constituents, considerate towards his friends, and manly and frank with his opponents. He sought political support because of the principles which he represented. He paid no man for his franchise. He was under personal obligations to no man for his vote.

As a representative on the floor of parliament, no one could have served his constituents better. While he regarded himself as the representative of the whole country, and not as a. delegate from any section, the records of parliament show how attentive he was to all matters of local interest. Few members of parliament were more constant in their attendance in the House, and few did more committee work.

Mr. Mackenzie’s relations with his fellow members were generally cordial : although pugnacious, he was not quarrelsome, and seldom, if ever, struck the first blow. He acted on the advice given by Polonius to Laertes, his son :

“ Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in,

Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.”

In some of these encounters it happened that blows were struck, the stinging effect of which was felt for a few days. He never allowed, however, the combats of the platform to degenerate into a personal feud with an opponent. Even in his bitterest attacks there was no malice. It was apparent that his object was a public, not a personal one. “ To strike below the waistcoat,” to use Lord Duflerin’s expression, was a thing he despised.

Mr. Mackenzie was apt in literary quotation, and exceedingly well read. The religious discussions of his early days

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in Scotland led to much theological reading on his part, and few men were better informed as to the differences which divided the various Protestant denominations of Great Britain and Canada.

In the political history of the British Empire he was also well-informed, and could refer with great readiness to the different administrations of the present century, and to the views and sentiments of the great leaders of political thought.

His cast of mind was eminently logical. He would have made his mark, had he been trained for that purpose, as a professor of logic, even in a Scotch university. His readiness to detect a flaw in an opponent’s argument was almost phenomenal, and his skill in pointing out the inconsistencies and incompatibilities of the positions taken during a debate was one of the sources of his great strength. No member of parliament since the Hon. Geo. Brown’s time was more effective in the use of the tu quoque form of argument than Mr. Mackenzie. An opponent might consider himself fortunate if he escaped being confronted with his previous record, on any question in which he had been in the slightest degree inconsistent.

In the arrangement of a speech, the same logical power which shattered an enemy’s argument was exercised. His common expression, “ and more than that,” would show almost „ as on profile the steps by which he proposed to lead his hearers to a climax. With him, the less important invariably preceded the more important, and his conclusion, like the key of the arch, fastened the whole structure.

As a speaker, Mr. Mackenzie, if not fluent, as that quality in speaking is ordinarily understood, had no difficulty in finding the right word by which to express his thoughts, and he always spoke with apparent deliberation. Indeed

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so accurate and deliberate were his speeches, that he was one of the few parliamentarians of the day who could with credit be reported verbatim. In the destructive rattle of his artillery he had no superior in the House of Commons.

Mr. Mackenzie’s power over an audience was very great. His intensity and earnestness at once ri vetted attention, and his distinct enunciation made it easy to follow him. He was never vociferous, even under excitement, and never impatient under criticism. If asked a question or interrupted, his answer came instantaneously, and one answer was generally sufficient for most questioners.

His Scottish humor gave him great power. It was often sarcastic — for his own sake, perhaps too often so. When turned against an opponent with all the force with which he could command it, it was destructive as a live electric wire. When playful, it was as amusing as a chapter from Dean Ramsay.

In conducting election campaigns, although Mr. Mackenzie had a great deal of confidence in the press and the platform, he had still greater confidence in organization. His experience in this respect, as secretary of the Hon. Geo. Brown’s committee, before he entered public life, and his subsequent experience in his own elections, impressed him with the importance of this kind of work. In writing to a friend in 1873 he says : “ I am sure that a close organization and canvass are of infinitely more importance than meetings. Meetings do not accomplish much compared with canvassing and organizing, and a resolute eftort to have every man out on polling day.”

When meetings were held, however, like Rufus Choate with the jury, he was bound that they should be carried in his favor. The moral effect upon his opponents of a complete

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rout upon the platform he valued very highly. It is safe to say that his large majority in 1867 was owing as much to the Hon. Wm. MacDougall’s weakness in his hands as to party organization.

As leader of his party in Opposition, Mr. Mackenzie was courageous and aggressive. Whenever he took a position on any question, he was prepared to defend it with all his force. He took no pleasure in expediency. What he advocated was right, because it was right, and not simply expedient ; and when a certain course was determined upon, he turned neither to the right hand nor to the left, no matter what obstacles lay in the way. He never studied, apparently, the modern methods of “wire pulling” and “ pipe-laying,” which are so much depended upon in party warfare. How to evade an issue or how to appear to be supporting a movement, while he was in reality opposing it, or how to lead two opposing factions to believe that he sympathized with each and opposed the other, was a political accomplishment which he never studied. If he moved a resolution, it was so worded as to mean what it said ; and if he made a speech, it was so expressed as to be incapable of two interpretations. Had he been less straightforward, he might have coquetted with the Nova Scotians in 1870, or with Manitoba in 1871, or with ■Quebec during the Riel agitation.

To have maintained the confidence of the Liberal party as acting leader from 1867 to 1873. in the presence of many other distinguished men, was, in itself, a great achievement. It may be fairly assumed that men like Holton and Dorion would not have followed any leader of inferior ability.

Turning to him next, as Premier, there is much in his character to admire. His transfer from one side of the House to the other made no change in his manner. The First Minister B

IN PRODUCTION.

of Canada directing the legislation of one of England’s greatest colonies was quite as unpretentious as the man who yesterday was the leader of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition.

In his new position his responsibilities were increased. Leadership now involved much more than managing and directing party warfare. He had not only to keep his party in hand, but he had to maintain the dignity and honor of parliament. His voice was the most potent voice in British North America. How to use the power with which he was invested, to win the confidence and respect of the people of Canada, was the problem before him.

The leader of a Government requires to be a man of great decision of character, firmness, resource, good temper, and above all, of patience. The latter quality was said by the younger Pitt to supersede, in importance, all other qualities of a leader. To occupy the time of the House in protracted discussions, which could serve no useful purpose, was doubtless annoying to a man, every moment of whose time was more than fully occupied. And yet, experience shows that to resist the disposition of members of parliament to continue a debate, prolongs rather than shortens it. An Opposition is apt to do the very thing that is distasteful to the Government.

Though not open to the charge of impatience, Mr. Mackenzie sometimes failed in answering questions put to him by opponents in a conciliatory spirit. The soft answer which turns away wrath was not always at hand, and instead of it was used, sometimes to his own disadvantage, the sarcasm which sears and scorches and provokes to enmity and retaliation.

To badger and banter a Government is the peculiar privilege of an Opposition. The Opposition who confronted Mr. Mac-

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kenzie were possessed of large powers in this direction. Their leader, Sir John Macdonald, was an adept at parliamentary fence, and knowing, as he did, the position of every public question when the Government came into power, he was able from year to year, to catechize the Government fully as to the different phases which such questions assumed. There were other members of the Opposition who had made a study of the details of each department of the public service, and who were most irritating, and very often unreasonable, in their criticisms. That human nature would occasionally resent such attacks, was not to be wondered at, and if Mr. Mackenzie threw himself with all his force upon some troublesome Oppositionists, he might very well be excused.

Notwithstanding these circumstances, Mr. Mackenzie’s leadership was dignified and judicial. The views of the Government he always presented with frankness; and where the honor of parliament, or any great national interest, was at stake, his manner plainly indicated the noble instincts of his nature. He never lowered the tone of the debate by act or speech ; nor, so far as he could prevent it, did he allow parliament to degenerate into a mob.

Mr. Mackenzie strongly believed that it was greatly to the advantage of Canada to continue her present connection with the Empire. So long as the colonial office did not wantonly interfere in our domestic affairs, we had, in his opinion, all the advantages practically of self-government, and, in addition, the prestige of sharing in the honor and dignity of the British Empire. The independence of Canada, even in the remote future, was a possibility which he seems never to have entertained ; while annexation to the United States involved such considerations of national weakness and faintheartedness as to be unworthy of a moment's consideration.

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“ The fierce light that beats upon the throne” allows no distinction to be drawn between the private life of a First Minister and his public presence under the argus eye of the Press. The duty of dispensing hospitality, as became the First Minister, was discharged with a liberality which left nothing to be desired. As a host, he was entertaining and agreeable, and no one left his table without pleasant recollections of his courtesy and his attention.

Mr. Mackenzie’s biography, which is in perspective a history of the Liberal party during the last thirty years, contains much to inspire and encourage the Young Liberals of Canada. Though not a Gladstone or a Pitt, or perhaps not in all respects equal to Mr. Brown, he was nevertheless a Canadian whose services to his country should not be forgotten. “ To break his birth’s invidious bar, and breast the blows of circumstance,” and to advance step by step until by the favor of his countrymen he became First Minister of the State, represent qualities, in his case particularly, worthy of imitation. He who wears the white flower of a blameless life through all the vicissitudes of time and place, he who listens to the voice of conscience in the midst of temptations, and pursues the path of honor with heroic self-denial in the discharge of every public duty, is too valuable a representative of the better elements of Canadian politics to be allowed to pass from memory with the procession which bears him to his grave.

THE AUTHORS.

August 31st, 1S92.

Contents

CHAPTER I. page 33

ALEXANDER MACKENZIE’S YOUTH.

Record of Mr. Mackenzie’s Birth — His Paternal Ancestry — His Father’s Loss of Fortune — “ Peregrinities ” — The Memorial Tablet — The Mother’s Family — The Parents’ Endowments — Mr. Mackenzie’s Birthplace — His “ Schooling ” — The Old Clockmaker Schoolmaster — His Hard Necessity — He Learns a Trade.

Chapter I. Alexander Mackenzie’s Youth

Record of Mr. Mackenzie’s Birth — His Paternal Ancestry — His Father’s Loss of Fortune — “ Peregrinities ” — The Memorial Tablet — The Mother’s Family — The Parents’ Endowments — Mr. Mackenzie’s Birthplace — His “Schooling”— The Old Clockmaker Schoolmaster — His Hard Necessity— He Learns a Trade.

LITTLE over seventy years ago there was horn in a Scottish village, to parents in unpretentious circumstances, a lad who, like Clive, was destined in after life to play an important part in a wide field in another hemisphere— whose destiny it was realise in his own person, and in our own day, the fairy-hook romance of “ Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London.” This lad was Alexander Mackenzie, Prime Minister of Canada. He came to Canada, in 1842, a working stonecutter; he returned from Canada, in 1875, at the head of its Government. In a letter descriptive of the voyage home

LIFE OF THE IION. ALEXANDER MACKENZIE.

in the latter year, he himself marks the strange contrast in his position and fortune. “ Leaving Quebec,” he says, “ we had a delightful sail down the St. Lawrence, that queen of rivers. My mind went back to the time when, as a nameless mason lad, I had sailed up that same river, 33 years before, the country and future all unknown to me. Little did I think that I should ever return, as I did to-day, full of responsibility, if not of honor.” “ His,” says the London Times , “ was a remarkable career. He rose from toiling in a stoneyard to rule the greatest territory in the British Empire.” “To-day,” remarked the great French journalist, Paul de Cazes, when referring to Mr. Mackenzie’s visit to the Queen, “ the poor mechanic of the past is welcomed and feasted at the most aristocratic court in Europe, while, for the proud nobles who surround him in the gilded salons of St. James, his lowly origin is disguised under the imprint of ability stamped upon the Canadian statesman.”

He was the third son of Alexander Mackenzie and Mary Stewart Fleming. As annalist of the family, his father has methodically recorded in a small book the domestic events as they occurred. The book is now in possession of the eldest son, and from it the following extract is taken : “ 1822, at Logierait, Monday, 28th day of January. Born to me at a quarter past twelve, Sunday night, my third son. Baptized on Friday, 8th of February. Named Alexander.” There were ten children born to these parents — all sons. They were named Robert, Hope Fleming, Alexander, Thomas, Donald, John, Adam Stewart, James, Charles and Daniel. Thomas, Donald and Daniel died in infancy.

The father died at Dunkeld in 1836, aged 52. Six years after his death, the son, Alexander, came to Canada ; he was followed one year subsequently by Hope, and four years after

ALEXANDER MACKENZIE'S YOUTH.

by the other brothers and their mother. On February 16th, 1S61, at the age of 66, the mother, whose maiden name was Mary Stewart Fleming, died in Sarnia, surrounded by her seven children. She lies buried in the cemetery there, in the midst of five of those sons; the only ones now living being the eldest and the youngest, Robert and Charles.

It is our main purpose in these pages to follow the career of Alexander, both in Scotland and Canada, and as the startingplace is a little earlier in point of time, let us see what may be found borne on a couple of the stems of the genealogical tree. And first, as relates to the ancestry of the father.

The name of the paternal great-grandfather of the Canadian Mackenzies was Donald, a Ross-shire Highlander, who came south to Perthshire, where he married Margaret Ferguson, and where, in 1742, their grandfather, Malcolm, was born, on the banks of the Tummel, near its confluence with the Garry, at the foot of the famous Pass of Killiecrankie. The families of Donald and of Malcolm, who married Catherine McDonald, of Strath tay, all remained in Perthshire ; here they were born, and here they died, and were buried — Donald and his generation in the churchyard of the parish of Moulin ; Malcolm and his in Logierait, where the elder Alexander and his three little children also lie — all of two generations and part of the third sleeping their peaceful sleep in this most beautiful part of the Perthshire Highlands.

Malcolm Mackenzie was a millwright and miller,, and, as we learn from the original document now before us, signed by the Duke, leased from His Grace, John, Duke of Athol, “ the miln, miln-croft, houses, yards, and appurtenances thereto belonging of Kincraigie, together with the thirlage,” the “ thirlage” being defined by Webster as ".the right which the owner of a mill possesses, by contract or law, to compel the tenants of a certain district to bring all their grain to his mill for grinding.”

In this old mill of Kincraigie, haunted with all manner of “spooks,” and which we have heard Mr. Mackenzie say he never went past when a boy except on the run, and then with a feeling of dread, as one pursued by the sheeted dead, Alexander, the miller’s son, was born in the year 1784, and he, like his father, became skilled in the use of tools. He served an apprenticeship as a carpenter, and during the period of feverish, activity in the fitting and refitting of battleships in the early part of the century, he found profitable employment as ship-joiner at Portsmouth. But he was much more than a mere mechanic; he was an excellent architectural draughtsman. After Waterloo he returned to the former scenes in Perthshire, where he superintended the erection of manorial houses, and took contracts of his own. He was of an adventurous and enterprising turn of mind, and branched out into other undertakings. The right to cut, chiefly for the tan bark, oak timber in the coppices of Scotland, is let by the landed lairds every twenty-one years. A good deal of employment is given to the people in this way, and before the close of the French wars large profits were derived from these enterprises. Alexander, as appears by his diary, engaged in them. But the war expenditures having now been stopped, great financial distress came upon the people, and this once prosperous man met with such considerable reverses that he never regained his former good fortune. Henceforth, with his increasing family, life was to him a stern reality, which impelled him to make frequent movements from place to place in search for the means of bettering his circumstances.

He married in 1817, when he was living in Logierait. In the year 1825, the family were in Edinburgh, where, he says.

Parish Church and Manse, Logierait, (the Birth-place of Mr. Mackenzie)

ALEXANDER MACKENZIE’S YOUTH .

“ my sons Robert, Hope F. and Alexander, had the measles. Robert and Alexander got them easily over, bnt Hope for several days was considered dangerous, having been bled, leeched, and blistered ” — from which pleasant and heroic treatment, as well as the measles, he at length, after a severe struggle, miraculously recovered ! On the 10th of March, 1826, it is written that the two “sons Robert and Hope Fleming went from here to Cluny, Strathtay, for some time to attend school and learn the Gaelic.” They had missed acquiring the Gaelic as an ordinary vehicle of talk, although their father and mother habitually conversed together in that ancient tongue.

“ Perth, Nov. 26, 1827. Arrived here with my wife, and Alexander, my son.” “ 1829, May 15. Removed from Perth to Pitlochry.”

In the summer of 1834 they removed to Dunkeld, where, to borrow an expressive word, Alexander Mackenzie’s “ peregrinities ” ended, for here, in 1836, he died. He was buried at Logierait, where Malcolm, his father, who lived to the advanced age of 94, had already been interred. Like all his race, Alexander was a sober-minded, God-fearing man, and the certificate is preserved which gave him warrant for admission to the Lord’s table in Glasgow at the age of 21. We copy from the original paper now before us the certificate of church membership given to this couple, the father and mother of the Canadian Mackenzies, by the session clerk of Logierait : “ These do certify that the bearers hereof, Alexander Mackenzie and Mary Fleming, his wife, have been residenters in this parish for nearly twenty years, always behaving themselves regularly, under a fair character, and free from any grounds of church censure, in full communion with the church, an l may be freely admitted into any Christian congregation, or society, wherever they may happen to reside. Given by appointment of the kirk session of Logierait, the twenty -seventh day of March, eighteen hundred and twenty-five years.