William Lyon MacKenzie

Front matter

Iparftman lEMtion THE MAKERS OF CANADA

VOL. XI

THE MAKERS OF CANADA

Preface

Canada would, ere now, either have been lost to the British Crown, or, ruled by the sword, would have been stunted in her growth, her population poor, discontented, and ready to seek the protection of another power. The amelioration which the political institutions of Canada have undergone would probably have come in time, if there had been no insurrection, but it would not have come so soon ; and there is no reason to suppose that the province would yet have reached its present stage of advancement.

Being several thousands of miles distant when the insurrection and the frontier troubles took place, and having never been in Canada till several years after, I lie under the disadvantage of not having any personal recollection of what occurred in those stirring times. But considering the stores of materials and the sources of information at my command, perhaps this is no great loss ; certainly it will be more than compensated by the impartiality with which an unconcerned spectator can pass in review the events of that troubled period.

In the private documents in my possession, containing the secret history of the frontier movements, I found much that had never seen the light, including projects of invasion and insurrection of which the public has never had more than the vaguest notions. The use I have made of these documents will, I presume, not be regarded as unwarranted.

xv

I first saw Mackenzie in 1849, when he came from New York to Canada on a visit. Our differences of opinion on the politics of Canada during the last ten years have been notorious. Still I knew his real views perhaps better than any one else. In private he never concealed his hand from me, during the whole of that time. By the hour, when no third person was present, he would speak with great earnestness and animation of the claims of justice, the odiousness of oppression, and the foulness of corruption. The offer of office under the government was more than once obliquely— once, I think, directly — made to him after his return to Canada, and it always threw him into a fit of passion. He received it as an attempt to destroy his independence, or to shackle his freedom of action. A thousand times I have heard him protest that he would rather die of starvation than descend to any meanness, or be guilty of any act that would deprive him of that title to an unpurchasable patriot, which he deemed the best heritage he could bequeath to his children.

Charles Lindsey.

Toronto, 1862.

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Chapter I

THE PERIOD AND THE MAN HERE are many circumstances which give to the life, character and career of William Lyon Mackenzie a peculiar and almost pathetic interest, and which render them well worthy of a permanent record in the memoirs of the “ Makers of Canada.” They not only represent the strong mental and moral equipment of an individual — one of a race which has been identified with constitutional liberty and reform in all the oversea states of the Empire — but they also represent an important epoch in British colonial history. It was an epoch of political transition, and Mackenzie stands out in it conspicuously, a commanding and picturesque personality who did much to create, as well as to inspire and promote, the movement which made the transition one from an evil to a better state of things. He was a representative man of the period — a man of thought and resource who had a genius for successful political agitation1 — a man of action who, as a distinguished publicist has said, “ embodied the sentiment of his time ” in working towards political ideals in the State. If it be true that “ the types of men living at particular periods

1 “The greatest agitator that ever Upper Canada has had within her limits.” — D. B. Read, Q.C., The Rebellion of 1837 (1896), p. 122.

afford the best studies of history,” Mackenzie cannot be ignored by the historian.

The great interest which attaches to his life, especially in his years of strength and vigour, is derived from the fact that it extended over a period of political and critical unrest with the spirit and action of which he was completely identified. Mackenzie in those years had to be reckoned with, at every turn in the arena, by the men who governed; and he must be given a place by himself, but none the less a distinguished place, amidst the conflicting influences, and the strifes and antagonisms which, culminating in a civil war, wrought a revolution in the system of government in Canada, and thereafter in British colonial government everywhere. That was an issue which, it has been well said, “ evolved out of the discord of conflicting ideals, the foundations of a permanent and worthy settlement of the relations of the Crown to the colonies,” and “broadened, once for all, the lines of constructive statesmanship in all that relates to the colonial policy of England.”1 There probably never was a period in the history of this country when the two political parties were more sharply divided, and more clearly distinguished, upon a great public question. It was a comparatively small forum for such a debate; the cause was worthy of a greater tribunal than that to which the argument was

1 Stuart J. Reid, Life and Letters of Lord Durham (1906), Vol. ii, p. 156.

GOLDWIN SMITH’S SKETCH addressed. But the final judgment in the matter was momentous and far-reaching in its consequences. The principles which were laid down by the Reformers in that controversy, under the leadership of Mackenzie and his coadjutors, were those which were embodied by Lord Durham in his famous Report, and were subsequently crystallized into legislation by the parliament of Great Britain. They are the principles upon which the Australian commonwealth and the states of South Africa, as well as Canada, are governed to-day, and by which, in fact, in all the outlying dominions of the Crown, imperial unity is reconciled, and may continue to be reconciled, with complete self-government.

Mackenzie has been described as “a reformer ahead of his time,” as “ the stormy petrel ” of the ante-rebellion era in Upper Canada, and in other terms, less equivocal and less deserved, by the calumny which pursued him to his grave. Mr. Goldwin Smith’s portraiture of him is that of “a wiry and peppery little Scotchman, hearty in his love of public right, still more in his hatred of public wrong-doers, clever, brave, and energetic, but, as tribunes of the people are apt to be, far from cool-headed, sure-footed in his conduct, temperate in his language, or steadfast in his personal connections.”1

These references to Mackenzie’s personal qualities

1 Canada and the Canadian Question (1891), p. Ill, and character as a public man might easily be multiplied. He had at all times, even when political feeling ran high in the constituencies, friends and admirers amongst men of all parties. Speaking of his election for Haldimand, the first open constituency after his return from exile, when he defeated the late Hon. George Brown, the most formidable opponent he could have encountered, a prominent resident of that county stated, in a published interview, that “ Mackenzie had support from Conservatives as well as Reformers ; in fact, as I happen to know, he always had a great many warm Conservative friends, who admired his pluck as well as his independence and honesty.”1 * * 4 And referring to his election as first mayor of Toronto, a Conservative historian has written that “ the combined suffrages of his party supporters and of the moderate Tories placed him in the office of chief magistrate of the city. It has never been doubted that the choice then made was a good one. It is but fair to the memory of Mr. Mackenzie to say that, in all his political conduct and extravagances, he was not actuated by personal resentment. He was a determined advocate of reform, and in his political course made himself many enemies,

1 The Star newspaper, Toronto, December 27th, 1900. The interview was with Dr. Harrison, of Selkirk, Ontario, an ex-president of the Provincial Medical Association, and described as f‘a veteran

Liberal, one of the old guard, who has been president of the Reform

Association of his county.”

W. J. RATTRAY’S SKETCH

but they were not personal, but political enemies.”1

“ Mackenzie died, as he had lived, a poor man,” said one of the most brilliant writers on the Canadian press. “ Throughout his second political career, he was an ultra-Reformer, one might almost say an irreconcilable. Although he had seen enough of republicanism to dislike it, he remained a Radical to the last. Had he been so disposed, he might have taken office in the short-lived Brown- Dorion administration ; but he loved the freedom of his independent position, and would have proved restive in official harness. Whatever his faults of judgment and temper may have been, he was, beyond question, an honest, warm-hearted and generous man. That he should be a free lance in politics was to be expected from his antecedents and his temperament ; but there was always a bonhomie about him which made even those he opposed most strenuously his warmest

personal friends In looking back upon a

career so unfruitful on the surface, and so unprofitable to himself, the natural verdict will be that it was a failure. Still, when it is considered that he was the pioneer of reform, the first who formulated distinctly the principle of responsible government, among the first to advocate a confederation of the provinces, and, above all others, the man who infused political vitality into the electorate, we cannot say that he lived in vain. Like other harbingers of a freer time, he suffered that the community might enjoy the fruits of his labour, the recompense for his misfortunes. When responsible government was at length established, he was chafing as an exile in a foreign land. When he re-entered politics, the battle had been won, and others had reaped the reward. With all his faults, and he had many, no man has figured upon the political stage in Canada whose memory should be held in warmer esteem than William Lyon Mackenzie.”1

There is a measure of truth in all these descriptions, and in others of a similar character which might be recited. Reformers who are earnest and sincere are seldom other than “ahead of their time,” and one of the sacrifices which they have to make, if they are true to their ideals, is the sacrifice of “ personal connections,” and sometimes also of political friendships. History is full of examples of this species of independence and passion for an idea. Lord Durham, whose services to Canada can never be forgotten, and whose memory will ever be revered by the Canadian people, was, as a commoner, his biographer tells us, “ far in advance of his times.” The Whigs of that generation, his own

1 W. J. Rattray, The Scot in British North America (1881), Vol. ii, pp. 482, 483. Mr. Rattray, who is mentioned elsewhere in these pages, was a distinguished graduate of the University of Toronto, and a classmate of the late Chief Justice Thomas Moss, who used to speak of him as the ablest man within the range of his acquaintance. He died September 26th, 1883.

A MAN AHEAD OF HIS TIME political allies, did not share his desire for “sweeping reforms,” and especially his early endeavours to destroy the “ rotten boroughs ” of England. “He was often regarded by them with petulant impatience, and even as a thorn in their side, but he never wavered in his allegiance to what he regarded as the first conditions of progress, and he stood, all through the reign of George IV, like an incarnate conscience in the path of the official leaders of his party. . . . They were convinced that parliamentary reform had not yet come within the range of practical politics.”1 But all this did not deter him from breaking away from his personal and political alliances, and proposing a bill for the reform of parliament eleven years before it was carried, and before “ the new era of government by public opinion began ”

To say that Mackenzie was “a reformer ahead of his time,” is only to say, as the fact was, that he typified opinions in favour of a system of government, lines of policy, and methods of administration, which were in sharp and hostile contrast to those which were stubbornly, and at times oppressively, adhered to by his adversaries, and of which he was the uncompromising and implacable foe. Mackenzie’s ideas of civil government and administration were entirely opposed to those of the military and semi-military rulers who represented the Crown

1 Stuart J. Reid, Life and Letters of Lord Durham (1906), Vol. i, pp. 144-6.

in Upper Canada, and to those who, firmly entrenched in their offices and privileges and having the whole power and patronage of the executive at their command, were set about those men, during the most strenuous years of his career. But they were ideas which, although since carried out to the fullest extent, were all but dormant when he appeared on the scene. Mackenzie inspired them with life and vigour. His propaganda gave them a powerful hold on the public mind, and a momentum that was irresistible. It was his long, unselfish and self-sacrificing struggle, amidst enormous difficulties and against tremendous odds, which first aroused the people to a true sense of their citizenship, and to the real value of those free institutions which were their just heritage. And it was he who, though aided by other able men, unquestionably bore the brunt of the battle for constitutional reform.

In his course of action in regard to these things, Mackenzie did not always wait to see whether the principles which he espoused were practicable. He had the courage to advocate an opinion long before it was ripe for realization. What he believed to be good for the commonwealth he did not hesitate to say was good, and he supported it with all his might as a journalist, on the platform, and in parliament — brooking no opposition from friend or foe — whether public opinion was prepared for it or not. To this extent he was not what might be 8

NOT AN OPPORTUNIST

called a “practical man” — a charge which he sometimes had to meet — in politics. To this extent, also, he was “ ahead of his time” and inconstant in his “personal connections.” He was not of those who would support or oppose any proposal or measure on the principle of mere political expediency. He had in fact a scorn of expediency and a hatred of half-measures in the presence of justice. Neither did he oppose a measure at a particular time because it was impracticable, and support it only when it could be carried; but whatever his attitude, he could give, and almost invariably did give, practical reasons for his support or opposition. In all questions, great or small, involving honesty, purity and uprightness in public life, economy in the public expenditure, prudence and thrift in the preservation of the public domain, and a full recognition of the constitutional rights of the people, his voice and pen and action were never uncertain. These things lay close to his heart, and their opposites had his relentless hostility.

Mackenzie is also one of the “ old Liberals ” against whom party in its madness was wont to hurl relentlessly the taunt of disloyalty. How far the taunt was really deserved, the readers of this volume must be left to judge. Many of them may remember that the chiefs of the insurrection, and the great body of their friends and supporters, were still living when the famous apothegm of Junius was adopted as its motto by the leading Reform journal of Canada. Mackenzie believed .in the truth which it enunciated and acted on it. It was one of the articles of his creed that “the subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures.” He carried the doctrine to extremes ; but, as was said by the reviewer in dealing with the fact, one should not “ fail to see the group of events as it stands in its historic surroundings, and to judge the acts and actors with a fair and comprehensive reference to the circumstances of the period.”1 “Loyalty” in those days, if we may judge by some occurrences, was an equivocal and easily convertible virtue. The despatch of a colonial minister to the lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, making some concessions to the long-enduring people of the province, and dismissing two law-officers of the Family Compact for their tyrannical conduct — treatment which was mildness itself compared to the unremitting and, at times, brutal persecution to which Mackenzie was subjected — was sufficient to sap the “loyalty” of the Compact, and to call forth threats of alienation from “ the glorious Empire of their sires,” and of “ casting about for a new state of political existence.”2

Mackenzie never went further than this sort of “ veiled treason ” in his peaceable demands for

1 The Week , newspaper, November 19th, 1885.

2 “The legislative council treated the despatch with open contempt.” Goldwin Smith, Canada and the Canadian Question (1891), p. 14.

NOT AN ANNEXATIONIST

colonial self-government. He never was an annexationist as that term is now popularly understood ; he had no desire for union with the United States. Until hope of redress was crushed by absolute despair, no public man of his time gave stronger proofs of his attachment to the British Crown and British institutions, or laboured more earnestly to preserve imperial authority over the Canadian provinces. That, prior to the outbreak, he lost faith in the remedial justice of the government as then administered ; and that he aimed to deprive the Crown and its colonial representatives and ministers of the authority which they debased and abused, and to hand it over, with proper restrictions, to the representatives of the people, goes without saying. That for this purpose he joined in a temporary appeal for aid to some of the American people, is equally true ; but there is no evidence worthy of the name that annexation of the provinces to the neighbouring states was his immediate or ultimate goal. His last message to the emissaries of Sir Francis Bond Head, while standing in armed resistance to the oligarchy, was “independence and a convention to arrange details.” “Mr. Mackenzie,” said a Conservative writer, the author of several historical works dealing with that early period, “was not an admirer of the American constitution. On the contrary, he preferred the British constitution, and would have been satisfied with that constitution enforced in its entirety, including responsibility to the elective House and so to the people, instead of its responsibility to the Crown, as it prevailed in Canada.”1 “He was a constitutional Reformer; yet his programme was certainly moderate enough. He was a staunch friend to British connection, opposed to the abortive Union Bill of 1818, and one of the first to propose a British North American confederation.” 2

The question of loyalty involved in the rebellion itself is no longer the debatable question it once was. There is a great deal, as we shall see, in connection with the circumstances leading up to that event, to palliate and excuse it, if not to justify it absolutely. And, judging by the later literature on the subject, controversial though some of it may be, this is the view which is now all but universally entertained. In any case the responsibility for the insurrection, deplorable as it was, should not be made to rest on Reformers, who, after long years of heroic but fruitless effort to effect a change in the system of government by constitutional means, were at last goaded by their rulers into asserting the justness of their cause by physical force. The history of political agitations which have culminated in great political reforms, or in revolutions which have compelled reforms, proves that, in nearly every

!D. B. Read, Q.C., The Rebellion of 1837 (1896), p. 162.

2 W. J. Rattray, The Scot in British North America (1881), Vol. ii, p. 455.

REBELLION OFTEN NECESSARY instance, the dominant power or party against whom the agitation has been directed has refused to believe in the popular demand until revolution either actually came, or was no longer capable of being resisted.

“ History proves that the rights of constitutional liberty, which British subjects enjoy to-day, have only been obtained by agitation, and, in some cases, by the exercise of force. Magna Charta, the greatest bulwark of British liberty, was forced by the barons from an unwilling monarch. Other incidents in history show that grievances have only been remedied when the oppressed, despairing of obtaining success by lawful agitation in the face of opposition by entrenched officialism, have been compelled to fly to arms in defence of their rights. Few will deny to-day, in the light of history, that the cause of constitutional government in Canada was materially advanced by the action of William Lyon Mackenzie, and that results have justified the rising of 1837.” 1 “It was one of a series of revulsions of popular feeling, recorded in British history, which has extended and broadened incalculably the liberties of the British race and nation.”2 “It may be that Mackenzie was impetuous and turbulent, but the rebellion of 1837 was at best a pitiful expression of the discontent which the greed and the oppression of the Family

1 The Globe , Toronto, December 11th, 1900.

3 The Star, Toronto, April 14th, 1904.

Compact had developed. Too much has been said of the rash counsels and unhappy adventures of Mackenzie, and too little of the crying grievances which an insolent and autocratic executive would not redress, and of the privileges they were resolved to maintain. It is in such fashion that the decisive blow has been dealt to tyranny and privilege all down the splendid centuries of British history ; and if in the story of Liberalism in all countries there are wild and sanguinary chapters, it is because only in that way could popular government be established and perpetuated.”1

“ Did the pages of history,” said Lord Durham in one of his great speeches on the Reform Bill, “ not teem with instances of the folly and uselessness of resistance to popular rights ? The Revolution of 1741, the French Revolution of 1789, the separation of the North American colonies, might .all have been averted by timely and wise concession. Can any man with the slightest knowledge of history attempt to persuade me that if Charles I, after the Petition of Right, had kept his faith with his people, he would not have saved his crown and his life ? Again, with reference to the F rench Revolution, I say that if Louis XVI had adopted the advice given by his ministers, the people would have been satisfied, the ancient institutions of the country ameliorated, the altar, the throne, and the

1 J. S. Willison, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Liberal Party (1903), Vol. i, p. 2.

LORD DURHAM’S VIEW aristocracy preserved from the horrible fate which afterwards befell them. Twice had Louis XVI opportunities— first, under Turgot’s ministry, secondly, under Necker’s — of conciliating the country, and averting that fatal catastrophe by limited concessions. The nobility resisted and the Revolution followed. I need only add my conviction that, if after the repeal of the Stamp Act, England had not destroyed all the benefit of that concession by the Declaratory Act, and the re-imposition of the tea duties, North America would at this hour have been a portion of the British Empire. The course of events has always been the same. First, unreasoning opposition to popular demands ; next, bloody and protracted struggles ; finally, but invariably, unlimited and ignominious concessions.” Durham might also have referred to the other French Revolution of 1830, when Charles X was deposed for his persistent endeavours to maintain an unpopular ministry in power, or he might have cited the revolt of Belgium against Holland, leading to its creation as an independent kingdom — events, we are told, “ which were hailed with outbursts of enthusiasm in England, and perceptibly quickened the demand for reform.”

In Great Britain itself. Catholic Emancipation and the Parliamentary Reform of 1832 were only conceded when the country was on the brink of revolution. “Agitation had evidently obtained for Ireland what loyalty and forbearance had never procured ; and though the fear to which our statesmen had yielded might be what Lord Palmerston asserted, ‘ the provident mother of safety,’ a concession to it, however wise or timely, gave a very redoubtable force to the menacing spirit by which concession had been gained.”1 Sir Robert Peel “was proud of having made a great sacrifice for a great cause [namely, Catholic Emancipation]. There can be little doubt that he had prevented a civil war in which many of the most eminent statesmen of foreign countries would have considered that the Irish Catholics were in the right.”2 And, speaking of the Reform Bill, the same writer says that “ some plan of Parliamentary Reform had of necessity to be proposed. The true Conservative policy would have been to propose a moderate plan before increased disquietude suggested a violent one.” “ He [Peel] was converted with respect to the Catholic question, and was converted to Liberal views, but when he professed this conversion, it was to save the country from civil war. He was converted with respect to the Corn Laws, and was converted to Liberal convictions ; but when he professed this conversion, it was to save the country from famine.”3

Referring to the Duke of Wellington, Durham’s biographer says, that “ perhaps his solitary claim to

1 Lord Dalling and Bulwer, Sir Robert Peel: An Historical Sketch (1874), p. 73.

REFORMS AVERTING ANARCHY political regard is that he eventually extorted a reluctant consent from the king for Catholic Emancipation— a concession which lost all its grace because it was the outcome of panic, and could no longer

be refused without peril It became law

only after a protracted and bitter struggle, which brought Ireland to the brink of rebellion.”1 And, referring to the rejection by the Lords of the second Reform Bill, he says, “ Lord Grey at once moved the adjournment of the House, and the country

stood on the brink of revolution The king

seemed to have forfeited his popularity as if by magic, and the people, in their bitter disillusionment, were prepared to go almost any lengths — even to that of armed resistance — rather than submit to the contemptuous refusal of their just demands. . . Riots occurred in many towns, and whispers of a plot for seizing the wives and children of the aristocracy led the authorities to order the swords of the Scots Greys to be rough sharpened. It will probably never be known how near the country came at that moment to the brink of a catastrophe which would have overturned both law

and order The Reform Act was a safety

valve at a moment when political excitement had assumed a menacing aspect, and the nation seemed on the verge of anarchy.”2

1 Stuart J. Reid, Life and Letters of Lord Durham (1906), pp. 192, 193.

“ The chiefest authors of revolutions have been, not the chimerical and intemperate friends of progress, but the blind obstructors of progress ; those who, in defiance of nature, struggle to avert the inevitable future, to recall the irrevocable past ; who chafe to fury by damming of its course the river which would otherwise flow calmly between its banks, which has ever flowed, and which, do what they will, must flow forever.” 1

It is not necessary to institute any comparison with these great political and revolutionary movements, in other countries, in order to excuse or justify the revolutionary movement for constitutional reform which lay at the root of every other reform in government and administration in Canada. The evidence is overwhelming as to the grievances suffered by the people, their endeavours to remove them by legitimate means, and the absolute refusal of their reasonable demands by the advisers and representatives of the Crown. These latter, as was truly said, were living in “ an atmosphere of constitutional fiction.”2

1 Goldwin Smith, Three English Statesmen (1868), pp. 3, 4.

2 4 4 All the special grievances and demands of the Reformers were summed up and merged in their demand for 4 responsible government. ’ By responsible government they meant that the government should be carried on, not by an executive nominated by the governor and independent of the vote of parliament, but, as in England, by a cabinet dependent for its tenure of office on the vote of the Commons. They meant, in short, that supreme power should be transferred from the Crown to the representatives of the people. It was nothing less than a revolution for which they called under a mild and constitutional

IMPERIAL OPPOSITION

Lord John Russell, a representative Whig, and the member of a Whig administration, speaking in his place in the House of Commons of the demands of Lower Canada, said : 46 The House of Assembly of Lower Canada have asked for an elective legislative council, and an executive council which shall be responsible to them and not to the government and Crown of Great Britain. We consider that these demands are inconsistent with the relations between a colony and the mother country, and that it would be better to say at once, 4 Let the two countries separate,’ than for us to pretend to govern the colony afterwards.”1 And, speaking in the same place, only nine months before the actual outbreak in 1837, he said that 44 cabinet government in the colonies was incompatible with the relations which ought to exist between the mother country and the colony. Those relations required that His Majesty should be represented in the colony not by ministers, but by a governor sent out by the king, and responsible to the parliament of Great Britain. Otherwise Great Britain would have in the Canadas all the inconveniences of colonies without any of their advantages.”2