The John A. Macdonald Retrospective 2-Book Bundle. Ged Martin

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      The news, early in March, that New Brunswickers had in fact voted against Confederation showed John A. Macdonald at his fighting best. He frankly accepted that Tilley’s election defeat was “a declaration against the policy of Federation,” but he roundly refused to abandon the cause. Rather, the setback was “an additional reason for prompt and vigorous action.” The New Brunswick reverse, “the first check that the project has received,” only highlighted the astonishing progress the issue had made since the formation of the coalition in June 1864.

      “Things are not going on so badly with the Maritime Provinces,” he wrote optimistically. “In New Brunswick the question will ere long be carried. Nova Scotia is all right but hangs fire until New Brunswick is put straight.” In fact, this analysis reflected something more than Macdonald’s habitual tendency to put a positive spin on bad news. The New Brunswick result was closer than the landslide in seats suggested: several pro-Confederation candidates had only narrowly lost. In any case, the contest had been “the usual fight between the ins and the outs,” with “a lot of other influences at work” besides the Confederation issue. Although the new ministry was united in opposing the Quebec scheme, their reasons were contradictory: some opposed any union with Canada, others criticized the terms. Macdonald was right about Nova Scotia too. Premier Charles Tupper, with whom he had struck a rapport at Charlottetown, was masterfully controlling the local political agenda, keeping Confederation on the backburner to avoid its outright rejection. If Canada kept up the momentum, the New Brunswick ministry might well break up. The big prize for the Maritimers in Confederation was the Intercolonial Railway. Once New Brunswick changed sides, Nova Scotia would fall into line to ensure that Halifax and not Saint John became its Atlantic terminus. In April 1865, Tupper reckoned the situation could be turned around in twelve months.

      Unfortunately, Macdonald did not have twelve months. The June 1864 coalition deal committed ministers to George Brown’s plan for a federation of the two Canadas if the wider union was not achieved by mid-1865. Dispatched to England in November 1864 to report on the Quebec Conference, George Brown had been hailed by Britain’s statesmen as the messenger of Confederation. Privately, however, he was relaxed about the setback in New Brunswick, and ready to insist on his Plan B. Macdonald announced that a delegation would be sent to London, to mobilize imperial support for Confederation. Brown had to be persuaded to make a second transatlantic trip within six months — getting him on board ship was crucial to keeping him on board politically. Accordingly, the delegation’s agenda was extended to include cross-border trade and the future of the Hudson’s Bay territories, both issues of concern to Brown. Cartier and Galt represented Lower Canada and Macdonald, despite a reluctance to travel, would speak for Upper Canada. Brown could not trust his rivals to represent Canada’s interests; they could not risk leaving him behind, where he might find some pretext to break up the coalition. So, in April 1865, Brown crossed the ocean once again, travelling with John A. Macdonald. Indeed, in the confined shipboard space, the two men had to pretend they were friends as well as allies.

      The Canadian mission to Britain made a mighty splash, and the delegates received a welcome unprecedented for mere colonials. Famous statesmen engaged them in top-level conferences. They were presented to Queen Victoria, entertained by the Prince of Wales and given a memorable excursion to England’s famous horse race, the Derby. However, British politicians limited their support to polite goodwill. They were wary about spending money on defending Canada against the Americans, and seemed to view Confederation as a step towards transatlantic disengagement. The delegation’s major achievement, as Macdonald put it, was that they “happily succeeded in keeping the question alive” in Britain. The British government issued a strong declaration of support for Confederation, enough to ward off immediate pressure to restructure the province of Canada alone. For Macdonald, there was also a personal prize: Oxford University awarded him an honorary doctorate. Oxford ceremonies could be raucous, but “Mr. Macdonald, the Canadian, had a good reception.” To be announced back at Government House as “Dr. Macdonald” offered some consolation for the inadequacy of his own education: Gowan thought that the Oxford degree “would gratify you more than a knighthood.” Macdonald modestly accepted the honour on behalf of Canada, but it was noteworthy that he was singled out as the recipient.

      Soon after Macdonald’s return to Canada, there was a sharp, sad reminder of the tight agenda facing the coalition. Premier Taché had sacrificed his health in launching the new Canada, and died on July 30, 1865. An incandescent George Brown blocked Lord Monck’s attempt to appoint John A. Macdonald as Taché’s successor. Brown’s price for accepting the Quebec City lawyer Sir Narcisse-Fortunat Belleau (a member of Macdonald’s 1857–58 Cabinet) as compromise premier was the re-statement of the coalition’s dual objective, reaffirming the commitment to create a purely Canadian federation if the wider project stalled. The deadline was shifted back to 1866.

      With Belleau a figurehead, Macdonald effectively led the government. Paradoxically, political leadership involved keeping the lid on Canadian politics to avoid rows that might inflame Maritime suspicions. Upper and Lower Canada would enter Confederation as separate provinces (named Ontario and Quebec in 1867) but Canadians were left to perform their own bisection. Discussion of the new provincial constitutions would certainly reignite controversy over Catholic schools. Since the Irish Catholic vote was important in New Brunswick, Macdonald simply delayed the 1866 session of Canada’s legislature. New Brunswick politicians insisted that they favoured uniting the provinces but disliked the Quebec Conference terms — but Canada’s Parliament had signed up to the Quebec package. As Macdonald explained, once Canada’s legislature met, ministers would be “pressed to declare whether we adhered to the Quebec resolutions or not.” To answer “yes” would condemn his New Brunswick allies to defeat, but “no” would outrage French Canada: either way would be “good-bye to Federation.” In his later career, Macdonald would be nicknamed “Old Tomorrow.” In the winter of 1865–66, he first showed his skills at procrastination.

      Throughout the winter of 1865–66, reports from New Brunswick confidently predicted the slow-motion disintegration of opposition to Confederation. Tilley became premier again in April 1866, and in a June election he won a pro-Union election majority — helped by campaign funds quietly raised among Macdonald’s Canadian supporters. Meanwhile, in December 1865, George Brown resigned from the coalition, ostensibly over the handling of trade talks in Washington: characteristically, if unrealistically, Brown had argued that the provinces should stand up to the Americans and force them to renew the cross-border Reciprocity Treaty. Cartier and Campbell tried to persuade Brown not to quit, but for Macdonald, the parting was a relief, the more so as the other Reformers in the coalition preferred working with John A. to taking orders from George Brown. However, Brown’s resignation meant that the Globe could resume its vendetta against Macdonald. It was not long before John A. Macdonald supplied the pretext.

      Symbolic of the approaching new era, Canada’s capital finally moved to Ottawa. Macdonald founded the elite Rideau Club to provide social amenities, but the city’s general lack of facilities — ominously, Ottawa lacked even a piped water supply — had what Lord Monck discreetly called “a damaging effect on public men.” Despite the fiasco of 1862, Macdonald was once again minister of militia, and bearing a heavy responsibility. With the end of the Civil War, Irish-American soldiers joined the Fenians who planned to attack Canada. Mobilizing Canada’s defence forces every time there was an invasion alarm would paralyze the provincial economy, but failure to respond to a credible warning would risk Canadian lives. Macdonald struck the right balance: 14,000 part-time soldiers were called out on May 31, the day nine hundred Fenians crossed the Niagara River. Two days later, the paramilitaries killed nine militiamen at the Battle of Ridgeway. The invaders withdrew and the American authorities belatedly tightened up border security, but the threat remained. Macdonald dismissed calls for the summary arrest of suspected Fenian sympathizers: “illiterate magistrates” would simply persecute their peaceable Catholic neighbours. It was difficult to persuade the public that the government was on top of the danger. “Because they do not see what we are doing in the Newspapers, they think we are doing nothing.”

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