In the reform movement in Upper Canada there were a multiplicity of leaders and a constant shifting of groups.In Lower Canada, after the defection of James Stuart in 1817, there was only one leader, Louis Joseph Papineau.For twenty years Papineau was the uncrowned king of the province.His commanding figure, his powers of oratory, outstanding in a race of orators, his fascinating manners, gave him an easy mastery over his people.Prudence did not hamper his flights; compromise was a word not found in his vocabulary.Few men have been better equipped for the agitator's task.
His father, Joseph Papineau, though of humble birth, had risen high in the life of the province.He had won distinction in his profession as a notary, as a speaker in the Assembly, and as a soldier in the defense of Quebec against the American invaders of 1775.In 1804 he had purchased the seigneury of La Petite Nation, far up the Ottawa.Louis Joseph Papineau followed in his father's footsteps.Born in 1786, he served loyally and bravely in the War of 1812.In the same year he entered the Assembly and made his place at a single stroke.Barely three years after his election, he was chosen Speaker, and with a brief break he held that post for over twenty years.
Papineau did not soon or lightly begin his crusade against the Government.For the first five years of his Speakership, he confined himself to the routine duties of his office.As late as 1820 he pronounced a glowing eulogy on the Constitution which Great Britain had granted the province.In that year he tested the extent of the privileges so granted by joining in the attempt of the Assembly to assert its full control of the purse; but it was not until the project of uniting the two Canadas had made clear beyond dispute the hostility of the governing powers that he began his unrelenting warfare against them.
There was much to be said for a reunion of the two Canadas.The St.Lawrence bound them together, though Acts of Parliament had severed them.Upper Canada, as an inland province, restricted in its trade with its neighbor to the south, was dependent upon Lower Canada for access to the outer world.Its share of the duties collected at the Lower Canada ports until 1817 had been only one-eighth, afterwards increased to one-fifth.This inequality proved a constant source of friction.The crying necessity of cooperation for the improvement of the St.Lawrence waterway gave further ground for the contention that only by a reunion of the two provinces could efficiency be secured.In Upper Canada the Reformers were in favor of this plan, but the Compact, fearful of any disturbance of their vested interests, tended to oppose it.In Lower Canada the chief support came from the English element.The governing clique, as the older established body, had no doubt that they could bring the western section under their sway in case of union.But the main reason for their advocacy was the desire to swamp the French Canadians by an English majority.Sewell, the chief supporter of the project, frankly took this ground.The Governor, Lord Dalhousie, and the Colonial Office adopted his view; and in 1822 an attempt was made to rush a Union Bill through the British Parliament without any notice to those most concerned.It was blocked for the moment by the opposition of a Whig group led by Burdett and Mackintosh; and then Papineau and Neilson sailed to London and succeeded in inducing the Ministry to stay its hand.The danger was averted; but Papineau had become convinced that if his people were to retain the rights given them by their "Sacred Charter"they would have to fight for them.If they were to save their power, they must increase it.
How could this be done? Baldwin's bold and revolutionary policy of making the Executive responsible to the Assembly did not seem within the range of practical politics.It meant in practice the abandonment of British control, and this the Colonial Office was not willing to grant.Antoine Panet and other Assembly leaders had suggested in 1815 that it would be well, "if it were possible, to grant a number of places as Councillors or other posts of honour and of profit to those who have most influence over the majority in the Assembly, to hold so long as they maintained this influence," and James Stuart urged the same tentative suggestion a year later.But even before this the Colonial Office had made clear its position."His Majesty's Government," declared the Colonial Secretary, Lord Bathurst, in 1814, "never can admit so novel & inconvenient a Principle as that of allowing the Governor of a Colony to be divested of his responsibility [to the Colonial Office] for the acts done during his administration or permit him to shield himself under the advice of any Persons, however respectable, either from their character or their Office."Two other courses had the sanction of precedent, one of English, the other of American example.The English House of Commons had secured its dominant place in the government of the country by its control of the purse.Why should not the Assembly do likewise? One obvious difficulty lay in the fact that the Assembly was not the sole authority in raising revenue.The British Parliament had retained the power to levy certain duties as part of its system of commercial control, and other casual and territorial dues lay in the right of the Crown.From 1820, therefore, the Assembly's main aim was twofold--to obtain control of these remaining sources of revenue, and by means of this power to bludgeon the Legislative Council and the Governor into compliance with its wishes.The Colonial Office made concessions, offering to resign all its taxing powers in return for a permanent civil list, that is, an assurance that the salaries of the chief officials would not be questioned annually.The offer was reasonable in itself but, as it would have hampered the full use of the revenue bludgeon, it was scornfully declined.
