Macdonald, relying for power on his alliance with Cartier, could not accept the demand, and saw seat after seat in Canada West fall to Brown and his "Rep.by Pop." crusaders.Brown's success only solidified Canada East against him, until, in the early sixties, party lines coincided almost with sectional lines.
Parties were so closely matched that the life of a Ministry was short.In the three years ending in 1864 there were two general elections and four Ministries.Political controversy became bitterly personal, and corruption was spreading fast.
Constant efforts were made to avert the threatened deadlock.
Macdonald, who always trusted more to personal management than to constitutional expedients, won over one after another of the opponents who troubled him, and thus postponed the day of reckoning.Rival plans of constitutional reform were brought forward.The simplest remedy was the repeal of the union, leaving each province to go its own way.But this solution was felt to be a backward step and one which would create more problems than it would solve.More support was given the double majority principle, a provision that no measure affecting one section should be passed unless a majority from that section favored it, but this method broke down when put to a practical test.The Rouges, and later Brown, put forward a plan for the abolition of legislative union in favor of a federal union of the two Canadas.
This lacked the wide vision of the fourth suggestion, which was destined to be adopted as the solution, namely, the federation of all British North America.
Federal union, it was urged, would solve party and sectional deadlock by removing to local legislatures the questions which created the greatest divergence of opinion.The federal union of the Canadas alone or the federal union of all British North America would either achieve this end.But there were other ends in view which only the wider plan could serve.The needs of defense demanded a single control for all the colonies.The probable loss of the open market of the United States made it imperative to unite all the provinces in a single free trade area.The first faint stirrings of national ambition, prompting the younger men to throw off the leading strings of colonial dependence, were stimulated by the vision of a country which would stretch from sea to sea.The westward growth of the United States and the reports of travelers were opening men's eyes to the possibilities of the vast lands under the control of the Hudson's Bay Company and the need of asserting authority over these northern regions if they were to be held for the Crown.
Eastward, also, men were awaking to their isolation.There was not, in the Maritime Provinces, any popular desire for union with the Canadas or any political crisis compelling drastic remedy, but the need of union for defense was felt in some quarters, and ambitious politicians who had mastered their local fields were beginning to sigh for larger worlds to conquer.
It took the patient and courageous striving of many men to make this vision of a united country a reality.The roll of the Fathers of Confederation is a long and honored one.Yet on that roll there are some outstanding names, the names of men whose services were not merely devoted but indispensable.The first to bring the question within the field of practical politics was A.
T.Galt, but when attempt after attempt in 1864 to organize a Ministry with a safe working majority had failed, it was George Brown who proposed that the party leaders should join hands in devising some form of federation.Macdonald had hitherto been a stout opponent of all change but, once converted, he threw himself into the struggle, with energy.He never appeared to better advantage than in the negotiations of the next few years, steering the ship of Confederation through the perilous shoals of personal and sectional jealousies.Few had a harder or a more important task than Cartier's-reconciling Canada East to a project under which it would be swamped, in the proposed federal House, by the representatives of four or five English-speaking provinces.McDougall, a Canada West Reformer, shared with Brown the credit for awakening Canadians to the value of the Far West and to the need of including it in their plans of expansion.
