Macdonald John Alexander - Nation maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: his life, our times. Volume two, 1867-1891

A lean, mean, political machine, with a sardonic smile.

PRAISE FOR

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Winner of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing Winner of the John W. Dafoe Prize
Finalist for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction Finalist for the Governor Generals Literary Award for Non-Fiction Finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers Trust Prize for Non-Fiction

A Globe and Mail Best Book
A Quill & Quire Book of the Year
An Amazon.ca Best Book and Editors Pick

No one looms larger over our history than Macdonald, and its essential to know about him if you want to know about Canada. Gwyn tells John A.s story inside and out and knows better than anyone that his story doesnt sit on top of the countrys history: its woven in the fabric.

Kate Beaton, National Post

Wonderfully researched, engagingly written. This is history on a grand scale, with a riveting central character and a country being literally built around him.

Jeffrey Simpson, The Globe and Mail

Thumping. Stirring. In telling the story of Confederations first steps, Gwyn has penned an excellent textbook in twenty-first-century Canadian politics.

Paul Wells, Macleans

Gwyn knows how to tell a good story and here he brings his two-volume life of Canadas best-loved political figure to a satisfactory conclusion. This is John A., warts and all.

Winnipeg Free Press

Such an engaging read. Nation Maker brings a fresh, welcome perspective to the life of our founding father. Anyone who reads it will no longer be able to take this powerful, charismatic and dedicated man for granted.

Quill & Quire (starred review)

Seamless and stylish.

Ken McGoogan, The Globe and Mail

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L IBRARY AND A RCHIVES C ANADA C ATALOGUING IN P UBLICATION

Gwyn, Richard, 1934
John A. : the man who made us : the life and times of John A. Macdonald / Richard
Gwyn.

Vol. 2. has title: Nation maker : Sir John A. Macdonald : his life, our times.
Contents: v. 1. 18151867 v. 2. 18671891.

eISBN: 978-0-307-36687-0

1. Macdonald, John A. (John Alexander), 18151891. 2. CanadaHistory19th century. 3. CanadaPolitics and government19th century. 4. Prime ministersCanadaBiography. I. Title. II. Title: Nation maker.

FC 521. M 29 G 89 2007 971.051092 C 2007-903422-5

Cover design by CS Richardson

Cover image: Library and Archives Canada, C-005327

v3.1

To my father,
Philip Eustace Congreve Jermy Gwyn,
18991976;
a good man

These notes provide source citations for quotations and facts contained in the text. The specific sources are described here in summary form. For example, the entry below referring to a quotation on page 3 of the text reads: Dilke, a fog of unenterprise: Wade, French-Canadians, p. 450. The full entry would be: Charles Dilke, quoted in Mason Wade, The French-Canadians, Vol. 1: 17601911 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1968), p. 450. A complete listing for Wade, The French-Canadians is found in the bibliography in Richard Gwyn, Nation Maker under Secondary Sources. The notes provided here are thus a companion piece to the books Bibliography and Note on Sources.

Macdonald, [Confederation will be] an event which will make us historical: letter to Monck, June 26, 1886: Lockhart, Contribution of Macdonald Conservatism, CHA Report, 1939, p. 127.

Less autonomy than Haiti or Liberia: Wiseman, In Search of Canadian Political Culture, p. 60.

Greeley, an eel-skin of settled country: New York Tribune, June 28, 1865.

MacNeil, Canada was not an inevitable nation: American Review of Canadian Studies, 1991, p. 40.

Dilke, a fog of unenterprise hung over the land: Wade, French-Canadians, p. 450.

Canada lacked the body, the vital organs: Waite, Pre-Confederation, p. 251.

Monck: [Canada] should be taught to look forward to independence: Monro, The United States and the Dominion, p. 168.

Goldwin Smith: British North American colonies will in time unite themselves: Willison, Reminiscences, p. 73.

Bancroft, Canada would soon break into parts: Seward Papers, June 15, 1867

Confederation provided a direct route to lindpendence politique: La Minerve, July 1, 1867.

Langelier on Macdonald, His eyes lively and his look pleasant: Waite, Macdonald, p. 6.

Macdonald described as a seedy beggar: ibid., p. 163.

He knew every chord of the human heart: Pope, Memoirs, p. 294.

Women worshipped him: Willison, Reminiscences, p. 178.

Oh Sir John, I do so love you, Cartwright, Reminiscences, p. 47.

went through fire and water for him: Willison, Reminiscences, p. 180.

flocked to his railway coach: Hammond, Confederation, p. 41.

Grant vs. the barber: Lederman, Historic Kingston 22, 1973, p. 58.

Macdonald, there are suspicious strangers about Smith Falls: letter to Francis Jones, May 27, 1868.

Macdonald, I am not a sufficient mathematician: letter to E. Stone Wiggins, Dec. 1, 1870.

Meredith on Macdonald, hopelessly drunk: diary: Gwyn, Private Capital, p. 97.

Macdonald on a Conservative MP: altogether devoid of reading: Pope, Memoirs, p. 12.

Macdonald, no gratitude to be expected from the public: Waite, Macdonald, pp. 1011.

First, second and third requisites of a Prime Minister: Pope, Memoirs, p. 653.

Grip, No harsh, self-righteous Pharisee: June 13, 1891.

Macdonald, treat them as a nation: to Chamberlin, January 21, 1856: Gwyn, The Man Who Made Us, p. 410.

loveable human being: Morris, Heavens Command, p. 407.

Macdonald, We cant make room for you: to Louisa: Johnson, Affectionately, p. 107.

I am now living in lodgings: ibid., pp. 10708.

Lady Macdonald, hold Parliament on the kitchen tablecloths: diary: Gwyn, Private Capital, p. 191.

Lady Macdonald, I often look in astonishment at him: Reynolds,