Guy Laforest - The Constitutions that Shaped Us: A Historical Anthology of Pre-1867 Canadian Constitutions

THE CONSTITUTIONS THAT SHAPED US

The Constitutions
that Shaped Us

A Historical Anthology of
Pre-1867 Canadian Constitutions

Edited by
Guy Laforest, Eugnie Brouillet,
Alain-G. Gagnon, and Yves Tanguay

McGill-Queens University Press
Montreal& Kingston London Chicago

McGill-Queens University Press 2015

First published in French as Ces constitutions qui nous ont faonns :
Anthologie historique des lois constitutionnelles antrieures 1867
by Presses de lUniversit Laval,2014

ISBN 978-0-7735-4606-6 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-7735-4607-3 (paper)

ISBN 978-0-7735-9782-2 (e PDF )

ISBN 978-0-7735-9783-9 (e PUB )

Legal deposit third quarter 2015

Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is100% ancient forest free
(100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorinefree

McGill-Queens University Press acknowledgesthe support of the Canada
Council for the Arts for our publishing program. Wealso acknowledge the
financial support of the Government of Canada through theCanada Book
Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing inPublication

Ces constitutions qui nous ont faonns.English
The constitutions that shaped us: a historical anthology of pre-1867
Canadian constitutions / edited by Guy Laforest, Eugnie Brouillet,
Alain-G. Gagnon, and Yves Tanguay.

Translation of: Ces constitutions qui nous ontfaonns.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in printand electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-7735-4606-6 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-7735-4607-3(paper).
ISBN 978-0-7735-9782-2 (e PDF ). ISBN 978-0-7735-9783-9 (e PUB )

1. Constitutional history Canada. I. Gagnon,Alain-G. (Alain-Gustave),
1954, editor II. Laforest, Guy, 1955, editorIII. Tanguay, Yves, 1955,
editor IV. Brouillet, Eugnie, 1973, editor V.Title.

KE 4199. C 4713 2015 342.7102 ' 9 C 2015-903678- X

KF 4482. C 47132015 C 2015-903679-8

This book was typeset by Interscript.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART ONE

Canada under British Rules17601900

Sir John George Bourinot

Canadas History Class

Thomas Chapais

The History of Canada fromDiscovery to the Present Day

Franois-Xavier Garneau

The History of French Canadasince Discovery

Chanoine Lionel Groulx

The Constitution of Canada

W.P.M. Kennedy

Canada and Its Provinces

Adam Shortt and Arthur G. Doughty

PART TWO

The Old Province of Quebec

Alfred Leroy Burt

French Canada and the Early Decades of British Rule, 17601791

Michel Brunet

The Quebec Act: A MagnanimousConcession, or a Self-Interested Gesture?

Sraphin Marion

Canadian HistoricalControversies

Hilda Neatby

The French Canadians, 17601791

Mason Wade

Background for a New Approachto the 1791 Constitution

Pierre Tousignant

A History of Canada

Arthur R.M. Lower

The Union of the Canadas: A NewConquest?

Denis Vaugeois

The Pattern of Union, 18401841

J.M.S. Careless

Second Capitulation of theFrench Canadians, 18391842

Maurice Sguin

Bibliography

Biographical Notes

Index

Acknowledgments

The preparation and publication of this anthology have been madepossible thanks to the support and assistance received from a number of partners,and also from some of our students. We would like to express our thanks to theQuebec governments Secretariat for Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs (Secrtariataux affaires intergouvernementales canadiennes) which provided a grant for this bookproject and for a symposium marking the 150th anniversary of the QuebecConference at the Muse de la Civilisation in Quebec City from 16 to 18October 2014. The anthology and symposium are part of the program of theResearch Group on Plurinational Societies (Groupe de recherche sur les socitsplurinationales, or GRSP ), aninteruniversity team directed by Alain-G. Gagnon with funding from theQubec Research Fund for Society and Culture (Fonds de recherche du Qubec Socitet culture) for the years 201115. The team is starting a new cycle of work withfunding from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada for the period from2014 to 2017. The anthology and symposium are part of the program of theInterdisciplinary Research Centre on Diversity and Democracy (Centre de rechercheinterdisciplinaire sur la diversit et la dmocratie, or CRIDAQ ), also headed by Alain-G. Gagnon, withEugnie Brouillet and Guy Laforest as members. The CRIDAQ was awarded a major grant in 2014 following the competition toform strategic groups organized by the Qubec Research Fund for Society and Culture(Regroupements stratgiques du Fonds de recherche du Qubec sur la socit et laculture) for the years 201420.

The preparation of the anthology required avast amount of work to identify and select relevant texts from the historiographicalcorpus. We would like to thank students Hubert Rioux and Jean-Charles St-Louis, bothgraduate students in political science at Universit du Qubec Montral; andRosalie Readman, a graduate student in political science at Universit Laval, fortheir significant contribution to this task. We were also lucky enough to haveprofessional support from Denis Dion, Jocelyne Naud, and the other membersof their team at Presses de lUniversit Laval.

The editors of this volume wish to expresstheir sincerest thanks and to acknowledge the permission granted to reprint thefollowing essays within this collection: The Old Province of Quebec by AlfredLeRoy Burt (University of Minnesota Press); French Canada and the Early Decades ofBritish Rule, 17601791 by Michel Brunet (Canadian Historical Association); TheQuebec Act: A Magnanimous Concession, or a Self-Interested Gesture? by SraphinMarion ( ditions la Libert); Quebec: TheRevolutionary Age, 17601791 by Hilda Neatby (McClelland & Stewart, adivision of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company);The French Canadians, 17601791 by Mason Wade (Macmillan Company of Canada);Background for a New Approach to the 1791 Constitution by Pierre Tousignant (Revuedhistoire de LAmrique Franaise); A History of Canada by Arthur R. M. Lower(excerpted from Colony to a Nation: A History of Canada by Arthur R.M. Lowerwith maps by T.W. MacLean. Text copyright 1977 Arthur R.M. Lower. McClelland& Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, a PenguinRandom House Company); The Union of the Canadas: A New Conquest? by Denis Vaugeois(first published by Septentrion. Permission to reprint granted by Denis Vaugeois);The Unions of Canadas: The Growth of Canadians Institutions 18411857 by J.M.S.Careless (Oxford University Press); and Second Capitulation of the French Canadians18391842 by Maurice Sguin (Gurin).

THE CONSTITUTIONS THAT SHAPED US

Introduction

GUY LAFOREST, EUGNIE BROUILLET,
ALAIN-G. GAGNON, AND YVESTANGUAY

This book is part of a broader project to re-examine, from a serious,comparative and critical standpoint, the events and texts that led to the union ofseveral British colonies in North America in the years 1864 to 1867. The main eventsare well known: the Charlottetown Conference in September 1864, the QuebecConference in October of the same year, followed by another formal meeting in Londonin 1866, leading up to the passage by the British Parliament of the British NorthAmerica Act of 1867 (in current legal terminology, the Constitution Act, 1867). Thekey players are also familiar: John A. Macdonald, George-tienne Cartier, and GeorgeBrown heading a broad coalition in United Canada; Samuel Leonard Tilley and CharlesTupper, the leaders of the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; oppositionpoliticians in all the colonies; Oliver Mowat, who played an essential role draftingthe provisions defining provincial powers during the Quebec Conference;DArcy McGee and Alexander Galt representing the powerful English-speaking communityof Canada East (todays Quebec); and many others. To mark the 150th anniversary ofthe Quebec Conference and shed more light on the emergence of the Canadianfederation, a three-day colloquium took place from 16 to 18 October 2014, organizedjointly by the Research Group on Plurinational Societies (Groupe de recherche surles socits plurinationales, or GRSP ), based atUniversit du Qubec Montral ( UQAM ) anddirected by Alain-G. Gagnon, the Faculty of Law at Universit Laval, headed byEugnie Brouillet, the main coordinator for the event, and the Qubec governmentsSecrtariat aux affaires intergouvernementales canadiennes ( SAIC ) (under the responsibility of MinisterJean-Marc Fournier). The colloquium brought together legal experts, historians, political scientistsand philosophers from all parts of Canada, working in both French and English. It isexpected to lead to a second, follow-up meeting in 2017 to look analytically andcritically at the evolution of the constitutional text of 1867, while establishingparallels with the evolution of societies and countries with similarities to Quebecand Canada.