Patrice Dutil - Macdonald at 200: New Reflections and Legacies

A Macdonald for Our Times

Patrice Dutil and Roger Hall

There are no immutable laws in the writing of history, but there are customs, conventions, and traditions. One such persistent rule is that each generation writes its own history. What is meant by that adage is that each generation, educated in a different way, shaped by a different past, has a unique perspective on what went before, a view largely informed by the circumstances of its particular present. This seems irrefutable certainly it is unavoidable. Our conclusion is that it is time high time for a new take on John A. Macdonald. And what better occasion than the bicentennial of his birth in 2015?

Macdonald was born on or about January 11, 1815, in Glasgow, Scotland, the third child of Hugh Macdonald and Helen Shaw. At that time, Britons were savouring the fact that Napoleon had been exiled to Elba, and that wars with France were likely to end. The Treaty of Ghent, which brought peace between the United States and Britain, had just been signed on Christmas Eve. Little John was born when things were looking up.

Optimism is cruel, sometimes. For one thing, Napoleon returned to France and rallied his army, and was finally defeated decisively five months later at Waterloo. Victory over the French aside, Hugh Macdonald grew frustrated with the inevitable postwar economic downturn in Scotland and, in 1820, moved his family to Kingston, Upper Canada to start afresh. Young John Macdonald attended school there, and proved an able student. He was apprenticed at age fifteen to become a lawyer with George Mackenzie, a cousin, was called to the bar in 1836 and started his own general law practice. Macdonald thrived in his work, and was already a prominent person in the town of Kingston by the time he turned thirty. He married Isabella Clark, a cousin from Scotland, in 1843. That same year, the siren calls of politics seduced him, and he never looked back. Supported by businessmen, Macdonald was elected an alderman in Kingstons city council. A year later, he was elected to the legislative assembly of Canada West as a Conservative. Four years later he was named Receiver General and for most of the next six decades would have a hand in shaping Canadas government.

Macdonald was singularly successful as a politician, a statesman, and as a man. His charm was known to both men and women; his reputation as a gentleman was uncontested on both sides of the Atlantic. His winning smile, his enduring optimism and willingness to overcome obstacles made him an easy colleague and companion. Macdonald was simply likeable and even people who cared little for his politics admitted their respect for his mind and industry. Yet he was not entirely a happy man for much of his life. His marriage to Isabella was blighted by her illness and depression. His resistance to alcohol was no match to its relief and by the time he had turned forty years old he was known to abuse the bottle with reckless abandon. Isabella died in 1857 and he remarried on the eve of Confederation. Agnes, his new bride, was the younger sister of his deputy minister, Hewitt Bernard. Macdonald had two surviving children, Hugh John (with Isabella) and Mary (with Agnes). Hugh John was a frustration for John A., and the two battled each other ceaselessly. Mary was born with hydrocephaly (which impaired her physical and intellectual growth), and while Macdonald loved her tenderly, he was denied the joy of seeing his daughter join the world as an independent woman.