When British North American colonial leaders gathered at Quebec City in 1864 to shape the details of the Confederation project, one man stood out, in historian P.B. Waite’s words, as “the rare example of a politician who knew when not to talk.” This was Samuel Leonard Tilley, a Saint John druggist and leader of the New Brunswick Liberal Party. Waite notes that he was “not a frequent speaker at the Quebec Conference, but one always clear and to the point.” Yet it was the self-effacing Tilley who, with the timely help of some external forces, became the unlikely saviour of Confederation in 1866.

This tale begins with the fact that New Brunswick was the only British North American colony to put the Confederation project to its voters in a general election. And it did so twice. The Province of Canada and Nova Scotia adopted Confederation through resolutions passed by their legislatures. The New Brunswick election of February and March, 1865, sharply rejected both Tilley and Confederation. The anti-Confederates under A.J.M. Smith won 30 of the 41 seats in the legislature with Tilley losing his own seat.

This was a crushing blow to the Confederation cause. The Nova Scotia legislature would never have endorsed union with Canada without the land connection through New Brunswick. Had Tilley been a less persistent and tenacious supporter of Confederation, the project would have ended up as a mere federal union of Ontario and Quebec.

The British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, once famously remarked that “a week is a long time in politics.” In the slower- moving environment of mid-nineteenth century New Brunswick it took Tilley longer to turn the tide of public opinion. But, in the elections of May and June 1866, Tilley won an even larger majority for Confederation (33-8) than Smith’s majority against it (30-11) only fifteen months earlier.

Tilley’s personal qualities contributed a great deal to this remarkable turnaround. Waite describes him as “clever; he was like a fox, quick, resourceful, persistent, and at times courageous.” A contemporary newspaper prophetically observed in 1864 that “Mr. Tilley is never so dangerous, so fertile in expedients…as when his adversaries think they have him cornered.”
But even the redoubtable Tilley needed the assistance of three key external factors to pull off this reversal of the verdict of 1865.
First, the British government, through the provincial Lieutenant-Governor, Arthur Gordon, persistently pressed Smith’s government to reconsider joining Confederation. Finally in April 1866 Gordon forced Smith to resign and call a new election.
Second, the Smith government had hoped that the Americans could be persuaded to reverse their decision to abrogate the Reciprocity Treaty with British North America in March 1866. Supporters of Confederation promoted the benefits of an Intercolonial Railway linking New Brunswick to the Province of Canada. But Smith had argued that with the continuation of the Reciprocity Treaty a much more valuable project would be a Western Extension of New Brunswick’s railways from Saint John to the much larger American market through Maine. American determination to end the Reciprocity Treaty on schedule and the Smith government’s inability to obtain financial backing for Western Extension either by British or local capitalists left no alternative economic policy to Confederation.
Third, several hundred members of an American Irish nationalist group, the Fenians, gathered in Eastport, Maine in April 1866. Some of them launched an abortive invasion of Indian Island in Southwest New Brunswick later that month. The Fenian goal was to annex the province to the USA, thwart Confederation and pressure the British government to grant independence to Ireland. The Catholic hierarchy of New Brunswick responded to this event by issuing a pastoral letter endorsing Confederation. Also, coming just prior to the May-June 1866 election, the Fenian threat moved several constituencies bordering on Maine in southern and western New Brunswick from the Anti- to the Pro-Confederate camp. The only constituencies Smith carried were the ones farthest from the American border in southeast New Brunswick.
The Anti-Confederate cause had flourished in 1865 on the expectation that New Brunswick could remain a distinct self-governing colony and maintain and even extend its access to the lucrative United States market. The realities of American economic and military hostility and the determination of the British government to unite New Brunswick and Nova Scotia with the Province of Canada into a new Dominion dashed this vision. Britain believed union would make British North America more responsible for its own defence and less likely to entangle it into a war with the United States.
Tilley’s tenacity saved Confederation, but only with the powerful assistance of Confederation’s opponents in the United States. These external enemies of Confederation turned out to be Tilley’s most effective allies in reversing its stinging defeat of 1865.

The 150th anniversary of Confederation this year should be more than an occasion for self-congratulatory celebrations and parties. It should also be a time to reflect on some of the enduring themes which have shaped the nation we have become and are becoming. One of those themes- the role of ethnic and religious diversity in Canada- was brought forcefully to the attention of Canadians by the slaying of six Muslims at a mosque in Quebec City on January 29. On March 23 the House of Commons responded to this horrific crime by giving second reading to M-103, a private member’s motion condemning Islamophobia.
In February 1865, during the debate on Confederation in the legislature of the Province of Canada, George-Etienne Cartier also wrestled with the issue of diversity and Canadian nationality. In Europe the rise of ethnic nationalism had recently led to the formation of the modern states of Italy and Germany. Cartier challenged those who argued, based on these examples, that the Confederation project could not succeed “because Lower Canada was in great part French and Catholic, and Upper Canada was British and Protestant and the Lower Provinces were mixed.” On the contrary, he asserted, the diverse ethnic and religious communities in the new nation were potentially a source of strength rather than a weakness.
The Canadian nationality he envisioned would be “a political nationality with which neither the national origin, nor the religion of any individual, would interfere.” It would be a nationality based not on common blood or common worship, but on common institutions of representative and responsible government, legal traditions inherited from the United Kingdom and France and the inheritance of a vast geographic domain. This would be a common enterprise to which all racial and religious communities could contribute drawing from the best elements of their heritages. “I view the diversity of races in British North America in this way:” Cartier said. “We are of different races, not for the purpose of warring against each other, but in order to compete and emulate for the general welfare…We are placed like great families beside each other, and our contact produces a healthy spirit of emulation. It is a benefit rather than otherwise that we have a diversity of races.” The diverse communities represented in the new nation would compete, not for supremacy, but to show what each could contribute to the building of a distinct new nation.
Cartier did not mention indigenous Canadians in this passage. But respect for their languages and cultures and confidence in what they could contribute to this emerging Canadian political nationality is implicit in the ideal he described. Today’s Canada, with large numbers of citizens from almost every nationality and religious tradition on the globe, comes closer to meeting Cartier’s vision than at any time in our history.
But, as the recent event in Quebec City reminds us, our progress towards that ideal has been neither uninterrupted nor irreversible. Too often we have warred against each other on the basis of race and religion. Too often we have attempted to impose cultural uniformity on indigenous Canadians. In both World Wars of the last century we interned long-time residents of this country and seized their property based on their national origin rather than their personal conduct. A referendum seeking a mandate to negotiate the dissolution of Canada to carve out from it a majority French- Canadian nation was only narrowly defeated as recently as 1995.
Just as citizens of the United States of America pledge allegiance to their flag as representing the ideal rather than the actual republic- “one nation, indivisible, under God, with liberty and justice for all” so Cartier’s vision of the Canada of the future remains an ideal as yet unattained but always demanding our “true patriot love.” Let 2017 be a year when each Canadian, regardless of our religious beliefs or how long we and our ancestors have been here or where they came from originally, accept Cartier’s challenge to uphold and contribute to the achievement of the new nationality he envisioned 152 years ago.

The metaphor of a marriage is often used to describe the union of the British North American provinces of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Perhaps fewer Canadians know that an actual marriage was a key factor in initiating the events which led to Confederation and to one of its essential features, federalism.
Georges Etienne Cartier believed that the new nation could overcome the ethnic, religious and sectional divisions which had plagued the former United Province of Canada. His view rested, ironically, not on the wider union with the Maritime Provinces, but on the division of the old province of Canada into the new provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
The man who set the process in motion towards this settlement was George Brown. His marriage to Anne Nelson whom he met during a trip to Scotland taken in 1862 to restore his health encouraged Brown along this path. After a whirlwind courtship, the couple married in November 1862. Their union was a happy one, and a daughter, Margaret, was born in January 1864.
Brown had led the Upper Canadian majority party, the Clear Grits, (ancestors of today’s Liberals) since 1857, but he had been a force in politics since founding the Toronto Globe in 1844. Brown’s whole career had been dedicated to freeing the Protestant majority of Upper Canada from what he perceived as the domination of the French and Catholic majority in Lower Canada.
At the time of the Upper and Lower Canada union in 1840, the majority of the population lived in Lower Canada, but both sections were given an equal number of seats in the Legislative Assembly. By the early 1850s, however, Upper Canada’s population had outstripped that of Lower Canada. By keeping most francophone Quebeckers united under his leadership and forming an alliance with John A. Macdonald’s Upper Canadian Conservatives, Georges Etienne Cartier had managed to prevent Brown and his Lower Canadian allies from forming a government throughout most of the pre-Confederation period. Cartier used his power to aid the Catholic minority in Upper Canada and to frustrate Protestant attempts to enforce a policy of the separation of church and state and the creation of a secular public education system.
Brown and his party responded by calling for “Rep by Pop” or representation by population. This step would have increased the number of members from Upper Canada at the expense of the French Canadian majority in Lower Canada.
By the early 1860s, even with equal representation from Upper and Lower Canada, the Macdonald-Cartier alliance could no longer elect enough members in Upper Canada to stay in office. But no other combination could command a stable majority in the Canadian legislature.
Following his return to Canada in early 1863, Brown was returned to the legislature in a by-election. Colleagues immediately noticed that the uncompromising zealot whom they had known before his marriage had become much more open to compromise within his own party and with his political rivals. They attributed this change to the influence of the sociable and well-educated Anne who had studied extensively in Europe and spoke both French and German fluently. Brown wrote to her daily from the Legislature about the political issues of the day, and he heeded her advice.
By early 1864, the Canadian legislature had reached deadlock. In March Brown moved to establish a select committee to undertake a non-partisan study of constitutional solutions. This motion was adopted in mid-May. On June 14, just as the latest Cartier-Macdonald ministry was about to be defeated, the committee, by a majority of 12 to 3, reported “in favour of changes in the direction of a federated system applied either to Canada alone or to the whole British North American provinces.” The Lower Canadian members from all parties supported the report, and of the Upper Canadian leaders, only the Catholic Reformer John Sandfield Macdonald and John A. Macdonald were opposed.
A new coalition government was formed to settle the constitutional issues between Upper and Lower Canada. Brown, Cartier and MacDonald all joined a new government that adopted representation by population in the federal House of Commons, equal representation for Ontario and Quebec in the Senate, guarantees for minority language and educational rights, and separate provincial governments. The new nation was to be a federal state. Each province controlled legislation dealing with education, property and civil rights, while the federal government was responsible for economic, external and military policy, the criminal code, and inter-provincial transportation and trade. The federal government had the power to disallow any provincial legislation which impinged on minority rights or its powers.
Both Cartier and Brown were taking political risks in endorsing this program. Brown had to accept a religiously-based educational system and French civil law in Quebec and educational guarantees for the Catholic minority in Upper Canada. Cartier conceded more seats for Ontario than Quebec in a federal parliament that would also include the two Maritime Provinces with Protestant and English-speaking majorities. When Brown defended his bargain in the Parliament of Canada in February 1865, he made this explicit: “This scheme can be carried, and no scheme can be that has not the support of both sections of the province.”
Unfortunately for Brown, his expectation that his party would dominate the new federal House of Commons was disappointed. Based on that assumption he had happily accepted Macdonald’s insistence on a constitution in which the federal government would be dominant and the provincial governments subordinate. However, the Ontario Liberals under Brown’s old lieutenant, Oliver Mowat, soon became the party of provincial rights, and a sympathetic British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council successfully eroded the dominant constitutional position of the federal government through a series of interpretations of the British North America Act.
So, while George Brown’s personal life worked out as happily as he could have wished, the Canadian federalism he parented took a turn neither he, Macdonald or Cartier had anticipated. As in the domestic sphere even successful political marriages have unexpected surprises.

Confederation was meant to be not just a political but an economic union. The purpose of this economic union was the creation of an integrated east-west national economy. One hundred and fifty years later this remains an ideal rather than an achievement.
Only recently have the provinces reached an agreement to make the free movement of people, goods and services across provincial and territorial boundaries the norm with a limited number of exceptions. The British Columbia and Quebec governments are currently threatening to use provincial regulatory powers to prevent the construction of inter-provincial energy pipelines across their borders to the east and west coasts.
This resistance to national infrastructure projects and reluctance to promote the free flow of goods and services between the provinces and territories would have shocked and disappointed the Fathers of Confederation, particularly the Minister of Finance for the then Province of Canada, Alexander Tilloch Galt of Sherbrooke. One of the prime factors driving Confederation was the 1865 American abrogation of the Reciprocity Treaty between the United States and the British North American colonies. This treaty had been ratified in 1854 for a ten-year term with either party able to abrogate it with one-year’s notice after that time. Growing protectionist sentiment in the USA and the supply of British-made warships to the Confederacy during the American Civil War were the main reasons for the American decision to abrogate the treaty.
All the British North American colonies had prospered under the treaty and the impending loss of free trade in natural products with the USA turned the minds of the colonists to expanding their trade with each other and with the United Kingdom to offset the loss of free access to American markets. To this economic imperative for a British North American east-west economy was added the threat of military invasion. In the spring of 1866 there were abortive Fenian invasions of New Brunswick and Upper and Lower Canada by American Irish nationalists, attempting to annex those colonies to the USA by force.
One of these Fenian armies crossed the border at St. Alban’s, Vermont near Galt’s constituency in the Eastern Townships. But even before the abrogation of the Reciprocity Agreement took effect and more than a full year before the Fenian invasions, Galt had argued for a strong federal government with “all the large sources of revenue” to provide for the common defence and undertake large public works to bind the original Confederation partners and later British Columbia and the Northwest Territories of the Hudson Bay Company together including a transcontinental railway line completely north of the American border.
The first step in this massive infrastructure program was an Intercolonial Railway from Halifax to Rivière du Loup through the North Shore of New Brunswick. It was not completed until 1876. The Canadian Pacific Railway from southern Ontario to the west coast was begun almost a decade later and was completed only in 1885. Political union could not long have been maintained without a transcontinental east-west transportation system. An economic union and an integrated national economy became possible only once that system was in place.
The mixture of political and economic imperatives motivating Confederation is illustrated by the route of the Intercolonial Railway. Instead of crossing New Brunswick through the populous St. John River valley, it went up the more sparsely populated east coast of that province to make it more difficult for American invaders to sever the rail link between the Maritimes and Quebec. Once completed, in recognition of the non-commercial character of the Intercolonial Railway’s route, the government-owned line adopted a policy of setting freight rates low enough to build traffic and encourage trade between the Maritime Provinces and Quebec and Ontario.
So important did Galt consider a strong federal government with a monopoly on the main sources of revenue for the building up of a transcontinental economic union that he intended that per capita federal grants to the provinces would be their main source of revenue. The one source of revenue he placed in the provinces’ hands, the power of direct taxation (income and sales taxes), was for the purpose of restraining rather than encouraging large expenditures by the provinces. He believed such taxes would be so unpopular that any province levelling them would risk defeat at the polls. In his words, “If the men in power find that they are required, by means of direct taxation, to procure the funds necessary to administer the local affairs…they will pause before they enter on any career of extravagance.”
On the other hand, Galt saw an expansive role for the national government in undertaking the works necessary to build up a national economy. “One of the first acts of the General Government of the United Provinces,” following the construction of the Intercolonial Railway he told the legislature of the Province of Canada in February 1865 , “will be to enter into public obligations for the purpose of opening up and developing [the Northwest] and of making it a source of strength instead of a burden to us and to the Mother Country… The country”, he declared, “desires and cries for “ measures “whereby its internal prosperity, peace and happiness may be developed and maintained.” It was a noble vision calling on the people of the new nation to forswear narrow parochial interests to build a great political and economic union. It still meets with resistance and foot-dragging from those with narrower and less ambitious motives.