D. Building the New Nation

From HCO Jr

Part 6. The Road to Confederation → A. Growth & Change in B.N.A. → B. Causes of Confederation 1861-66 → The Path to Union and Expansion, 1864-1873 → D. Building the New Nation → E. Confederation Today

Nova Scotia has Second Thoughts

Troop Review on Parliament Hill, May 24, 1867

The new Dominion of Canada was formed on July 1, 1867. Politicians were unsure what to call the new country. Some of them wanted to call it the Kingdom of Canada, but thought this name might offend the United States. The word “dominion” was taken from the Bible. Canada was known as the Dominion of Canada until the 1950s when it became known simply as Canada.

Almost immediately after Canada was created it had to deal with the possibility of a province leaving Confederation. Many people in Nova Scotia believed that their government, led by Charles Tupper, had signed a bad deal. Nova Scotians thought that the new Canadian taxes would hurt their trade with the United States.

Joseph Howe Campaigning

One man in particular led the anti-Confederation forces in Nova Scotia: Joseph Howe. Howe was a journalist living in Halifax. His arguments against Confederation were very popular. In the first federal election in 1867, Joseph Howe’s separatist party won 18 of Nova Scotia’s 19 seats in the House of Commons. During the 1868 provincial election, Joseph Howe’s party won 36 of the province’s 38 seats. It seemed as if Nova Scotia would leave Canada.

Joseph Howe’s government in Nova Scotia started a petition to leave Confederation. In total, 31,000 of Nova Scotia’s 48,000 voters said they wanted to leave Confederation. This meant 65% of Nova Scotians wanted out of Canada.

Canada's First Parliament Opens

Joseph Howe was one of the MPs who was elected to the House of Commons. On the opening day of the first Parliament, Canada’s Governor-General, Lord Monck, gave the Speech from the Throne. This speech outlines what the government will do that year. After Monck finished, Joseph Howe stood up and made a speech against Canada.

Howe said that the law creating Canada was not passed with the support of the people of Nova Scotia. Howe referred to this petition, and said that 31,000 Nova Scotians were opposed to Confederation. Nova Scotians were afraid that Canada might go to war with the United States, and they might have to fight in a war for something that only affected Ontario or Quebec.

Howe was also opposed to Canada expanding further west. At this time there was talk of Canada taking over the Red River Colony in what is today southern Manitoba. Howe said this part of the country was a “disgrace to civilization,” and Canada should not try to control it. Howe believed it could lead to war with the United States (which also wanted that territory).

Joseph Howe

In 1868, Howe traveled to Britain to ask Queen Victoria to allow Nova Scotia to leave Confederation. Queen Victoria refused to see him. No important British politician would talk to Joseph Howe. The British government wanted Canada to be a success.

Howe’s only chance now was for Nova Scotia to leave Canada on its own, and maybe join the United States. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald could not allow this to continue. He traveled to Halifax to meet with Joseph Howe in the summer of 1868. They held secret talks. Macdonald offered Nova Scotia more money every year to stay in Confederation. Macdonald also told Howe that he would be made a cabinet minister in Macdonald’s government. Joseph Howe agreed with these terms, and he publicly said that he now supported Confederation. Over the next few years the separatist movement in Nova Scotia ended.

Building the Territory

Canada in 1867

Within two years of its creation, Canada expanded into the west and into the Maritimes. Canada’s size grew 600%. These changes did not come without problems.

Prince Edward Island, 1873

Although it happened after Canada’s western expansion, it is easier to learn about Prince Edward Island. In 1873, PEI joined Canada. The government of PEI had a lot of debt. In the late 1860s it started building railways on the island. These railways were very expensive to build. PEI also had another problem: absentee landlords. During the 1700s and 1800s the British government gave large pieces of land to people that supported Britain. Army officers and wealthy British subjects were given land in PEI. They rented this land out to people who lived on the island, but these landlords rarely lived on PEI.

People in PEI resented these landlords. They did not live on the island. Sometimes the rents that were charged were very high. Riots broke out in PEI in 1868 because islanders were so angry about these landlords.

In 1873 the Canadian government agreed to buy back all of the land owned by the landlords. This land would be given to the government of PEI, and the government would then sell that land to islanders. The Canadian government also agreed to take over all of PEI’s government debt. Lastly, the Canadian government agreed to build and operate a steamship service between PEI and the mainland in New Brunswick. This would link PEI to the rest of Canada, and the railways that joined the provinces together. With this new deal in place, the government of Prince Edward Island agreed to join Canada.

British Columbia, 1873

The following year, 1871, Canada's western-most province, British Columbia, seeking to revive its lagging economic fortunes, became the sixth province. Part of the inducement to win British Columbia's acceptance was a physical link with the rest of Canada. Initially, the B.C. delegates were prepared to accept as little as a wagon road. However, the Canadian negotiators decided to leave nothing to chance and in an act of unbridled generosity promised that a transcontinental railway would be started within two years of British Columbia's entrance into Confederation and completed within ten years of that date. Although a worldwide depression intervened to delay both dates, once construction did begin, the work proceeded with amazing speed resulting in the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway before the end of 1885.

The Great Seal of Canada, 1867; Used for Royal Assent to Laws

Rupert’s Land, 1869

Canada in 1870

Canada gained a vast amount of land in 1869 when it purchased Rupert's Land from the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). When the HBC was formed it was given a vast amount of land by King Charles II in 1670. For hundreds of years the HBC ran its fur trading posts in this land. It was called Rupert’s Land because the King’s son, Prince Rupert, was a supporter of the HBC and helped convince his father to give the HBC this land.

Big changes had already taken place in the western portion of Canada. The 1869 Rupert Land's Act, negotiated on behalf of Canada by Britain, transferred much of the land that was owned by the Hudson's Bay Company to the new Dominion. In return for about $1.5 million and one-twentieth of all the land, Canada had, with the stroke of a pen, increased its physical size by more than six times.

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Thomas D’Arcy McGee (Notman)

Sidelight: D'Arcy McGee Assassinated

Late in the evening of April 7, 1868, Montreal MP D'Arcy McGee had sauntered back to his rooming house on Sparks Street after giving a passionate speech in favour of national unity in the House of Commons. While fumbling with his keys or trying to unlock the door, he was shot in the head, from behind, at close range.

Prime Minister John A. Macdonald was summoned immediately and personally helped lift the body to a bed. Thomas D’Arcy McGee was given a State Funeral, attended by thousands, on what would have been his 43rd birthday, 13th April 1868.

The killing of McGee was the first and only assassination of a Canadian MP. Suspicion quickly fell on the Fenian Order, a radical group that dreamed of an Irish homeland in North America. A massive police sweep was conducted and dozens of possible suspects were detained. Within 24 hours of the crime, police arrested a young Ottawa tailor Patrick Whelan. He was carrying a Smith & Wesson revolver, fully loaded, in his coat pocket along with some ammunition.

On April 9, 1868, Whelan was charged with the murder of Thomas D’Arcy McGee. His trial took place in the Court of Common Pleas in Ottawa that September. The trial lasted eight days and received international publicity. He was defended by John Hillyard Cameron, Grand Master of the Orange Order, an anti-catholic association. The prosecutor was James O’Reilly. Presiding over the trial was Chief Justice William Buell Richards. The trial generated much interest and almost every detail of the "tailor with red whiskers" (Whelan) was noted and reported on.

Patrick James Whelan

A contemporary report describes Whelan as appearing in court wearing a small green rosette, white vest and garnet cufflinks.

During the trial, the key piece of evidence was the revolver taken from Whelan’s pocket during his capture. Court records describe it as a .32 caliber Smith & Wesson Type 2 six shot revolver with serial number 50847. A police expert said that it likely shot the bullet that had been pried out of McGee's skull. On the eighth and final day of the trial Whelan was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging.

On a cold and bleak morning of February 11, 1869, Patrick James Whelan, the convicted assassin of Thomas D’Arcy McGee, met his death on a scaffold erected at the Carlton County jail. A crowd of more than 5,000 people attended the event despite a snowfall earlier that morning. Whelan’s execution was the last public hanging to take place in the Dominion of Canada.

Footnote:

In May of 2005, The Canadian Museum of Civilization acquired at auction for $105,000 the Smith and Wesson .32 Caliber Model 2 Tip Up Revolver, serial numbered 50847, seized from the pocket of James Patrick Whelan during his arrest following the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee. A private bid proved too rich for the Bytown Museum, who dropped out of the bidding at $55,000.

According to David Morrison, the Museum's director of archeology and history, they resolved that the revolver was too important to Canadian history to end up "in a curio collection in a rich person's basement, possibly in another country."

"I'm very pleased we got it. McGee played a key role in Confederation, he was a major peace broker between Irish Catholics and the Orange (Order) Scottish Protestants like Sir John A. Macdonald," he said in an interview from his home.

Thomas D'Arcy McGee Reward

"McGee was one of the architects of Canadian unity and diversity -- which may be one of the reasons he was shot."

"The gun is best with us. We represent the whole country. Our country doesn't have enough of this -- icons of Canadian history. Canadians don't take their history seriously the way Americans do. Now (the gun) is part of the national collection for all Canadians."

The Bytown Museum had mounted a spirited fundraising campaign to buy the revolver, including a rally on Sparks Street. It raised donations from the City of Ottawa, D'Arcy McGee's Irish Pub, the National Capital Irish Society and many average citizens. Carolyn Cook, the museum's curator, called the outcome "the best of the worst situations." She said the Museum of Civilization has promised to lend the gun to the smaller institution for display some time in the future. "We're happy it's staying in the region," Ms. Cook said in an interview from the museum.

The late T.P. Slattery, a respected Montreal lawyer and legal historian, has made a convincing argument that neither Whelan nor his gun murdered McGee. He wrote that Whelan was railroaded and the ballistics evidence was faulty.

Mr. Morrison conceded the value of his museum's revolver would drop if Whelan's innocence was proven -- but he noted Whelan was convicted and there's no doubt this was his weapon. "We would put it on display as the gun that shot D'Arcy McGee," Mr. Morrison said. Ms. Cook, from the Bytown Museum, said the debate over Whelan's guilt only adds to the mystery surrounding McGee's murder and public interest in the revolver.

Another mystery is how the valuable weapon found its way to its last private owner, Scott Renwick, an auto mechanic from Dundalk, in southwestern Ontario. Mr. Renwick's friend, Mark Van Dusen, said in an interview it's believed the original investigating officer gave the weapon to an ancestor of Mr. Renwick's and it has passed down through the family ever since. "Scott is ecstatic that it sold at auction, the fair way to do it ... and that it will be in a place where all Canadians can see it," Mr. Van Dusen said.

Auction notice

Here's the description of the revolver from Jeffrey Hoare Auctions Inc.:

"The internal mechanism of the gun is in very good condition, showing little use. The bore is clean, the rifling sharp and discernable without evidence of pitting. The cylinder is tight, as is the tip up release which clicks sharply into position. The revolver retains about 50% of the original iridescent bluing, with the grips having the original varnish mostly in place. Overall, the gun shows some light rust and wear on the outside surfaces, mainly attributed to handling rather than use. An exceptional piece of Canadian history."

SOURCE: Jeffrey Hoare Auctions Inc.