CHAPTER X

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN UPPER

CANADA, 1792-1838

THE Constitution of 1791 could hardly have found a more ideal foster-father than Lieutenant-Colonel John Graves Simcoe, first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada. He was a soldier, an aristocrat, a strong believer in the established church and in that due gradation of social life so dear to his class. To him the British constitution was only less sacred than the bible, and it was almost with reverence that he undertook the work of organizing the government of the new province. On September 17, 1792, he opened the first legislature at Newark. The scene has passed into the romance of Canadian history. All available pomp of circumstance was pressed into service, and in a clearing in the Canadian woods an attempt was made to reproduce with solemn seriousness and due decorum the glory of Westminster. The one regret in Simcoe's eyes was that so many members of the house of assembly were one-table men' -dined in common with their servants-and did not belong to what he considered the best class in the province.

The scene, however, is more than a romance. It is an index to Upper Canadian life. Founded on an aversion to republicanism and on loyalty to monarchical principles, Simcoe laid very permanent foundations for Upper Canada. The governor was to be a real viceroy, the legislative council a western house of lords, the legislative assembly a gracious cog in the political machine. The Anglican church was to shed the kindly influence of its decent and established moderation in balancing society and in eliminating such zealots as the Methodists, ‘a set of ignorant enthusiasts, whose preaching [was] calculated to

perplex the understanding, to corrupt the morals, to relax the nerves of industry and to dissolve the bands of society'. The toleration given to the Roman catholic church was due to Simcoe's recognition that its priests were interested in a connexion with the authority of thrones, and who therefore never lose sight of the principle to preserve and propagate arbitrary power '.1

The province was at once organized along British lines. English civil law and trial by jury were introduced and the foundations of local representative government were laid.2 Local taxation was regulated. Arrangements were made to pay members of the house of assembly and to define their qualifications. A judicial system was set up and a criminal law thoroughly established.3 Simcoe, however, would have reproduced the entire English system. He incorporated towns on the British model and he created county lieutenants. Even the home government was persuaded to give a doubtful sanction to his schemes.5 His ruling passion was to stem the tide of 'democratic subversion... to establish the form as well as the spirit of the British constitution by modelling all the minutest branches of the executive government after a similar system, and by aiming as far as possible to turn the views of his majesty's subjects from any attention to the various modes and customs of the several provinces from which they emigrated to the contemplation of Great Britain itself as the sole and primary object of general and particular imitation'. He was little pleased when Portland pointed out how colonial circumstances might be detrimental to such slavish adherence to British models and precedents, and especially how it might weaken

1 La Rochefoucault-Liancourt, Travels in Canada, 1795, pp. 47 ff. (edited W. R. Riddell, Ontario Archives, Toronto, 1917).

2 Kennedy, op. cit., pp. 227 ff.

3 Doughty and McArthur, op. cit., pp. 91, 146, 158, 194, 246.

4 Simcoe to Portland, December 21, 1794, ibid., pp. 196 ff.

5 Portland to Simcoe, May 20, 1795, ibid., pp. 204 ff. Simcoe to Portland, January 22, 1795, ibid., pp. 200 ff.

the hands of the governor himself. Simcoe disputed the implied censure and his political faith survived the shock of dispatches. He informed the cabinet that his zeal was necessary to check 'the elective principle' on the continent, and that he rejoiced in an ideal legislative council which saved him refusing many bills from a tenacious and untractable' house of assembly.1 There may have been personal pique when he resented what he considered Dorchester's interference in the affairs of the province, but his devotion to the constitution undoubtedly was the moving force in his protests.

Outside the actual machinery of government it is necessary to reconstruct something of the social background against which this British senator soldier' administered no mutilated constitution', but one that was the very image and transcript of that of Great Britain, by which she has long established and secured to her subjects as much freedom and happiness as is possible to be enjoyed under the subordination necessary to civilized society'. First were the military, who took their cue from the lieutenant-governor and out-heroded Herod in being British. Then came the original United Empire loyalists, who had earliest shaken off the republican dust from their feet, and soon created a rustic aristocracy with almost complete control of the councils. Then there were the regular immigrants from the United States, whose devotion to republicanism was not superior to a love for good Canadian farm-lands. This group was looked down on by the true loyalist, who had come out of Egypt with clean heart and unsoiled hands. Lastly, there was a growing population of British settlers, who were in turn despised as foreigners and emigrants by those who now claimed a monopoly in the British name.

With Simcoe at the head of affairs, Upper Canada inevitably

1 Same to same, October 30, 1795, ibid., pp. 206 ff.

2 Simcoe to legislature, October 15, 1792, Journals of Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada, p. 18 (Ontario Archives, Toronto, 1909).

6

began its life with some sort of a governing class, and it was not many years before a local oligarchy or clique, known to history as the family compact', practically controlled the situation. No one seriously doubts their general ability and their general good intentions, qualities which as a rule lay behind their power. But too frequently their caprice, interest, arrogance, and folly stand out in the history in such a way as to make it impossible for criticism to bow the head silently before the shrine of loyalty. It is the impact of this group on the stern pioneer reality of a new world that created the constitutional issues in Upper Canada. It widened its borders by including noble and baseborn, Anglican and Methodist, the good, the bad, the indifferent; and by a process now lost to minute investigation it gained executive control. It lined the frontier, while dubious settlers were located deeper in the forest. York, Newark, and Kingston reflected its life. Peter Russell, the administrator till the arrival of General Hunter as lieutenant-governor, began to build up its fortunes or at least its property qualifications in huge land grants. Secure behind an Alien Act passed in 1804, which gave the government power to arrest and deport those of suspected loyalty who had not resided six months in the province, Upper Canada might look forward to the reproduction in America of the British constitution and the British class-system. The crown lands were ready for decent speculation, and land never tainted the hands as trade did. The clergy reserves were the symbol in every township of that combination of church and state so eminently respectable and revered.

Unfortunately for the dawn of another England, a group of reformers early entered the scenes of ordered peace.1 In

1 The documents connected with these early reformers are printed in extenso in Report of the Canadian Archives, 1892, pp. 33 ff. (Ottawa, 1893). There are several letters from C. B. Wyatt over his case in Baldwin MSS. [A], E. 6-7, pks. 17-24 (Ontario Archives). See also W. R. Riddell, Mr. Justice Thorpe' (Canadian Law Times, November 1920, pp. 907 ff.).

February 1805 William Weekes, an Irish barrister, was elected to the house of assembly. Almost immediately he introduced a motion that it is expedient for this house to enter into the consideration of the disquietude which prevails in the province by reason of the administration of public offices'. He could only rally four votes to his side. A year later he returned to the attack. The government had passed on Hunter's death into the hands of Alexander Grant, pitchforked into power by a clique'. Weekes found the executive insecure, and succeeded in having a committee appointed, with power to call witnesses, to consider the state of the province. It reported against the arbitrary methods in land granting, against the wretched roads throughout the country, and the lack of general education.3 The resolutions were not momentous, but Weekes continued his unwelcome interest in affairs. He took up the cause of Methodists, Quakers, Mennonists, and Tunkers '.4 He was largely responsible for the discovery that a considerable sum of money had been paid out of the provincial treasury without the authority of parliament or a vote of the assembly. A committee of the house reported that its rights and privileges had been violated, and Weekes drew up the address to the administrator lamenting the departure from constituted authority and fiscal establishment' as painful to a free people and their representatives, and expressing a hope that he would more than sympathize in so extraordinary an occurrence'. Grant replied that he regretted the dissatisfaction, and could only plead custom as the executive's excuse. He promised, however, an immediate investigation'. His reply was referred, on Weekes's motion, to a committee of the whole house, which reported having passed

1 Journals of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada (March 1, 1805), p. 48 (Ontario Archives, Toronto, 1911).

2 Ibid. (February 10, 1806), p. 64.

3 Ibid. (February 12, 1806), pp. 67 ff.

4 Ibid., pp. 72 ff.

5 Ibid. (February 28, March 1, 1806), pp. 101 ff., 107. See also Doughty and McArthur, op. cit., pp. 318 ff.