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LIKE many other men who
have won distinction in building up the empire abroad, the future
premier of the Dominion was of Scottish birth. His ancestors,
respectable merchants or farmers, had the usual traditional links
with a remote past, but nothing apparently to distinguish them from
other Highland families. His father, Mr. Hugh Macdonald, was a
native of Sutherland-shire who had removed as a young man from his
native village in the north to Glasgow, where he became a
manufacturer in a small way, and was married to Miss Helen Shaw of
that city, also of Highland descent. Of this marriage there were
born five children, of whom John Alexander, the subject of this
biography, was the third. The date of his birth was January 11th,
1815, the year of Waterloo.
The lad was in the
fifth year of his age when in 1820 his father, whose business
ventures in Glasgow had not been successful, resolved to emigrate to
Canada.
Thus, while his
extraction was Scottish, his whole training was essentially
Canadian. His boyish inspirations came from the country which he was
to consolidate and rule.
The family settled
first in the town of Kingston, in the province of Ontario, then the
most important military post and social centre of Upper Canada. The
early attempts of the father to find a business footing in Kingston
having failed, the family removed in succession to two of the small
neighbouring settlements, Hay Bay and Stone Mills, on the Bay of
Quinte. The years spent there seem to have been equally
unsuccessful, from a business point of view, and in 1836 Mr.
Macdonald returned to Kingston, where he was appointed to a position
in the Commercial Bank. Here his health began to fail and he died
five years later, in 1841, at the age of fifty-nine.
Though evidently
unstable in purpose and unequal to the rough work of a new country,
Mr. Macdonald seems to have been a man of some ability and a kindly
heart, with a keen desire, truly Scottish, that his children should
get education. But it is evident that the son owed little of his
great qualities to paternal heredity. His mother, who lived until
1862, was of stronger fibre, and was apparently the binding force
which held the family together through many anxious years. She is
described as a woman of great intellectual vigour and strong
personality, quiet in manner and with a keen sense of humour. Her
son was devoted to her, and as she lived to the age of eighty-five,
she watched the earlier stages of his brilliant career.
Meanwhile the lad had
been for five years, between the ages of ten and fifteen, a pupil at
the Kingston Grammar School. In this brief space was compressed his
whole formal education, beyond what had been received at elementary
schools. Even school life must have been weighted with anxieties. "I
had no boyhood," he once said to a friend. "From the age of fifteen
I began to earn my own living."
But already at school
one quality which marked the man—that of winning the affection of
those around him—seems to have asserted itself in the boy. "I like
to remember those early school days when John Macdonald and myself
were pupils at the same school, he being one of the older boys and I
one of the younger," said Sir Oliver Mowat at the unveiling of
Macdonald's statue in 1895. "He was as popular with the boys then as
he afterwards became with men."
Of university
training he had none. The circumstance was to him a matter of
lasting regret; but it is one which brings out in stronger relief
the natural ability and energy of a mind which triumphed over the
deficiencies of education, and held its own among men of the highest
culture. Omnivorous reading, to which he was passionately addicted
to the end of his career, became the substitute for a university
course.
On leaving school in
1830, he at once entered upon the study of law in the office of Mr.
George Mackenzie, a friend of his father with whom he lodged. His
school-boy age at this time suggests the duties of a junior clerk or
office boy rather than serious legal study. Apparently during the
whole course of his law studies he was earning his own living and
probably assisting his family, so that he must have received wages
for his office work.
He seems to have
inspired confidence almost at once, for as early as 1832, while
still a young student, he was sent to look after the business of a
branch office opened at Napanee, and in 1833 he went, by arrangement
with Mr. Mackenzie, to Picton to take charge of the law office of
Mr. L. P. Macpherson, in the absence of that gentleman from Canada.
For a political
career the experience thus gained was doubtless most valuable. The
practice of a country lawyer in Canada brings him into singularly
close touch with the difficulties and needs, the passions,
prejudices and peculiarities of the farming population which forms
the political backbone of the country. For the special work lying
before him, this training perhaps meant as much as any that even a
university could give.
Of these early years
of struggle and hard work little has been brought to light worthy of
special record as illustrating the character of the young man, or as
giving clear indication of the great career which awaited him. Few
men of equal mark in later life have had a youth so devoid of
memorable incident.
There are suggestions
in fragments of correspondence that he had not only secured the
trust of his employers, but had also attracted the special interest
of others beside those under whom he worked. A cheerful disposition,
joined to industrious habits, appears to have made him a favourite
in the small circle in which he moved. His life at this stage was
the life of many an ambitious and energetic law student in Canada
to-day: a round of ordinary office duties, lightened by the pleasant
social intercourse of a stirring provincial town.
The exceptional
qualities of leadership which marked his later career were to be
developed in the slow process of time and events.
On February 6th,
1836, he was called to the bar and immediately opened an office in
Kingston, thus entering upon the practice of the law on his own
account at the early age of twenty-one. Business seems to have come
to him at once, partly no doubt from his previous connection with
principals having a large practice, and partly through the
impression which his abilities had already made on those who knew
him.
That he had still to
overcome the crudity and impetuosity of youth, a curious story
shows. It is thus told by Mr. Pope: "In his first case, which was at
Picton, Mr. Macdonald and the opposing counsel became involved in an
argument, which, waxing hotter and hotter, culminated in blows. They
closed and fought in open court to the scandal of the judge who
immediately instructed the crier to enforce order. This crier was an
old man, personally much attached to Mr. Macdonald, in whom he took
a lively interest. In pursuance of his duty, however, he was
compelled to interfere. Moving towards the combatants and circling
round them he shouted in stentorian tones, 'Order in the court,
order in the court,' adding in a low but intensely sympathetic voice
as he passed near his protege, 'Hit him, John!' I have heard Sir
John Macdonald say that, in many a parliamentary encounter in after
years, he had seemed to hear above the excitement of the occasion,
the voice of the old crier whispering in his ear the words of
encouragement, 'Hit him, .John!'" This escapade does not seem to
have affected his legal career.
The interesting fact
was often recalled in later times that, during the first year of his
practice, two young men marked out for future distinction, Oliver
Mowat and Alexander Campbell, entered his office as students.
Twenty-eight years later the three men were members of the same
cabinet. Of the three, one died as prime minister of Canada; one as
lieutenant-governor of his native province, after having been its
premier for twenty-three years ; the third, after having held
several of the most important offices in the Dominion cabinet, also
ended his career as lieutenant-governor of Ontario. All had been
knighted in recognition of their distinguished public services. The
coincidence of ability, opportunity and of actual achievement is
noteworthy.
The years which
marked the beginning of Macdonald's career were critical ones in the
history of Canada. As we have seen he was called to the bar in 1836.
In 1837 rebellion broke out headed by Papineau in Lower Canada, and
by William Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada. To aid in its suppression
the militia and volunteers were called out, and the young lawyer
along with others shouldered his musket in defence of law and order.
The force to which he
was attached was sent to Toronto. The rising in the Upper Province
was speedily quelled, and his military service was therefore brief
and bloodless. It is worth noting that one of his closest political
friends, and one on whose aid he chiefly relied in after years for
carrying Confederation and harmonizing the conflicting elements in
the different provinces, Georges Etienne Cartier, was among those
who had been carried away by the fiery and revolutionary eloquence
of the French leader, Papineau. Sharing in the defeat of the rebels
he fled from the country, but later availed himself of the general
amnesty and returned to become one of the most loyal upholders of
British power in Canada.
In the year following
the rebellion Macdonald was called upon in the course of his
professional work to defend, under circumstances which attracted
attention at the time, one of those who had participated in the
uprising. During the rebellion much sympathy had been shown across
the American border for those who had taken up arms against the
government. This sympathy quickly took the form of active
assistance. In November of the year following a party of Americans
crossed the border at a point a little below Prescott on the St.
Lawrence, captured a windmill there, and held it for some days
against the forces sent to drive them out. The party was finally
overcome, its leaders were arrested and tried by court-martial, and
eleven of them were ultimately hanged. Among them was Von Schoultz,
a Polish gentleman of independent means, who, after fighting in the
cause of Polish liberty in Europe, had been led to believe that in
Canada he would be equally serving the cause of freedom by joining
the rebels.
The romance of
political biography long credited Macdonald with a defence of the
accused man so brilliant as to establish his legal reputation, but
this myth has been dispelled by the sober facts of authentic
history, which show that the counsel for the defence neither made
nor could make before the court-martial any speech at all in behalf
of the prisoner, who pleaded guilty from the first, and, in the
absence of all extenuating circumstances, was condemned and
executed. A sum of money which he arranged to bequeath to his
counsel, Macdonald declined to accept. In connection with the same
events he was entrusted with the defence of Mr. Ashley, the jailer
at Kingston, who was accused on insufficient grounds by the military
authorities of having connived at the escape of some political
prisoners. The vigour of his defence secured an acquittal for his
client and increased his reputation as a lawyer, but damaged for a
time his popularity, so strongly did public feeling run against the
Americans who had wantonly invaded the country.
The years which
immediately followed were marked only by hard work and increasing
prosperity. In 1839 he became solicitor for the Commercial Bank, and
soon after for a large Trust and Loan Company. The death of his old
principal, Mr. George Mackenzie, greatly increased the circle of his
clients.
In 1842 he paid his
first visit to England, partly for the sake of his health, which had
been shaken by a severe illness in 1840, and partly to make
purchases for his law library.
His home letters
during this time show that he entered with zest into the usual round
of sightseeing—visited in London the law-courts, where he saw the
great judges of the day on the bench; and parliament, where he
listened to Peel, Lord John Russell, Stanley, O'Connell and others.
He visited Oxford and Cambridge, admired the splendour of Windsor
Castle and travelled much through his native Scotland as well as
through England. He returned at the end of a few months with renewed
strength and eager to take up the laborious professional work which
now constituted the ordinary round of his life.
In 1843 he took into
partnership in his growing business his former student, Alexander
Campbell, a connection which continued till 1849. He had already
begun to take an interest in municipal affairs, and in 1843 was
elected an alderman for the city of Kingston. In this position he is
said to have displayed good business ability and to have made
himself popular. But larger fields of public employment were about
to open before him.
Meanwhile, his
increasing prosperity had enabled him to assume the cares of
domestic life. He was married on September 1st, 1843, to his cousin,
Miss Isabella Clark, whose acquaintance he had made in Scotland.
[Two children were the offspring of this marriage; the elder, John
Alexander, was accidentally killed by a fall when quite young; the
second, Hugh John, has been well known to Canadians as member of
parliament for the city of Winnipeg and premier of the province of
Manitoba.] Soon after their marriage Mrs. Macdonald became a
confirmed invalid, and for many years constant anxiety about a wife
to whom he was devoted went hand-in-hand with professional and
political cares.
In the search for health Mrs. Macdonald was compelled to spend long
periods in a warmer climate, and so was unable to take any
considerable part in the public life of her husband, so much of
which was passed away from home in prolonged attendance on his
parliamentary duties. This lack of a continuous home life was one of
the disabilities against which he had to struggle throughout his
earlier political career.
It was in 1844, the
year after his marriage, that his opportunity came for entering
political life. In September of that year, Sir Charles Metcalfe, who
had been for many months trying to carry on the government with a
ministry which did not command a majority in the assembly, resolved
to make an appeal to the country. This event had been expected for
some time and the people of Kingston had prepared for it as early as
the preceding June, when an address, signed by more than two hundred
of the electors, was presented to Macdonald asking him to be a
candidate for the representation of the town. As the time for the
election approached, this requisition was endorsed at a large
gathering of the Conservative party. A few days later Macdonald
issued the first of his many addresses to a Canadian constituency.
One paragraph of this address is worthy of special remark, since it
strikes the keynote of his future political career. "I, therefore,"
he says, -need scarcely state my firm belief that the prosperity of
Canada depends upon its permanent connection with the mother
country, and that I shall resist to the utmost any attempt (from
whatever quarter it may come), which may tend to weaken that union."
Thus he enunciates at his very entrance into public life the central
thought around which the political activities of nearly half a
century were to revolve. When the polling day arrived he was elected
by an overwhelming majority, and so became the member for Kingston,
a constituency which, with one short break, he represented
throughout his whole public career.
There is no
indication that Macdonald was fired by any strong ambition or great
political ardour in first seeking a seat in the legislature. When
asked long after how he came to contest the election of 1844, he
said, "To fill a gap. There seemed to be no one else available, so I
was pitched upon."
Sir John Thompson,
his colleague for several years, and later one of his successors in
the premiership, mentions that he once consulted him about a
friend's coming forward at an election when there was a prospect of
his having to retire at the end of a single session, and that
Macdonald in giving his approval added, "Those are the terms on
which I came into public life."
The passionate
devotion to politics which marked his later life was a plant of slow
growth. An increasing sense of public duty and the knowledge that he
was necessary to his party, added to a consciousness of power to
rule men, and of pleasure in the exercise of that power, were the
forces which, contrary to his original intention, gradually led him
on to devote his life entirely to the politics of his country. And
assuredly no country ever had more need of the services of its best
minds than had Canada at the time when Macdonald entered the
legislature in 1844. This will be realized if we recall for a moment
the number and complexity of the still unsettled problems with which
the public men of the time were confronted. In the Canada of that
day race was pitted against race, religion against religion. Men's
minds were still inflamed by the wrongs, imaginary or real, which
had produced the Rebellion of 1837, and by the passions kindled
during its progress and suppression. The losses incurred during that
rebellion had still in part to be dealt with, and when taken in hand
for final settlement were destined to bring to a critical test the
question of responsible government. The vexed and long-standing
question of the Clergy Reserves embittered the public life of Upper
Canada. Closely connected with this was the almost equally disputed
issue of university endowment. Whether the Family Compact was the
safeguard of British connection or a selfish combination working
chiefly for personal ends, was a question fiercely debated on every
hustings and at well-nigh every fireside. In Quebec, seigniorial
tenure, a heritage from the feudal past, awaited some solution which
would set the habitant free to enjoy the full fruits of his labour,
while not inflicting an injustice on proprietors whose legal rights
were undisputed. Representation according to population had not yet
become a question between the two provinces, but the stream of
immigration into Upper Canada, which was soon to make it a burning
subject of dispute, had already begun to flow.
Behind all these
large questions was one yet larger. British North America still
consisted of a disjointed series of provinces; those on the Atlantic
coast separated from old Canada by hundreds of miles of unbroken
forests; the settlements of the Pacific still more effectually cut
off from the central provinces by well-nigh two thousand miles of
intervening prairie and mountains, only inhabited by the wandering
Indian or the adventurous trapper. The physical isolation of the
provinces was matched by the social and commercial isolation due to
inadequate means of communication, separate postal systems,
independent fiscal arrangements, and varying commercial laws.
Another condition,
too, we are bound to note. The men who were to deal with these vast
problems involving the future of half a continent had hitherto been
provincial politicians, with views limited and passions concentrated
by the narrow circle in which they moved. Would their range of
vision widen to meet the new needs of Canadian life? Would the
provincial politician merge into the national statesman?
The career of
Macdonald as a public man embraced nearly half a century. To the
very end of that extended period the political development of Canada
was sensibly influenced by events which had happened, conditions
that existed and passions which had been aroused long antecedent to
the time when he entered parliament. The business of a statesman is
to make the most of the circumstances in which he is placed; to
utilize to the advantage of the State the forces with which he has
to deal. The skill and ability with which he builds up the fortunes
of his country on what has been inherited from its past; the degree
in which his powers respond to the new demands made upon them,
establish his place on the page of history. To understand fully the
tangled skein of Canadian politics which had to be unwound between
1844 and 1867 the reader must study, as he can do in earlier volumes
of this series, the complicated train of events which occurred
between the conquest in 1759 and the time when Macdonald's
parliamentary career began.
But if we remember
that, in the settlement of many of these vital questions to which
reference has been made, Macdonald took a leading part; that in
constructing the systems and framing the compromises which furnished
their ultimate solution, his was the guiding hand; we shall
understand the long and difficult road upon which the young
legislator was entering when the people of Kingston first chose him
as their representative; we shall be prepared to make allowance for
many a mistake, as well as for those changes of policy or conviction
which come from enlarged experience; and it will be difficult not to
mark with admiration that gradual widening of power which enabled
him to grapple successfully with the higher problems of
statesmanship. |
