George Brown

The building in which the life of the Hon. George Brown was so tragically ended, was one that had been presented to him by the Reformers of Upper Canada before confederation "as...

The Browns arrived in Canada in the period of reconstruction following the rebellion of 1837-8. In Lord Durham's Report the rising in Lower Canada was attributed mainly to racia...

"Events stronger than advocacy, events stronger than men," to repeat D'Arcy McGee's phrase, combined in 1864 to remove confederation from the field of speculation to the field o...

After the burning of the parliament buildings in Montreal the seat of government oscillated between Quebec and Toronto. Toronto's turn came in the session of 1856. Macdonald was...

In the preceding chapters it has been necessary to follow closely the numerous public movements with which Brown was connected. Here we may pause and consider some incidents of...

We are to consider now the long-vexed question of the connection of Mr. Brown with the coalition of 1864. Ought he to have entered the coalition government? Having entered it, w...

Very soon after his arrival in Canada, Mr. Brown became deeply interested in the North-West Territories. He was thrown into contact with men who knew the value of the country an...

To whom is due the confederation of the British North American provinces is a long vexed question. The Hon. D'Arcy McGee, in his speech on confederation, gave credit to Mr. Unia...

Mr. Brown's position in regard to reciprocity has already been described. He set a high value upon the American market for Canadian products, and as early as 1863 he had urged t...

By his advocacy of representation by population, by his opposition to separate schools, and his championship of Upper Canadian rights, Mr. Brown gained a remarkable hold upon th...

Within the limits of one parliament, less than four years, the Baldwin-Lafontaine government achieved a large amount of useful work, including the establishment of cheap and uni...

The parliament of Canada assembled on January 19th, 1865, to consider the resolutions of the Quebec conference. The first presentation of the reasons for confederation was made...

The clergy reserves were for many years a fruitful source of discontent and agitation in Canada. They had their origin in a provision of the Constitutional Act of 1791, that the...

George Brown was born at Alloa, a seaport on the tidal Forth, thirty-five miles inward from Edinburgh, on November 29th, 1818. His mother was a daughter of George Mackenzie, of...

In his home in Scotland Brown had been imbued with a hatred of slavery. He spent several years of his early manhood in New York, and felt in all its force the domination of the...

The series of events which gradually drew Mr. Brown out of the coalition began with the death of Sir Etienne P. Taché on July 30th, 1865. By his age, his long experience, and a...

In June, 1854, the Hincks-Morin government was defeated in the legislature on a vote of censure for delay in dealing with the question of the clergy reserves. A combination of T...

A new turn was given to the debate early in March by the defeat of the New Brunswick government in a general election, which meant a defeat for confederation, and by the arrival...

That the _Globe_ and Mr. Brown, as related in a previous chapter, became associated with Lord John Russell's bill and the "no popery" agitation in England, may be regarded as a...

It will be remembered that after the victory won by the Reformers in 1848, there was an outbreak of radical sentiment, represented by the Clear Grits in Upper Canada and by the...

The condition of parties in the legislature was peculiar. The most formidable antagonist of the Reform government was the man who was rapidly rising to the leadership of the Ref...

In England, as well as in Canada, events were moving towards self-government. With the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1840 disappeared the preference to Canadian wheat. "Destroy thi...

In the autumn of 1851 parliament was dissolved, and in September Mr. Brown received a requisition from the Reformers of Kent to stand as their candidate, one of the signatures b...

In 1860, Mr. Brown contemplated retiring from the leadership of the party. In a letter to Mr. Mowat, he said that the enemies of reform were playing the game of exciting persona...

The conference was held with closed doors, so as to encourage free discussion. Some fragmentary notes have been preserved. One impression derived from this and other records is...