Document Information
Date: 1864-10-12
By: George Brown
Citation: George Brown Papers, Drafts of the Quebec Resolutions, Notes on the Distribution of Powers with Revisions, October 12th, 1864 (MG 24, B 40, Vol. 21, p. 3768-3769).
Other formats: Click here to view the original document (PDF).
Click for our e-book from which the transcription and footnotes come from: Charles Dumais, The Quebec Resolutions: Including Several Never-Published Preliminary Drafts by George Brown and John A. Macdonald & a Collection of all Previously-Published Primary Documents Relating to the Conference, Second Edition (Calgary: Canadian Constitution Foundation, 2025).
Note: The original text also contains handwritten notes and other marginalia. Click here to view an explanatory document on how we have transcribed handwritten notes from the publication mentioned above (Dumais, Quebec Resolutions, 2025). The footnote numbers (endnotes on our website) may not match because in the book the numbers restart for each page, but on our website, they are continual.
3768[1]
| Trade | Education – with reservation |
| Currency & Coinage | Inland Fisheries |
| Banking | Public Laws & Settlement |
| Taxation | Prisons |
| Interest | Hospitals & Charities |
| Insolvency | Agriculture – [illegible] [Concurrent] |
| Weights & Measures | Road & Bridges |
| Navigation | Power to borrow money under restriction [illegible] |
| Light Houses | Registration of titles |
| Sea fisheries | Municipal Laws |
| Patents & Copyrights | All Private & Local legislation except matter specially made general by the constitution |
| Telegraph Incorporation | Appointments – |
| Naturalization | Administration of Justice |
| Marriage & Divorce | Civil Laws |
| Agriculture – [illegible] [concurrent] | Executive – |
| Census | Legislative Council: |
|
Postal Service |
NS 21 |
|
Militia & Defence |
NB 22 |
|
|
Canada 72 |
|
Intercolonial Works |
P.E. 13 |
|
Power to Subsidize Local Leg. |
128 |
|
Assume Property & Debts |
|
|
All general legislation except matters specially made local |
|
|
Emigration – Concurrent |
72 or 75 |
|
Power to establish a Court of appeal |
To be paid |
| ? | Leg. Assembly: |
| N.S. 55 | |
| N.B. 43 | |
| Tariff? | Canada 130 |
| How local gov. [illegible] | P.E. 13 |
| Uniformity or? | 258 |
| 150 to 200 | |
| Paid | |
| Qualification | |
| [illegible] | |
| How often meet. |
3769[2]
Power of disallowance [checkmark]
[illegible]
Power to alter our government [checkmark]
Ferries [checkmark]
[illegible] of law?
[illegible]
All matters affecting [illegible]
[illegible]
[illegible]
Coroners?
Tariffs
Registrars
Clerks of the Peace
Country attorneys
Indians? [checkmark]
Inspection of commodities? [checkmark]
Imprisonment for debt? [checkmark]
[illegible] foreign bills?
[illegible]
Transference of Public Buildings [checkmark]
Seats of Gov. [checkmark]
Preservation of [illegible]
[illegible] Religious rights
Appeal
Veto to General Government [checkmark]
Power to Parliament to distribute [illegible] [checkmark]
Nothing to prevent members in both chambers
Power to compel fulfilment of obligations
Who gets criminal power?
[illegible]
[illegible]
[illegible]
Endnotes
[1] MG24 B40 3768 (above) follows primarily the same structure as MG24 B40 3764-3765. The amendments in Brown’s longhand on MG24 B40 3764-3765 are found incorporated into this document. Like MG24 B40 3764-3765, I have tentatively dated MG24 B40 3768 and 3769 October 12th 1864 for the simple reason (again) the number of legislative councillors proposed for the new federation on MG24 B40 3768 is “72 or 75” whereas the number formally proposed during committee is first 72 councillors on October 13th, 1864. These notes must predate that formal resolution. There was I believe a drafting side-session on the evening of October 12th 1864 (as suggested by A.A. Macdonald’s (PEI) “informal record”), and these are Brown’s working notes of that session which saw the formal drafting of a number of resolutions (see A.A. Macdonald’s (PEI) “informal record,” pp. 186-187 in this volume). [C.D.]
[2] I have included MG24 B40 3769 as an extension of MG24 B40 3768 since it features notes on the distribution of powers, and it is inserted in this order by Library and Archives Canada. However, there are too many provisions that are illegible.
I would also note two lines that are surprising on this page. First, it is surprising to find ‘the power to alter our government’. But it was probably only discussed in the context of local constitutions, since this provision would otherwise oddly refer to a power to amend what would be British legislation. Unfortunately, there are no other records that might indicate what was being entertained. Second, it is also surprising to find the topic of Indigenous peoples (“Indians”) in what seems to be among additional draft provisions for the distribution of powers. The question of Indigenous peoples or “Indians” was mentioned in Cartier, Ross, and Galt’s “1858 Despatch” (see p. 84 of this volume) but the topic is conspicuously missing in Lieutenant-Governor Gordon’s 1864 Despatch. The provision is however only incorporated later when considering the topic of the uniformity of laws in Brown’s “Resolutions on Indians, ferries, etc.,” October 25th-26th 1864, p. 23 in this volume. [C.D.]