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Date: 1864-11-18
By: True Witness
Citation: “No title”, True Witness (18 November, 1864)
Other formats: TBA

We publish on our second page the results of the Quebec Conference of delegates, as translated by the Montreal Herald from the text of the Journal de Quebec. Some trifling errors of detail there may be; but we believe that the general outline is correct, and that in substance the proposed “constitutional changes” are now before us.

Hitherto we have dealt only with general principles, and we have not hesitated to express our aversion to any system of union no matter by what name called, which should have the effect of subjecting Lower Canada to the rule of the alien and hostile races by whom she is surrounded. As a general rule political Unions have been signal failures. They have succeeded only in exceptional cases: and there where there existed no striking differences, ethnological or religious, betwixt the people politically bound or united together. The Union of England and Scotland is one of these exceptional cases; but then the two countries had not only long been united under one crown, before the Legislative Union betwixt them; but their respective populations were also closely united in language, and above all in religion—that is to say they entertained a common hatred of Catholicity, and a common dread of the restoration of the Stuart dynasty. Under these favorable circumstances, and with this homogeneity of blood, of language of religion, and dynastic interest betwixt English and Scotch in its favor, the Union of England and Scotland was consummated, and as the event has proved with most happy results to both countries.

But how has it been with other Unions of countries or communities, betwixt whom no such homogeneity obtained? betwixt Protestant Great Britain and Catholic Ireland for instance? betwixt Catholic Belgium and Protestant Holland? the Sicilies and the sub-Alpine provinces of Italy? Catholic Poland and schismatic Russia? betwixt all countries in short whose people were alien to one another in blood, in language or in religion? All such Unions have failed signally because they were unnatural, and have been attended with the most disastrous results. The only conditions upon which alien races can live together in intimate or cordial moral union, is that they be not too closely politically united. The more lax the cords which bind them together, the more closely will they adhere to one another. This is a trite axiom, but one which legislators, political theorists, and constitution mongers are too often apt to lose sight of.

And such being the case, we augur no good, but much evil, from the projected political Union of Catholic Lower Canada with the adjacent Protestant Provinces of British North America, because the cords will be drawn much too tight, and because too much, although indirect, control over Lower Canada will thereby be assured to a hostile and alien race. Thus united or bound together, and brought into too close contact with one another, a struggle will commence which will terminate only in the elimination of the non-homogeneous element from the compound, in other words in the destruction of the weaker race. Lower Canada will be to the other members of the Union as Belgium was to Holland; and as for her there will be no chance of recovering her independence—as there was in the case of Belgium—the result cannot be doubtful. Given such a Union as that now contemplated, and in a few generations a live French speaking Canadian will be as rare as the Dodo, or as the Moa Dinornis of which a few specimens, it is said, are still to be found in the primeval forests of New Zealand.

However this is a matter for the consideration of French Canadians. If they like the terms of the Union now proposed to them no one will offer any objections against it; only it is but just that in a matter so important, and of such vital interest to them, the people of Lower Canada—Papists and an “inferior race” though be, according to the Globe and that school of politicians of whom Mr. George Brown is the representative—should have an absolute vote, and that their vote be not absorbed in, or swamped by, that of Upper Canada. The Lower Canadians have assuredly the right to demand that they be left as free to accept, or reject, the proffered Union, as the people of New Brunswick and Prince Edward’s Island; unless indeed they be, as some pretend they are, “an inferior race,” and not entitled to the same consideration as their neighbors.

We do not intend to-day discussing the details of the proposed Union; but we must remark en passant, that to the central government is to be committed the right of legislation on two most important subjects:—

1st. “Marriage”—that is to say, a Sacrament; and

2nd. “Divorce”—that is to say, Mortal Sin.

And it is proposed that the Catholics of the Province shall formally and explicitly acquiesce in, or ratify this arrangement, by accepting and ratifying the proposed “constitutional changes.”

Here we feel that we are treading upon sacred ground, and we must walk reverently.—The subject is too serious for us, as laymen, to deal with, for in it are involved questions of faith and morals which belong to the Church, and upon which she alone is competent to decide.—Only this would we venture to suggest.

If we accept, or even allow to pass without our strong and unanimous protest, the clause which invests the central government with the privilege of legislating on “Marriage and Divorce,” we shall thereby formally recognise the right of the civil magistrate to legislate as he pleases upon these topics, and cannot hereafter logically complain of the manner in which he may be pleased to exercise that right. It is unfortunately too true that at present the civil magistrate claims so to legislate, but his right to do so has never yet been formally recognised or admitted by Catholics; and it is one thing to submit to an act of tyranny which we cannot resist—another, and a very different thing to admit it as a right. If our legislature as at present constituted pretends to have the power to break the vinculum matrimonii, the Catholic at least have never sanctioned such a claim, and is not therefore particeps criminis; how however would it be if he had voted in favor of giving to that legislature the right to legislate upon “Marriage and Divorce?” This we say raises questions within the domain of the Church, with which it becomes not us as simple laymen to deal; we take our shoes from off our feet as we approach, for the ground is holy, and because we do not desire to give illustration to the adage, that:—

“Fools oft rush in where angels fear to tread.”