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Date: 1864-07-20
By: The Montreal Herald
Citation: “Plan of Confederation”, The Montreal Herald (20 July, 1864)
Other formats: TBA

PLAN OF CONFEDERATION.

(From the Nord of Ste. Scholastique.)

We are unfavorable to a Canadian federation inasmuch as it must inflict injury on the integrity of the Lower Canadian land. Has it not been, indeed, declared that this confederation is to consist of three States, viz: West, exclusively English, central, half English and half French; and Eastern nearly wholly French? We have only to indicate such a system in order to show how disadvantageous it would be for us. Would not the acceptance of it, be the acceptance of the division and dismemberment of the country? And was a free people conscious of its national dignity ever yet seen to consent in gaiety of heart to the lessening and cutting up of its territory? To dismember a territory is to break up violently the bands which unite a people and make a distinct community of men having common hopes, and a life deriving nourishment from the same source of moral and religious ideas. An inch of her soil being invaded, France threw her armies on the frontier. Would England permit the slightest insult to the flag which proclaims her grandeur and power on every sea. Russia for a bit of wall accumulates her forces and fight, France and England combined Poland to reconquer her liber enlists her children and sacrifices them coolly to the claws of the Muscovite bear. America proclaims by the light of burning towns and the horrors of civil war the inviolability of the constitution bequeathed by Washington. Let it be remarked that invasion does not mean simply the occupation of a territory by foreign armies. There is a kind a thousand fold more dreadful — it is that which flows from evil institutions imposed on a nation, and which undermine it silently by their constant and regularly organized working. Such is the project which we combat It strikes directly at our national vitality — at the integrity of our soil. It is equally injurious in a legislative point of view, but as long details are impossible, we shall limit ourselves to some examples of our these: Suppose Upper and Lower Canada united federally, and that the House of Assembly, composed of a representation based on population, had to pronounce on a grant for houses of religion or education, what would be the attitude of the English and Protestant element? Evidently unfavourable. The clergy appears to be directly menaced. History teaches us, that Protestantism is radically opposed and in conflict with the Roman Church and her ministers. What could be expected from an assembly two thirds Protestant, if it were a question of legislation on the immunities of Parish priests? It may be said that these questions would belong to the local Legislatures. That is an error, for it would always be easy out of a local question to make one of general interest,—and then, the clergy of Upper Canada, to whose mercy will they be given up? What must be expected for our religious institutions, when such an assembly has to legislate for what concerns them, proximately or indirectly? But let us imagine good rather than evil, and men tolerant and animated by noble sentiments rather than intolerant and controlled by envy and evil suggestions. Let us suppose that during a certain period the proposed system should work to a charm, and give satisfaction, it would still be not the less true, that we should live with the sword of Damocles suspended over our heads, and that there would always be emminent peril for us.