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Date: 1864-08-12
By: Perth Courier
Citation: “Progress of the Federal Idea”, Perth Courier (12 August, 1864)
Other formats: TBA

PROGRESS OF THE FEDERAL IDEA.

The Globe is laboring hard to prove that the adoption of the Federal system of government will overcome all the evils under which Canada is now suffering, and, in union with the other British American Provinces, will constitute us a great Northern Nation—a breakwater, as it were, to guard against the fury of American republicanism. In the utopian union about to be formed by Mr. Brown, the people of Canada are to enjoy all imaginable governmental blessings, and some indeed that surpass in beauty and utility, all the attributes the most fervid imagination could conceive. In order to carry out this grand scheme, the Globe authoritatively announces that the petty independence heretofore enjoyed by Canada must be given up in return for the position we are to get in the new nation. Instead of being troubled with governing our own country by our own representatives, we are to have the assistance of gentlemen from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape Breton, to aid our deliberations in future, and enable us to do that justice to the people of Huron and Bruce which the jealousy of Lower Canada would never permit to be done in the past. The contracted idea of independently governing ourselves having failed in practice, is about being replaced by the broad, liberal theory of a Grand Confederation of the British Provinces, which will wield the sovereign ruling power for the benefit of the whole Nation, and permit the States of which it is composed, to apply the details of the government to their respective sections. The Parliament of Upper Canada will then become a sort of County Council, and Messrs. Brown and McDonald will be admitted to the dignity of great Statesmen and Prime Ministers of a Mighty Nation. An outline of this grand idea is given in the following extract from the Globe of the 8th inst.:—

“We believe that those who have in hand the task of maturing a measure to apply the Federal principle in our country, will easily avoid the mistake which has so often been made in framing Federal constitutions. Besides having so much evidence before them of the evil of belittling the central power, they have the advantage of being under little temptation to make such a mistake! The leagues of the old world were often leagues of states which really did not want to be one country, and which only united the better to resist foreign aggression. All parties in this country have been taught to regard these Provinces as destined to form one country, and will earnestly desire that any constitutional changes which shall be made shall proceed upon that idea. THERE ARE NO REASONS WHY EITHER PROVINCE SHOULD SEEK TO GET EVEN A PROSPECTIVELY SEPARATE SOVEREIGNTY.’ They have not had the attributes of independence in the past and will not ask them now.”

The italics are our own. Here it is deliberately and authoritatively stated that our independence is to be swallowed up in the strong central power of the Federal government. The local parliament of Upper Canada is to have no power but what is delegated to it by the representatives of the whole nation, and all the voice we are to have in the delegation of that power is a one-sixth, or a one-eighth, if Hudson’s Bay and Red River are included, of the whole. If the people of Canada are to overcome difficulties in the working of their governmental machinery by sacrificing their power and independence, a new problem in political science will be established, and Mr. Brown, as its author, will be justly entitled to the honors of immortality. It is a pity, however, that such a fine theory cannot be practically applied to the question at issue before the people. It is admitted that we have come to a dead stand in the government of the country, but it would seem that those who have undertaken to get us out of the difficulty, are but wasting precious time and opportunity in the construction of fanciful theories, instead of practically applying themselves to the construction of some system whereby the country can be governed with a due regard for, and guarantee to, its various interests. Mr. Brown has said a good deal about the matter, through the columns of his paper, but in nothing that has appeared in it, has a word been said about the means to be employed in adapting his theories to the government of the country. It is easy enough to say that our new system is to be based on the Federal principle, and that we are to have a strong central government, and that powers of local self-government will be delegated to the several states composing the Federation, but how are these ideas to be carried out? That is the question for the people of Canada to consider; and in considering it, to ask: Will it be for their benefit that these things should be done at all? The Globe does not tell us how it is to be done, or in what manner it will benefit us, but as Mr. Brown has embarked his political fortunes on its uncertain waves, is endeavoring to keep him afloat as long as possible. The practical difficulties in the way of carrying out his ideas, as set forth in the Globe, are so great as to be declared almost insurmountable, and we have no hope of anything being done, by their means, towards overcoming the constitutional difficulties under which we are now labouring.