this time that he began to drink heavily, sometimes in binges. Following Isabella’s death, and the decade after, Macdonald’s drinking became most troublesome. Drinking helped him escape both the burden of responsibility and the heartache of personal tragedy. Henry Northcotte, governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, noted in his diary, “People do not attribute his drinking to vice, but to a state of physical exhaustion which renders him obliged sometimes to have recourse to a stimulant, and which gives the stimulant a very powerful effect. When he once begins to drink he becomes almost mad and there is no restraining him till the fit is over.” Macdonald wanted to limit his drinking, and was, for a year, a member of the Sons of Temperance in Kingston.
John A. Macdonald was a man of vision and progress, not details and ideology. A moderate, he was more interested in accomplishment than in debate. He refused to be drawn into argument where a positive outcome was not possible, writing in 1844: “In a young country like Canada, I am of the opinion that it is of more consequence to endeavor to develop its resources and improve its physical advantages, than to waste the time of the legislature and the money of the people in fruitless discussions on abstract and theoretical questions of government.”
More than 200 residents signed the petition that drafted Macdonald as a Conservative into the 1844 election for the Assembly of the Province of Canada. Accepting the nomination, Macdonald outlined the cornerstone of a vision that would endure throughout his political career: “I . . . scarcely need state my belief that the prosperity of Canada depends upon its permanent connection with the Mother country and that I shall resist to the utmost any attempt which may tend to weaken that union.” Macdonald won the election by a margin of 275 votes to 42.
While Conservatives held the majority in the legislature, with almost exclusively English-speaking members, they were divided in state. The caucus could not reconcile the old-line rightwing Tories with the more moderate liberal–conservative group that Macdonald followed. Though Macdonald was a Tory, he was not kin to the Big Business establishment
Tories from Toronto. Instead, he admired William Henry Draper, the moderate Conservative leader who sought to strengthen the party by reaching out to elements of French Canada. It was Draper who established that the proceedings of Parliament be printed in French and English.
In Parliament, Macdonald fought extreme elements from both sides of the aisle. Opposing annexation by the United States, or countering Tory elements that sought to assimilate the French, Macdonald stood for tradition. He distinguished himself among his Conservative colleagues. Before Macdonald travelled to England in the summer of 1850, the Governor, Lord Elgin, sup plied Macdonald with a letter of introduction to Earl Grey, the Colonial Secretary: “He is a respectable man, intolerably moderate in his views ...who belongs to the section of the Conservatives who are becoming reasonable.”
In1847, Macdonald accepted the invitation to serve in Cabinet as Receiver General. Given Macdonald’s general disregard for his personal finances, the appointment was an odd choice and the press panned it. The Montréal Gazette claimed, “The intrusion of a young lawyer into the situation of Receiver General appears to our eyes, and if we are not very much mistaken, will appear also to those of the public, a blunder of the most stupid kind.” If establishing low expectations, then exceeding them, is a mark of good politics, Macdonald was off to a great start.
By the age of thirty-seven, Macdonald was sitting in his third Parliament. His legal career was a distraction while a promising political future beckoned. Macdonald was seen as heir apparent to Draper to lead the Conservatives.
Macdonald was leadership material, not because he had great oratorical skills or passion, but because of his inclusive and amicable approach to issues and people on all sides of the legislature. A conversationalist with an endearing capacity for flattery, he was an entertaining storyteller who often used wit to extract himself from a tough spot. To one supporter’s demand for a specific patronage appointment, Macdonald countered, “Why on earth would a man like you want a paltry job like that? It’s not good enough for you. Just you wait awhile, and we’ll find you something much better.” Another man pursued Macdonald at the funeral for a deceased senator, declaring, “Sir John, I would like to take that man’s place.” Macdonald replied, “I’m afraid it’s too late. The coffin is nailed shut.”
Macdonald saw his role as a centrist coalition builder. A leading political commentator of the day described Macdonald’s unique skill: he could herd cats. Macdonald himself often used the term “catching loose fish,” by which he meant bringing to his side members with no commitment to any particular party. Macdonald understood that to achieve power and accomplish what he wanted, he needed to be in government and used his various talents to that end. He was clever and mischievous, taking every opportunity imaginable to encourage divisions in the opposition parties.
Tolerant, and opposed to the rigid separation of church and state, Macdonald believed that government must recognize and respect religious diversity and the cultural divisions between English and French-speaking Canada.
Though a man with grand designs, Macdonald opposed tinkering with the Constitution. He opposed the Representation Bill of 1853, which increased the number of members of each section of the province to 65. “If there is one thing to be avoided,” Macdonald warned, “it is meddling with the Constitution of the country, which should not be altered till it is evident that people are suffering from the effects of that Constitution as it actually exists.” It is a warning that most subsequent prime ministers refused to heed, particularly Trudeau, who spent decades wrangling with the Constitution before enacting changes that were vehemently opposed by the government of Québec.
In 1853, Canada East and Canada West had an equal number of seats in Parliament. When the British Parliament passed the Act enabling the Union in 1840, the population of Canada East was larger, but the 1851 census revealed that Canada West now had the greater number. George Brown, Reform politician, publisher of the Toronto Globe, and a frequent nemesis of Macdonald, advocated representation by population. He opposed any connection between church and state and was anti-Catholic and anti-French. Macdonald felt that representation by population would divide Canada and abrogate the deal that had been struck to form the Union in 1841. Maintaining that union, including its bilingual provisions and its connection with Great Britain, was essential to Macdonald.
Macdonald hoped to fashion a new coalition of Conservatives, combining moderate Reform elements with French-Canadian support. George Brown sought a Conservative coalition of his own that, in part, stood for the end of French-Canadian supremacy in the legislature. Macdonald was clear that his goal was to unite all the peoples of Canada, regardless of language or religion. In a letter to a colleague, he wrote: “Our aim should be to enlarge the bounds of our party so as to embrace every person desirous of being counted as a progressive Conservative, and who will join in a series of measures to put an end to the corruption which has ruined the present government and debauched all of its followers.”
After failing to unite Conservative forces and win power in the election of 1854, Macdonald despondently told a colleague: “Party is nowhere—damned everlasting. I will go down and get the bank bill passed and retire. I am resolved upon it.” There would be many such utterances by Macdonald over his career when faced with defeat or frustration. But he always came back.
Macdonald learned that the political landscape could quickly change. Not long after the 1854 election, a new coalition formed, with Macdonald as Attorney General of Canada West. Not an authoritarian by nature, Macdonald compassionately commuted the death sentences of eight railway workers who had plotted to kill their foreman; and reduced from life to five years the sentence of a man convicted of stealing $20. But he was not soft on criminals, noting, “The primary object of the penitentiary is punishment, and the incidental one, reformation.”
On another issue of the day, the legislature and the population found itself strongly divided over reparations from
