IB HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS CONFEDERATION – 1867 STUDY GUIDE

Guiding Question: How does one define Nationhood?

Key Terms

Upper Canada Clear Grit Party Canadian Parti rouge Conference Bytown (Ottawa) Conference Canada West “Rep by pop” Act of Union George-Étienne Cartier 72 Resolutions Reciprocity Treaty Leonard Tilley Annexation Movement Grand Trunk Railway John A. Macdonald Common School Act Fenians Conservative Party Trent affair London Conference George Brown St. Alban’s raid A Mari Usque Ad Mare

Study Questions 1. What were the main sources of political discontent in Upper and Lower Canada in the years between 1820 and mid- century? To what degree did British North Americans in share those grievances?

2. Did the rebellions of 1837 succeed or fail in their objectives? Explain the short- and long-term effect of the rebellion.

3. In his works on the political deadlocks in the 1850s and 1860s, Paul G. Cornell has argued that the Great Coalition of 1864 was “the main spring of the Confederation movement.” How valid is this common assessment? To what extent does it ignore the role of the Maritimers in the coming of the union?

4. It is often argued that Britain showed “apparent indifference” to 's fate in the early 1860s. Did Britain aid the Confederation movement? If so, how?

5. In 1865 George-Étienne Cartier claimed that the British North American colonies faced a choice between Confederation or absorption into the American union. How valid or, indeed, accurate was this claim?

6. “The great majority of nations have been formed, not by people who desired intensely to live together, but rather by people who could not live separately.” Assess this statement made by French-Canadian historian Jean Charles Bonenfant (1966). To what extent does the analysis apply to in the 1860s? To Maritimers and Upper Canadians at that time?

7. What kind of federal system did the Fathers of the Confederation create at the Conferences of the 1860s? Why did it evolve into a federal as opposed to a legislative union?

8. To what extent were the and the plan of federal union “imposed” upon the people of the various British North American colonies?

9. Compare the Canadian and American systems of government. How were regional, state, or provincial interests protected in the two federal systems?

10. To what extent did the American Constitution and the British North America Act embrace the notion of “perpetual union”? How flexible were the two federal systems?

A. Schulzki - PHS Page 1 5 September, 2017