The Nineteenth Century: Forces of Change - The Road to Confederation

The Nineteenth Century

Forces of Change: The Road to Confederation

• The idea of uniting the colonies of British North America had been around for a long time.

• It wasn't until the 1860s that several key elements came together to make the union both a reality and a necessity.

Factors Leading to Confederation

• Dissatisfaction among English Canadians with their ineffective united parliament, which was often locked in a bitter stalemate.

• A change in British attitudes.

• A renewed fear of an American invasion.

• The promise (and financial debts) of a dawning age of rail.

• The impending loss of free trade with the United States.

• "The glory argument," that shimmering, romantic allure of creating something bigger, better, grander.

Britain’s Attitude Change

• Britain was still the head of an empire but rather than focusing on imperial monopolies and military might, they now placed emphasis on trade and profit, becoming a powerful commercial empire.

• The colonies were becoming a “burden”.

• Britain needed British North America to “grow up” and take responsibility for its own affairs without completely leaving the union.

Factors Leading to Confederation

1. American Civil War - British support of confederacy:

• Although Canada did not support the slave-owning southern Confederacy, it got caught up in the struggle nonetheless.

• Britain claimed to be neutral but showed clear sympathy and even tacit support for the breakaway states of the South. As a result, the U.S. government became vehemently anti-British.

Three Events that Brought Britain and the U.S. to the Brink of War - with Canada as the Potential Battlefield

• The Trent Crisis

  • In November 1861, a Union warship stopped the British mail steamer 'Trent' at gunpoint in neutral waters.

  • The Americans boarded the vessel and arrested two Confederate delegates who were on their way to Britain.

  • Outraged at this act of