by Gerald Therrien
To properly view the Annexation crisis in the Province of Canada in 1849-1850, it is best to remember that the history of Canada isn’t only concerned with events and people in Canada, but is intimately connected to events and people in other areas of the world at that time – especially in Great Britain and in the United States. Nothing in Canada happens in a vacuum – although sometimes our cranial proclivities might suggest otherwise.
Part 1 – Taken on the Flood of Free Trade
‘The Irish Potato famine of 1846-47’ – a direct result of the passing of the Corn Laws by the Manchester Free Trade School of London
In 1846 in Britain, using the Irish potato famine as an excuse, Prime Minister Robert ‘Orange’ Peel tried to pass a bill that would repeal the Corn Laws, a bill that his own Tory party wouldn’t support, but it was passed with support from the Whigs, and Peel soon resigned. The Tory government was replaced with the Whig government of Lord Russell (with Lord Palmerston returning as the Foreign Secretary – he had previously been the foreign minister from 1830 to 1841). With the repeal of the Corn Laws, the free-trade policies of the ‘Manchester School’* were now running the British government.
* Note: After Britain’s entry in the war against France in 1793, the British government pushed through the Seditious Meetings Act and the Treasonable and Seditious Practices Act, that targeted abolitionists and others advocating universal male suffrage and other reforms. Britain’s Jacobin Clubs, now under the control of Lord Shelbourne’s Secret Intelligence Service, began the creation of the radical movement, founded the Westminster Review (1823) by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and then created the Chartist movement and the Anti-Corn Law League (1836). The ACCL was headquartered in Manchester, and the free-trade movement came to be called the Manchester School. The Manchester School was in fact an outgrowth of the East India Company’s Haileybury School – set up in 1805 with Thomas Malthus as their professor of political economy. *
What was meant as free-trade could, perhaps, be best seen in the British Empire’s recent treaty with China at the end of the 1st Opium War, and the start of the Empire’s use of ‘coolie-labour’ from China and from India. With the adoption of a policy of free-trade and the elimination of preferential tariffs, it meant that it didn’t matter where or how a commodity was produced – whether it was made by slave-labour, coolie-labour or free-labour. The policy of free-trade was meant to lower the price of labour. But as the American economist Henry Carey proved in his book ‘The Slave Trade’, the way to eliminate slavery was to increase the value of man!
And for Canada, the British free-trade policy also meant stopping any development of its manufactures. Under free-trade, tariffs were meant as sources of revenue only, and not as a means to promote domestic manufacturing. Hence, reciprocity with the United States was allowed, but, any attempts at protective tariffs for Canada were prohibited – because promoting national manufacturing meant independence.
Lord Grey revealed as much in 1850 when he said:
“If, as has been alleged by the complainants, and as in some instances would appear to be the case, any of the duties comprised in the tariff have been imposed, not for the purpose of revenue, but with a view of protecting the interest of the Canadian manufacturer, her Majesty’s government are clearly of opinion that such a course is injurious alike to the interests of the mother country and to those of the colony. Canada possesses natural advantages for the production of articles which will always exchange in the markets of this country for those manufactured goods of which she stands in need. By such exchange she will obtain these goods much more cheaply than she could manufacture them for herself, and she will secure an advantageous market for the raw produce which she is best able to raise. On the other hand, by closing her markets against British manufactures, or rendering their introduction more costly, she enhances their price to the consumer, and by the imposition of protective duties, for the purpose of fostering an unnatural trade, she gives a wrong direction to capital, by withdrawing it from more profitable employment, and causing it to be invested in the manufacture of articles which might be imported at a cost below that of production in the colony, while at the same time she inflicts a blow on her export trade by rendering her markets less eligible to the British customer.”
[from ‘The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign, Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished’ by Henry Carey (1853), page 72-73]
Previously, under the Canada Corn Law, wheat and flour from Canada was admitted into Britain at a much lower duty than if it was imported from other countries. Additionally, wheat imported from western United States and made into flour in Canada, was then re-exported to Britain (to take advantage of the preferential tariff) and large amounts of capital were invested in warehouses, flour-mills and machinery in Canada (particularly Montreal) as well as in ship-building and improvements of canals and waterways.
With the elimination of these preferential duties by the British government, the United States government, as if in sync, pursued their own policy of free-trade. In 1846, under President Polk, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Walker, was able to get a bill passed to reduce the American tariffs, and also a drawback bill – that reduced the duties on goods from Canada that were to be re-exported from the ports of New York and Boston.
Following their repeal of the Canada Corn Law, the British government also passed a statute that required the colonies to introduce legislation ‘for repealing and consolidating the present duties of customs in the province’. And so, in 1847, the Canadian Legislative Assembly passed an act that established the rates of duty to be applied to various articles, regardless of where the articles came from – whether from Britain or from the United States, and that removed any differential duties that would favour British produce. It also raised the duties on British manufactures from 5% to 7½% and lowered the duties on American manufactures from 12½% to the same 7½%.
So now, under this new free-trade policy, it became cheaper to export Canada’s wheat through the United States by way of the Erie canal to New York City, than by way of the St. Lawrence river to Montreal and Quebec. This also led to an increase in the importation of British goods into Canada through the United States, and to an increase in the importation of American goods into Canada.
The imposition of free-trade on Canada caused a collapse in trade through the St. Lawrence river ports, as commercial interests went bankrupt and property values fell. However, the British cure for this economic crisis was more of the same disease – a free-trade deal between Canada and the United States! In 1846, the British ministry had also ‘directed Her Majesty’s minister at Washington, to submit a proposal to the Government of the United States, for the establishment of an equality of trade between that country and Canada’!
Canada was now caught, sitting between the free-trade policies of Polk and Palmerston (and Russell) – but to what end?
The British Empire’s policy for Canada was to destroy any legitimate republican movement and consolidate its control, in order to use the British colony as part of its plan to split the American Union in two – the secession of the southern states to be joined with Texas and the Mexican Cession in a great slave empire; and the secession of the northern states to be joined with British Canada.
In the United States, in 1844-1845, several bills had been introduced in Congress, to annex the territory of Texas, and to annex the territory of Oregon, to the United States; but the bills could not get passed in the Senate. It was during these debates in the Senate that the annexation of Canada was proposed.
On February 3rd 1845, Mr. Dickinson (New York) ‘presented a petition from sundry citizens of one of the states bordering on the British possessions in North America, praying for the annexation of the Canadas, in case of the annexation of the Mexican province called Texas’;
and Mr. Porter (Michigan) ‘presented a petition signed by a number of citizens of Detroit on the subject of the annexation of Texas, and in favor of the acquisition of Canada by purchase or otherwise, and praying that in any act, resolution, or otherwise, adopted for the annexation of Texas, a provision may be inserted as a condition precedent that the same shall not take effect until Canada shall also be annexed to the United States’.
On February 4th, Mr. Dix (New York) also presented a petition ‘asking Congress to take measures to procure the cession of Canada, with a view of its annexation to the United States when Texas shall be admitted into the Union’.
But Mr. Foster (Tennessee) ‘denounced it as a movement on the part of the memorialists to bring the subject of annexation of Texas into odium and contempt by ridicule. He spoke at considerable length against this mode of interrupting peace and harmony existing between the two friendly nations – the government of Great Britain and that of the United States. He felt that, in objecting to the reception of these memorials, he was performing a sacred duty’.
Porter (Michigan) ‘proceeded in an argument of great length to vindicate the memorialists from the reflections of the senator from Tennessee on the ground that if Texas should be annexed, the South would have a vast preponderance of power, and they, as citizens of the North, had a right to express their opinion that the interests of the North required the annexation of Canada as a balance.’
Foster (Tennessee) replied that ‘he did not know why that gentleman should complain of the necessity for a balancing power, when there was land enough north of 36 degrees 30 minutes to make twenty-four states. He referred to the Territory of Oregon’.
A motion was agreed, to let the memorial lay on the table. And so, the annexation of Canada was not to become a part of the ‘Manifest Destiny’ of the United States.
In February 1845, a controversial, joint resolution by the out-going Congress (by a simple majority – and not by a 2/3 majority of the Senate) was passed to admit Texas into the union as a state, and was signed into law by President John Tyler on March 1st, three days before the inauguration of the incoming president, James Polk! This admission of Texas led to the disastrous war with Mexico*.
*Note: In December 1847, a young, freshman Congressman (the lone Whig elected from an otherwise Democratic Illinois – in what would be his only term, because he had promised that, if elected, he would not run for re-election) Abraham Lincoln presented his ‘Spot Resolutions’, opposing President Polk’s false claim for declaring war against Mexico.*
In June 1846, a treaty would be signed with Britain to settle the dispute over the Oregon territory, making the 49th parallel the northern boundary between the United States and British North America.
Again, Polk and Palmerston (and Russell) seem to be working in harmony!
In February 1848, a peace treaty was signed with Mexico to end the war – ceding over ½ million square miles of territory (Alta California and Nuevo Mexico) to the United States that would make the Rio Grande and the Rio Gila its southern boundary with Mexico.
But, the debate over slavery and over ‘slave’ state vs ‘free’ state was re-ignited again – whether or not there would be slavery allowed in the new territory of the Mexican Cession – in the coming debates that would lead to the 1850 compromise*.
Sadly, it was at this time, that the great American statesman and former president, John Quincy Adams, passed away on February 23rd 1848. But before he died, while serving during what was to be his final term as a congressman, an 80 year-old Adams would have met and passed in the corridors of Congress, a 39 year-old Abraham Lincoln, who was serving his first (and only) term as congressman, perhaps as if to pass the torch – passing on the responsibility to preserve the union, that Lincoln would later realize could only be done if slavery was abolished in the United States – when the ratified 13th Amendment made slavery unconstitutional.
*Note: After Kentucky and Tennessee were admitted as states, there were 8 so-called ‘free’ states and 8 so-called ‘slave’ states.
In 1803, Ohio was admitted to the union as a free state – because the Northwest Ordinance had banned slavery. In 1812, Louisiana was admitted to the union as a ‘slave’ state – because the Louisiana Purchase had not banned slavery.
In 1816, Indiana was admitted as a ‘free’ state, and in 1817, Mississippi was admitted as a ‘slave’ state – keeping the balance.
In 1818, Illinois was admitted as a ‘free’ state, and in 1819, Alabama was admitted as a ‘slave’ state – keeping the balance.
In 1820, Missouri was admitted as a ‘slave’ state, and Maine was admitted as a ‘free’ state – keeping the balance.
In 1836, Arkansas was admitted as a ‘slave’ state, and in 1837, Michigan was admitted as a ‘free’ state – keeping the balance.
Between 1845-48, Florida and Texas were admitted as ‘slave’ states, and Iowa and Wisconsin were admitted as ‘free’ states.*
In order to better understand the constitutional issues regarding slavery, the following excerpts are from the book, ‘John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy’, Chapter 20: ‘The Slave Trade and Slavery’, written by Samuel Flagg Bemis – one from that rare breed of honest historians.
‘Adams believed that Congress, which had the constitutional right to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territories or other property of the United States, possessed therewith the power to regulate slavery in the territories. But he did not think that Congress had any right to abolish slavery within a state where it already existed. And he did not think it compatible with the Constitution to require a restriction upon slavery as a condition for admission of a new state into the Union out of territory where slavery already existed. Specifically, he did not believe that Congress had a right to impose such a restriction on Missouri.’
“Slavery”, he told himself, “is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union, and it is a contemplation worthy of the most exalted soul whether its total abolition is or is not practicable: if practicable, by what means it may be effected, and if a choice of means be within the scope of the object, what means would accomplish it at the smallest cost of human sufferance. A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now constituted, would be certainly necessary, and the dissolution must be upon a point involving the question of slavery, and no other. The Union then might be reorganized upon the fundamental principle of emancipation. This object is vast in its compass, awful in its prospects, sublime and beautiful in its issue. A life devoted to it would be nobly spent or sacrificed.” [Memoirs, Feb. 24, 1820]
“I have favored this Missouri Compromise, believing it to be all that could be effected under the present Constitution, and from extreme unwillingness to put the Union at hazard. But perhaps it would have been a wiser as well as a bolder course to have persisted in the restriction upon Missouri, till it should have terminated in a convention of the States to revise and amend the Constitution. This would have produced a new Union of 13 or 14 states unpolluted with slavery, with a great and glorious object to effect, namely, that of rallying to their standard the other States by the universal emancipation of their slaves. If the Union must be dissolved, slavery is precisely the question upon which it ought to break.” [Memoirs, Mar. 2, 1820]
“I have abstained, sometimes perhaps too pertinaciously abstained, from all participation in measures leading to that conflict for life and death between Freedom and Slavery, through which I have not yet been able to see how this Union could ultimately be preserved from passing.” [Mar. 31, 1837, letter to Charles Hammond]
[next week – part 2 – The Tory Rebellion]