h
Canada continued pitted against each other, previous to the union of 1867.
The journal which he conducted with so much force, attacked French Canada
and its institutions with great violence, and the result was the increase
of racial antagonisms. Opposed to him was Sir George Etienne Cartier, who
had found in the Liberal-Conservative party, and in the principles of
responsible government, the means of strengthening the French Canadian race
and making it a real power in the affairs of the country. Running
throughout his character there was a current of sound sense and excellent
judgment which came to the surface at national crises. A solution of
difficulties, he learned, was to be found not in the violent assertion of
national claims, but in the principles of compromise and conciliation. With
him was associated Sir John Macdonald, the most successful statesman that
Canada has yet produced, on account of his long tenure of office and of the
importance of the measures that he was able to carry in his remarkable
career. He was premier of the Dominion from 1867 until his death in 1891,
with the exception of the four years of the administration of the Liberals
(1873-1878), led by the late Mr. Alexander Mackenzie, who had raised
himself from the humble position of stonemason to the highest place in the
councils of the country, by dint of his Scotch shrewdness, his tenacity of
purpose, his public honesty, and his thorough comprehension of {408}
Canadian questions, though he was wanting in breadth of statesmanship. Many
generations must pass away before the personal and political merits of Sir
John Macdonald can be advantageously and impartially reviewed. A lawyer by
profession, but a politician by choice, not remarkable for originality of
conception, but possessing an unusual capacity for estimating the exact
conditions of public sentiment, and for moulding his policy so as to
satisfy that opinion, having a perfect understanding of the ambitions and
weaknesses of human nature, believing that party success was often as
desirable as the triumph of any great principle, ready to forget his
friends and purchase his opponents when political danger was imminent,
possessing a fascinating manner, which he found very useful at times when
he had to pacify his friends and disarm his opponents, fully comprehending
the use of compromise in a country of diverse nationalities, having a firm
conviction that in the principles of the British consti