g bad feeling between England and the United States," declared
a Toronto newspaper, "and would have liked to see the Canadians take up
the quarrel which it has raised.... We have no idea of Canada being made
a victim of the Jefferson Bricks on either side of the Atlantic."

The question of defense fell into the background when the war ended
and the armies of the Union went back to their farms and shops. But
the discussion left in the minds of most Englishmen the belief that the
possession of such colonies was a doubtful blessing. Manchester men like
Bright, Liberals like Gladstone and Cornewall Lewis, Conservatives
like Lowe and Disraeli, all came to believe that separation was only a
question of time. Yet honor made them hesitate to set the defenseless
colonies adrift to be seized by the first hungry neighbor.

At this juncture the plans for uniting all the colonies in one great
federation seemed to open a way out; united, the colonies could stand
alone. Thus Confederation found support in Britain as well as a stimulus
from the United States. This, however, was not enough. Confederation
would not have come when it did--and that might have meant it would
never have come at all--had not party and sectional deadlock forced
Canadian politicians to seek a remedy in a wider union.

At first all had gone well with the Union of 1841. It did not take
the politicians long to learn how to use the power that responsible
government put into their hands. After Elgin's day the Governor General
fell back into the role of constitutional monarch which cabinet control
made easy for him. In the forties, men had spoken of Sydenham and
Bagot, Metcalfe and Elgin; in the fifties, they spoke of Baldwin and La
Fontaine, Hincks and Macdonald and Cartier and Brown, and less and less
of the Governors in whose name these men ruled. Politics then attracted
more of the country's ablest men than it does now, and the party leaders
included many who would have made their mark in any parliament in the
world. Baldwin and La Fontaine, united to the end, resigned office
in 1851, believing that they had played their part in establishing
responsible government and feeling out of touch with the radical
elements of their following who were demanding further change. Their
place was taken in Canada West by Hincks, an adroit tactician and a
skilled financier, intent on railway building and trade development; and
in Canada East by Morin, a somewhat colorless lieut