enant of La Fontaine.

But these leaders in turn soon gave way to new men; and the political
parties gradually fell into a state of flux. In Canada West there were
still a few Tories, survivors of the Family Compact and last-ditch
defenders of privilege in Church and State, a growing number of moderate
Conservatives, a larger group of moderate Liberals, and a small
but aggressive extreme left wing of "Clear Grits," mainly Scotch
Presbyterians, foes of any claim to undue power on the part of class or
clergy. In Canada East the English members from the Townships, under
A. T. Galt, were ceasing to vote as a unit, and the main body of
French-Canadian members were breaking up into a moderate Liberal party,
and a smaller group of Rouges, fiery young men under the leadership
of Papineau, now returned from exile, were crusading against clerical
pretensions and all the established order.

The situation was one made to the hand of a master tactician. The time
brought forth the man. John A. Macdonald, a young Kingston lawyer
of Tory upbringing, or "John A.", as generation after generation
affectionately called him, was to prove the greatest leader of men in
Canada's annals. Shrewd, tactful, and genial, never forgetting a face
or a favor, as popular for his human frailties as for his strength,
Macdonald saw that the old party lines drawn in the days of the struggle
for responsible government were breaking down and that the future lay
with a union of the moderate elements in both parties and both sections.
He succeeded in 1854 in bringing together in Canada West a strong
Liberal-Conservative group and in effecting a permanent alliance with
the main body of French-Canadian Liberals, now under the leadership
of Cartier, a vigorous fighter and an easy-going opportunist. With
the addition of Galt as the financial expert, these allies held power
throughout the greater part of the next dozen years. Their position was
not unchallenged. The Clear Grits had found a leader after their own
heart in George Brown, a Scotchman of great ability, a hard hitter and
a good hater--especially of slavery, the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and
"John A." Through his newspaper, the Toronto "Globe", he wielded a power
unique in Canadian journalism. The Rouges, now led by A. A. Dorion, a
man of stainless honor and essentially moderate temper, withdrew from.
their extreme anticlerical position but could not live down their youth
or make head against the forces o