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he various racial elements of British North America during its formative stage. Frenchmen, Englishmen, Scotsmen from the Lowlands and Highlands, Irishmen and Americans, united to support the British connection. The character of the people, especially in Upper Canada, was strengthened from a national point of view by the severe strain to which it was subjected. Men and women alike were elevated above the conditions of a mere colonial life and the struggle for purely material necessities, and became animated by that spirit of self-sacrifice and patriotic endeavour which tend to make a people truly great. CHAPTER VI. THE EVOLUTION OF RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT (1815--1839) SECTION I.--The rebellion in Lower Canada. Responsible government in Canada is the logical sequence of the political struggles, which commenced soon after the close of the war of 1812-15. As we review the history of Canada since the conquest we can recognise "one ever increasing purpose" through all political changes, and the ardent desire of men, entrusted at the outset with a very moderate degree of political responsibility, to win for themselves a larger measure of political liberty in the management of their own local affairs. Grave mistakes were often made by the advocates of reform in the government of the several provinces--notably, as I shall show, in Lower Canada, where the French Canadian majority were carried often beyond reason at the dictation of Papineau--but, whatever may have been the indiscretions of politicians, there were always at the bottom of their demands the germs of political development. The political troubles that continued from 1817 until 1836 in Lower Canada eventually made the working of legislative institutions impracticable. The contest gradually became one between the governor-general representing the crown and the assembly controlled almost entirely by a French Canadian majority, with respect to the disposition of the public revenues and expenditures. Imperial statutes, passed as far back as 1774-1775, provided for the levying of duties, to be applied solely by the crown, primarily "towards defraying the expenses of the administration of justice and the support of the civil government of the province", and any sums that remained in the hands of the government were "for the future disposition of parliament." Then there were "the casual or territorial revenues," such as money arising from the Jesuits' estate
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