hich his race, of whose interests
he was always an earnest exponent, derived from a condition of things
which gave additional guarantees for the preservation of their special
institutions. But there were in the convention other men of much greater
political force, more deeply versed in constitutional knowledge, more
capable of framing a plan of union than the esteemed and discreet
president. Most prominent among these was Mr., afterwards Sir, John A.
Macdonald, who had been for years one of the most conspicuous figures in
Canadian politics, and had been able to win to a remarkable degree the
confidence not only or the great majority of the French Canadians but
also of a powerful minority in the western province where his able
antagonist, Mr. Brown, until 1864 held the vantage ground by his
persistency in urging its claims to greater weight in the administration
of public affairs. Mr. Macdonald had a great knowledge of men and did
not hesitate to avail himself of their weaknesses in order to strengthen
his political power. His greatest faults were those of a politician
anxious for the success of his party. His strength lay largely in his
ability to understand the working of British institutions, and in his
recognition of the necessity of carrying on the government in a country
of diverse nationalities, on principles of justice and compromise. He
had a happy faculty of adapting himself to the decided current of public
opinion even at the risk of leaving himself open to a charge of
inconsistency, and he was just as ready to adopt the measures of his
opponents as he was willing to enter their ranks and steal away some
prominent men whose support he thought necessary to his political
success.

So early as 1861 he had emphatically expressed himself on the floor of
the assembly in favour of the main principles of just such a federal
union as was initiated at Quebec. The moment he found that the question
of union was likely to be something more than a mere subject for
academic discussion or eloquent expression in legislative halls, he
recognised immediately the great advantages it offered, not only for the
solution of the difficulties of his own party, but also for the
consolidation of British American as well as imperial interests on the
continent of North America From the hour when he became convinced of
this fact he devoted his consummate ability not merely as a party
leader, but as a statesman of broad national views, to th