said with
certainty that the career which has just been closed is one of the most
remarkable careers of this century.... I think it can be asserted
that, for the supreme art of governing men, Sir John Macdonald was
gifted as few men in any land or any age were gifted--gifted with the
highest of all qualities, qualities which would have made him famous
wherever exercised, and which would have shone all the more
conspicuously the larger the theatre. The fact that he could
congregate together elements the most heterogeneous and blend them into
{154} one compact party, and to the end of his life keep them steadily
under his hand, is perhaps altogether unprecedented. The fact that
during all those years he retained unimpaired not only the confidence
but the devotion, the ardent devotion and affection of his party, is
evidence that besides those higher qualities of statesmanship to which
we were daily witnesses, he was also endowed with those inner, subtle,
undefinable graces of soul which win and keep the hearts of men.

As to his statesmanship, it is written in the history of Canada....
Although my political views compel me to say that in my judgment his
actions were not always the best that could have been taken in the
interests of Canada, although my conscience compels me to say that of
late he has imputed to his opponents motives which I must say in my
heart he has misconceived, yet I am only too glad here to sink these
differences, and to remember only the great services he has performed
for our country--to remember that his actions always displayed great
originality of view, unbounded fertility of resource, a high level of
intellectual conception, and, above all, a far-reaching vision beyond
the event of the day, and still higher, permeating the whole, a broad
patriotism--a devotion to Canada's welfare, Canada's advancement, and
Canada's glory.

Sir John Macdonald had been prime minister of the Dominion for twenty
of its twenty-four years. In the next five years the Conservative
party had four different leaders {155} and the Dominion four prime
ministers. The first was Sir John Abbott, who had lived down the
memory of his early views in favour of Annexation and had become 'the
confidential family lawyer of his party.' A little over a year later,
ill-health compelled him to resign in favour of Sir John Thompson, an
able and honest administrator, who grew in breadth of view with
experience and responsibility.