The Ideological Origins of Canadian Confederation

Abstract

AbstractThis article discusses the ideological origins of Canadian Confederation. As such it directly challenges a belief commonly held by Canadian political scientists and historians that Canadian Confederation was the product of a purely pragmatic exercise. The author argues instead that the ideological origins of the Canadian federal state may be traced to the debate that divided eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain, America and France—a debate between the defenders of classical republican values and the proponents of a rising commercial ideology formulated during the Enlightenment. Only by understanding how this debate unfolded in nineteenth-century Canada can we understand the particular configuration of the Canadian state that emerged triumphant in the 1860s. Furthermore, an understanding of this debate also offers political scientists a broader context for interpreting long-held Canadian attitudes toward authority, the uses of political patronage, the public debt, capitalism, and the state and economic development.