Debating Settler Constitutionalism: Consent, Consultation, and Writing a Transatlantic Debate, 1822–1828

Abstract

In 1822, Robert Wilmot, the undersecretary of state for the colonies, introduced a bill to unite Upper and Lower Canada in the British House of Commons. In doing so, he was proposing not just an intercolonial union but a new constitution. He believed that because the Canadas’ constitution was granted by an Act of Parliament in 1791 it could be changed by Parliament without colonial consultation or consent. Whig parliamentarians and colonists contested this interpretation and raised questions about consent and the status of colonial constitutions. These debates in the 1820s reveal just how muddied thinking about colonial constitutions and consultation had become. Lower Canadian opposition to the bill has received significant attention from historians, yet this attempt at constitutional change also forced Upper Canadians to take unexpected positions, including interpreting the 1791 act as a written charter. Through these transatlantic debates, they were continuing to fashion a settler interpretation of British constitutionalism. This article traces these ideas by examining the movement of news and rumours through emerging, intertwined colonial and imperial public spheres, which illustrate the permeability of the line between public and private information. Inserting this failed constitution-writing effort into the longer history of Canadian constitutions sheds light on the limits to imperial intervention and encourages a broader rethinking of Canadian constitutional histories and the role of empire in a long nineteenth century.