HREQ 3125 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Charlottetown Conference, North American Union, Great Coalition

• School: York University
• Department: Human Rights and Equity Studies
• Course: HREQ 3125
• Professor: James Laxer

Document Summary

The american civil war provided a crash course on federalism and government structure for the political leadership of the british north american colonies. The civil war to the south motivated canadian political leaders who had no fondness for each other to form the great coalition that was needed to establish a country. Macdonald, cartier and brown knew that if they didn"t work together the seething conflict between confederates and unionists could engulf the british north. There was only one chance to create a federation that had the potential to span the continent and macdonald and the others took it in the greatest high stakes gamble in canadian history. The political leaders who agreed to the idea of a federal union of british north. American colonies and then fleshed out the project met first in charlottetown in early september 1864 and then in quebec city in october 1864.