My Dear Friend Letters Of Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine Robert Baldwin

My Dear Friend : Letters of Louis Hippolyte LaFontaine & Robert Baldwin

Union is Strength

Nineteenth-century Canada experienced two other revolutions apart from those of W.L. Mackenzie and Louis Riel: the transition to capitalism, and to responsible government. Union Is Strength argues that these major socio-political changes happened in Ontario without a revolutionary moment because of the intertwined relationship of reformers with capitalists. Examining a small, utopian socialist group named the Children of Peace, Albert Schrauwers traces the emergence of a vibrant democratic culture in the province from the decade before the Rebellions of 1837. Schrauwers shows how the overlapping boards of unincorporated joint stock companies managed by both Toronto reformers and the Children of Peace produced a culture of deliberative democracy in competition with the "gentlemanly capitalism" of chartered corporations. Noting the ways in which Ontario's capitalist and democratic revolutions were linked through cooperative joint stock operations, he also situates these revolutions in an international context and links them to the development of Owenite socialism and Chartism in the United Kingdom. Union Is Strength is an insightful study of both nineteenth century Canada and the ways in which regional political cultures arise.

Extraordinary Canadians: Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert

Canada has no better interpreter than prolific writer and thinker John Ralston Saul. Here he argues that Canada did not begin in 1867; indeed, its foundation was laid by two visionary men, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. The two leaders of Lower and Upper Canada, respectively, worked together after the 1841 Union to lead a reformist movement for responsible government run by elected citizens instead of a colonial governor. But it was during the "Great Ministry" of 1848—51 that the two politicians implemented laws that created a more equitable country. They revamped judicial institutions, created a public education system, made bilingualism official, designed a network of public roads, began a public postal system, and reformed municipal governance. Faced with opposition, and even violence, the two men— polar opposites in temperament—united behind a set of principles and programs that formed modern Canada. Writing with verve and deep conviction, Saul restores these two extraordinary Canadians to rightful prominence.