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The British Constitution for British Colonies: Canada, 1759–1831

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Colonial Self-Government

Part of the book series: Cambridge Commonwealth Series

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Abstract

While the Thirteen Colonies moved towards independence, Britain began to govern the vast territories acquired from France in North America in 1763. To begin with, the old representative system that had been customary in the Thirteen Colonies and the West Indies was chosen for Quebec (as the new possessions were called), but this was abandoned — first in favour of two illiberal forms of government (one unconstitutional), and then, in 1791, in favour of the earliest attempt to grant to British colonies institutions deliberately fashioned on those of the mother country. But the liberal innovation of 1791 was founded on what turned out to be mistaken assumptions about society and politics, and about the possibility of anglicisation, in British North America. As a result the policy was never fully implemented, although enough of it survived to make its long-term fruits decisive in the political history of Canada.

I considered the [Canada] Act as the Magna Charta of the colony and that it was my duty to render the province as nearly as may be a ‘perfect image and transcript of the British Government and constitution’.

Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe to Secretary of State, 30 October 17951

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sydney, Australia

    John Manning Ward (Challis Professor of History)

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© 1976 John Manning Ward

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Ward, J.M. (1976). The British Constitution for British Colonies: Canada, 1759–1831. In: Colonial Self-Government. Cambridge Commonwealth Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02712-5_2

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