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William Lyon Mackenzie in Toronto

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Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics

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Abstract

William Lyon Mackenzie (1795–1861), who left Scotland for Upper Canada in 1820, was a lay member of the Secession church and his religious beliefs inspired him to challenge the structure of colonial government. This chapter charts, in the period before 1832, Mackenzie’s journalistic efforts to critique the Anglican ascendancy in Toronto. It suggests that new light voluntaryism inspired Mackenzie’s commitment to church-state separation and reform of the Upper Canadian government. Mackenzie, a Scottish Seceder, equated the colonial government of Upper Canada with the so-called episcopalian despotism of the Restoration era. Denominational equality—freedom from the tyranny of a state church—was central to Mackenzie’s political vision.

‘If we move now as one man to crush the tyrant’s power, to establish free institutions, founded on God’s law, we will prosper, for he who commands the winds and the waves will be with us.’

(‘Independence for Canada!’, Mackenzie’s Gazette, 18 August 1838)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dunham 1963; Wise 1993. See also Noel 1998, p. 173, which argues that the radical Clear Grit movement exemplified an American-inspired outlook which contrasted with British loyalist and monarchical values.

  2. 2.

    Ducharme 2007, 2014.

  3. 3.

    Wilton 2000, p. 66.

  4. 4.

    Gauvreau 2001, 2003.

  5. 5.

    Gauvreau 2003, pp. 68, 73.

  6. 6.

    McNairn rightly acknowledges that religion could as easily hinder this development; appeals to God to legitimate action were, as McNairn says, ‘an attempt to supersede or short-circuit conversation; an attempt to trump or ignore the arguments of others by appealing to an ultimate, if contested, source of authority outside the public sphere itself’. See McNairn 2000, pp. 14–15.

  7. 7.

    Schrauwers 2008, pp. 3–34.

  8. 8.

    Schrauwers 2008, pp. 213–214. See also Gates 1959, which points to Mackenzie’s suspicion of chartered banks and limited liability.

  9. 9.

    Rea 1972; Mackay 1937; Armstrong 1971; Flint 1971; LeSeur 1979; Rasporich 1972; Gates 1988; Sewell 2002.

  10. 10.

    Ducharme 2014 pp. 88–9.

  11. 11.

    Wilton 2000, p. 64.

  12. 12.

    Kilbourn 1977, p. 11.

  13. 13.

    Jones 2014, p. 53.

  14. 14.

    Jones 2014, p. 67.

  15. 15.

    Chris Raible has drawn attention to Mackenzie’s Seceder background but has never fully expanded on this theme: Raible 2003, pp. 99–100; 2016. John Garner has hinted that Mackenzie’s demands for popular sovereignty can be attributed to his Presbyterian background but this point has not received adequate scholarly attention. Garner 1969, p. 9. John MacKenzie has also recently pointed to the significance of Mackenzie’s Seceder background: MacKenzie 2017, p. 100, note 47.

  16. 16.

    Gauvreau 2003, p. 75.

  17. 17.

    On the reserves see Wilson 1968.

  18. 18.

    Coupland 1945, p. 96.

  19. 19.

    Moir 1967, pp. 190–1.

  20. 20.

    ‘A Pastoral Letter from the Clergy of the Church of Scotland in the Canadas to their Presbyterian brethren’, Canadian Miscellany, April 1828.

  21. 21.

    ‘Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Civil Government of the Canadas, 22 July 1828’, in Moir 1967, pp. 176–7.

  22. 22.

    McGregor 1828, p. 111. The chart was reprinted in the Colonial Advocate, 20 September 1827. For the response to the chart see ‘Report of a Select Committee of the Assembly of Upper Canada on Dr. Strachan’s Ecclesiastical Chart, 15 March 1828’, in Moir 1967, pp. 173–5.

  23. 23.

    Osmond 1974, pp. 46–7.

  24. 24.

    ‘Extracts from a letter in the Glasgow Chronicle of January 30 1828’, Canadian Miscellany, April 1828.

  25. 25.

    The electoral qualification was a forty-shilling freehold in the country, or a five-pound freehold or ten-pound copyhold in towns. On the nature of colonial government see Dunham 1963, pp. 29–46.

  26. 26.

    Moir 1967, pp. 181–2.

  27. 27.

    Coupland 1945, pp. 81–2.

  28. 28.

    Strachan 1826, p. 15; Wilton 2000, pp. 7, 12, 18–19, 45–6, 128–29; Curtis Fahey has shown how the Archdeacon regarded his struggle for the Church as a battle against revolution and republicanism: Fahey 1991, pp. 89–97.

  29. 29.

    See e.g., United Church Archives [UCA], William Smart papers, F3195, Files 1–6, Biography 1811–1849, entry for 1820; Queen’s University Archives, William Bell papers, Life, Vol 2, mfm reel 585, Oct 1821.

  30. 30.

    Gill 1991, pp. 75–6.

  31. 31.

    ‘Religious Liberty’, Canadian Watchman, Dec 24 1830; Wilton 2000, pp. 46, 51–2.

  32. 32.

    Coupland 1945, pp. 98–100.

  33. 33.

    University of Western Ontario Archives [UWO], William Proudfoot papers, Series 1, File 2 – journals 5–11, 1833, Journal 6.

  34. 34.

    ‘What Connexion has the Church with the World?’, Presbyterian Magazine, May 1843.

  35. 35.

    ‘Reasons for publishing’, Presbyterian Magazine, January 1843.

  36. 36.

    ‘What Connexion has the Church with the World?’, Presbyterian Magazine, July 1843.

  37. 37.

    ‘What Connexion has the Church with the World?’, Presbyterian Magazine, December 1843.

  38. 38.

    UWO, William Proudfoot papers, Series 1, File 5, Journal 29, Oct 29 1838; Gill 1991, p. 90.

  39. 39.

    ‘The Church Question in the Canadas’, United Secession Magazine, January 1837.

  40. 40.

    ‘Letter from Proudfoot’, United Secession Magazine, June 1835. On the commitment of the missionary Seceders to voluntaryism see also ‘Excerpt of Letter from Rev. Alexander McKenzie’, United Secession Magazine, March 1837. William Fraser , a voluntary Seceder from Pictou, Nova Scotia, who assisted Proudfoot in London, recorded his surprise after reading an Antiburgher pamphlet on establishments. He wondered how ‘men of understanding…who may have every day before their eyes the evils of an establishment do not have more correct views of the constitution of the church. That declaration of our Lord my kingdom is not of this world should be sufficient to let the matter forever at rest’. UCA, William Fraser Fonds, 3100, File 1, Diary 1834–1835, entry for 28 March 1835.

  41. 41.

    Gauvreau 2003, p. 70.

  42. 42.

    UWO, William Proudfoot papers, Series 1, File 1, Journal 3, 27 December 1832. On 24 July 1837 Mackenzie wrote to Proudfoot informing him that his letter of subscription to the Constitution had been lost. Mackenzie forwarded the latest issue regardless. See Presbyterian Church of Canada Archives, William Proudfoot Family Fonds, 1973–5010, Box 2 – Correspondence, File Mc 1834–1890, Letter from William Lyon Mackenzie.

  43. 43.

    UWO, William Proudfoot papers, Series 1, File 1, Journal 2, 26 November 1832.

  44. 44.

    Mackenzie 1833, pp. 149, 161–70; Moir 1967, pp. 155–8.

  45. 45.

    Wilton 2000, p. 60.

  46. 46.

    Lindsey 2009, pp. 40–1.

  47. 47.

    Lindsey 2009, pp. 44–5.

  48. 48.

    Gill 1991, p. 90. Rea attributes Mackenzie’s support of voluntaryism to the influence of Andrew Jackson ’s views on the separation of church and state. See Rea 1972, p. 342.

  49. 49.

    Sewell attempts to prove that Mackenzie was associated with the 1820 insurrection in west central Scotland, something first hinted at by P. Berresford Ellis and S. Mac A’ Ghobhainn in their nationalist account of the rising, but there is no concrete evidence to support this assertion. Sewell 2002, pp. 13–37; Berresford Ellis and Mac A’ Ghobhainn 1970, p. 293. On his Dundee upbringing see also Vance and Stephen 2001; Stephen 1999; Donnelly 1987, pp. 61–73.

  50. 50.

    Lindsey 1912, p. 17.

  51. 51.

    Small 1904, pp. 289–90.

  52. 52.

    Peddie 1846, pp. 70–6.

  53. 53.

    Brims 1983, pp. 106–7.

  54. 54.

    Lindsey 2009, p. 259.

  55. 55.

    Lindsey 2009, p. 15, footnote 3.

  56. 56.

    Murray 1984–1986.

  57. 57.

    Raible 2016, pp. 9, 18, 24, 41, 43, 46, 48, 50, 54, 62. The appendix with Mackenzie’s reading list appears in Lindsey’s biography. I would like to thank Chris Raible for supplying me with his helpful expanded appendix and introduction.

  58. 58.

    The Kirk minister gave Mackenzie a certificate testifying to his good character before he migrated to Canada.

  59. 59.

    Lindsey 2009, pp. 29–30.

  60. 60.

    Donnelly 1987, p. 68.

  61. 61.

    Mackenzie 1833, p. 8.

  62. 62.

    Lindsey 2009, pp. 35, 40, 94.

  63. 63.

    On the need of participants in the public sphere to avoid sectarianism, see McNairn 2000, p. 15.

  64. 64.

    ‘Church and State’, Colonial Advocate, 1 November 1832.

  65. 65.

    Ryerson was accused of becoming less vehement for reform after he visited Britain in order to facilitate union between the Wesleyan and Episcopal Methodists, which brought the latter a share in the Wesleyans’ endowment.

  66. 66.

    ‘Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing’, The Constitution, 28 September 1836.

  67. 67.

    Colonial Advocate, 29 July 1830.

  68. 68.

    ‘Dr Strachan’, Colonial Advocate, 9 December 1830.

  69. 69.

    ‘Nova Scotia. The Spirit of British Freedom’, Colonial Advocate, 14 April 1831.

  70. 70.

    ‘Clerical Apostasy’, Colonial Advocate, 26 September 1833.

  71. 71.

    Wilton 2000, pp. 90–3.

  72. 72.

    Jones 2014, p. 67.

  73. 73.

    Ducharme 2014, p. 88.

  74. 74.

    ‘Patronage in Scotland’, Mackenzie’s Gazette, 26 October 1839.

  75. 75.

    ‘The Scotch Kirk’, Colonial Advocate, 12 July 1834.

  76. 76.

    ‘The Presbyterians and the Kirk’, Colonial Advocate, 18 August 1831.

  77. 77.

    ‘Democracy of Christianity’, Mackenzie’s Gazette, 13 October 1838.

  78. 78.

    Mackenzie 1833, p. 3.

  79. 79.

    ‘Some Passages in the History of Ireland’, The Constitution, 29 November 1837.

  80. 80.

    See McBride 1998.

  81. 81.

    Correspondent & Advocate, 6 August 1835. In 1572, the final year of his life, Knox had actually accepted the revival of episcopacy in the Church of Scotland.

  82. 82.

    ‘Free General Assembly’, Toronto Weekly Message, 26 June 1857.

  83. 83.

    ‘The Declaration of the Reformers of the City of Toronto to their Fellow-reformers in Upper Canada’, Correspondent & Advocate, 2 August 1837.

  84. 84.

    See Smart 1980.

  85. 85.

    ‘To the Convention of farmers, mechanics, labourers and other inhabitants of Toronto, met at the Royal Oak Hotel, to consider of and take measures for the effectually maintaining in this colony a free constitution and democratic form of government’, The Constitution, 15 November 1837.

  86. 86.

    Mackenzie 1833, pp. 14–15.

  87. 87.

    ‘Independence for Canada!’, Mackenzie’s Gazette, 18 August 1838.

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    Valerie Wallace

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Wallace, V. (2018). William Lyon Mackenzie in Toronto. In: Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70467-8_5

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