During this second administration, he demonstrated the achievement of responsible government by the passage of the Rebellion Losses Bill , despite fierce opposition and violent demonstrations. LaFontaine retired to private life in but was appointed chief justice of Canada East in A tall, portly man, resembling Napoleon I, LaFontaine was a master politician who commanded respect and inspired many others with his high ideals and patriotism.
See also related online learning resources. Search The Canadian Encyclopedia. Remember me. I forgot my password. When armed rebellion broke out in Lower Canada in , Lafontaine shunned the hostilities, instead taking on the role of mediator between the government and his Patriote colleagues. His skills in this role gained him great respect on both sides of the struggle. When the union of Upper and Lower Canada was confirmed in , Lafontaine believed it could help preserve the French speaking population of Quebec.
He ran in the election of , but did not win his seat. Reacting to this defeat in support of his French Canadian ally, Robert Baldwin resigned the seat he had won in York and urged Lafontaine to run in a by-election to replace him. From that point forward, a deep and lasting friendship was cemented between the two men that would last for the rest of their political careers.
By September, , the Reform movement had gained enough support in Parliament to be asked to form the Government. Yet the ministry held firm, and the measure became law.
The episode marked the ultimate test of the principle of responsible government. Like his close associate Baldwin, Lafontaine was essentially a moderate man, and after the achievement of cabinet government his attitudes became more and more conservative. He failed to solve two of the burning questions of the day—the secularization of lands set aside for the support of the clergy and the abolition of the ancient seigneurial system of landholding in Quebec.
Along with Baldwin, he resigned from the administration in and left public life. In he was appointed chief justice of Canada East, and a year later he was made a baronet. But these outrages against his person and property only served to enhance the prestige of the prime minister. During his tenure of office, from March to October , La Fontaine entrusted Hincks with economic and commercial questions, and Baldwin with legal reform and with land utilization in Canada West.
He retained responsibility for the courts and the distribution of patronage in Canada East. In addition, he created the Superior Court as a court of original jurisdiction and a circuit court for small causes. Thus the broad outlines of judicial organization in Canada East were drawn in — In his administration of patronage, the prime minister utilized his network of agents and relied on the advice of his organizers, Caron, Cauchon, Cartier, and Drummond.
He wanted to make certain that by a judicious allotment of favours all French Canadians would become permanently involved in self-rule. And as the privileges and salaries of office percolated down to other classes of society, French Canadians came to realize that responsible government was no longer just an ideal. It was also a profitable fact. Henceforth, thanks to La Fontaine, all French Canadians would be guaranteed the possibility of room at the political top.
The prime minister did not escape setbacks. Three times, in , , and , he put a bill before the house to increase the number of members for each section of the province from 42 to He insisted that the representation of Canada East and West should remain equal, and he wanted the regions within each section to be equally represented. His bill never received the two-thirds majority required. In and La Fontaine was again in the minority over the clergy reserves and seigneurial tenure.
On these questions he was absolutely determined to respect vested interests. He knew his ultramontane supporters feared that the secularizing movement prevalent in Canada West, especially with regard to the clergy reserves, would spread to Canada East. As for seigneurial tenure, La Fontaine certainly favoured its reform, even its abolition.
But since then his alliances had led him in a conservative direction. He therefore insisted that the seigneurs should receive compensation. On 14 June he proposed in the house that a committee should be set up chaired by Drummond, with instructions to prepare a bill. The following year, when the committee proposed to redeem the rights of the seigneurs by forcing them to accept an amount fixed by the legislature, La Fontaine contended that such action would be confiscation.
Finally he succeeded in getting this question postponed also; but meanwhile, on a point of order, he found himself in the minority among French Canadians for the first time since union. Only eight representatives voted with him, whereas his strongest allies, including Drummond, Cauchon, and Cartier, supported the majority. His authoritarian temperament made it difficult for him to accept even this small setback.
Hence he resolved to hand in his resignation. In any case, for some months he had been tired and sick. The dampness of winters in Toronto, which he had had to endure since the capital had been transferred to Canada West in , had aggravated his rheumatism.
He was overburdened with work and plagued by insomnia and headaches. On 6 March , he had written to Joseph-Amable Berthelot to say that if paradise was in store for those who had experienced only tribulation in this life, he would most surely obtain his passport. In November he confided to Lord Elgin that he was weary of public life. Then, during the winter of , his wife also began to complain of rheumatism. The resignations of Baldwin on 27 June , and of Hincks on 15 September, profoundly distressed him.
On 26 Sept. He had attained all the objectives he had set himself in the years — Union had been accepted; the rebels had been pardoned and the victims compensated; responsible government had been secured.
He had succeeded in stimulating and coordinating the activity of his colleagues. And his greatest success had been to give expression through the institutions of the country to the social aspirations of the liberal bourgeoisie. His reputation as a logical, firm, and precise speaker preceded him in the courts, where law students and young lawyers often went to hear him argue. His coolness and self-control were much admired: he persuaded by force of ideas rather than by sonorous periods or brilliant words.
His influence also extended to business circles. At the time of the great fire in Montreal in , it was he who was chosen by the city council to negotiate a loan. Then, on 13 Aug. He sat there for the first time on 1 July Throughout the final decade of his life La Fontaine was burdened by illness. In the early s his corpulence had become distressing for him. He travelled to recover his health. He spent several months in Paris and visited museums and art galleries. It was during this stay that his resemblance to Napoleon I sent a stir of excitement through the old soldiers at the Invalides.
It was also on this voyage that he had become a friend of the historian Pierre Margry, a regular and interesting correspondent. On 27 May , at the age of 46, she passed away after a long illness. On 30 Jan. A son, Louis-Hippolyte, was born on 11 July Called upon to preside over the special tribunal of 13 judges set up in to rule on the claims resulting from the act on seigneurial tenure, La Fontaine became engrossed in the history of the feudal system and of civil law in Canada.
He cherished the hope of publishing a scholarly study of the customs of New France and Lower Canada. His correspondence reveals his numerous contacts with genealogists and archivists in France, England, and Canada. He was thoroughly tired of politics. In he was already showing signs of this disenchantment. In he published an essay on slavery in Canada, and, between and , several unsigned articles on genealogy.
However, his history of law was never completed. On 25 Feb. He was taken home, where he gathered his son in his arms, made the sign of the cross, and lost consciousness.
At his funeral, presided over by Bishop Bourget, 12, persons gathered. Lady La Fontaine gave birth to a second son on 15 July, but he died in ; his elder brother, Louis-Hippolyte, followed him to the grave in Lady La Fontaine lived until His work opened up new directions in the areas of administration, law, education, settlement, and politics.
It was proof of the power of national unity and of cooperation among those whom history and geography had brought together. Despite the Act of Union, which was clearly directed against French Canadians, La Fontaine was able to demonstrate that cultural survival depended not on constitutional documents but first and foremost on the collective will to live and on enthusiasm engendered by reform.
Convinced of the interdependence of the two Canadas, and refusing to follow those who in his opinion failed to understand true grandeur, he transmitted to future generations through his accomplishments his confidence that their cultural fulfilment was linked to the vitality and flexibility of the parliamentary system of Great Britain.
Thanks to him, a great and new hope was born. By his decision to use British principles to strengthen his own nationality, La Fontaine did more than ensure the cultural survival of French Canadians. He also became one of the founders of the future Commonwealth of Nations. For the tradition of Canada as a whole his lasting contribution is obvious as well: he is the father of parliamentary democracy on this continent; or, as he himself expressed it in the play on his name which he officially chose as a motto when he was created a baronet: Fons et origo.
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