The Reform contender launched into a last urgent rush of meetings before the two days of voting began on July 5. But when the polls closed on that date he was thirty-four votes behind.44 This was the ominous, the often fatal sign: undecided electors had their minds made up for them by the outcome of the first day of polling. At the end of the second day George Brown was in the minority by 191.45 He was beaten. He had entered parliament in the elections of 1851; he left it in elections just ten years later.
There were good reasons for Brown’s defeat, among them his failure to accomplish his policies since the last general election. He had failed to establish a lasting ministry in 1858 and to achieve representation by population. He had failed to advance his federation scheme in 1860, and again had not settled the discords in the union – nor even in his own party. Now Conservatives like Crawford, who himself espoused rep by pop, were contending that they could meet Upper Canada’s needs far better than the Grits, since they assuredly had proved that they could win and hold power in the country.46 Then, too, there was the fact that, if Brown’s alliance with McGee might bring him some Roman Catholic support, his earlier record still kept other Roman Catholics away from him. Finally, a powerful pivot group in West Toronto, the Methodists, remembered his stand in opposition to Victoria and to denominational colleges generally on the university committee of 1860. They paid him back at the polls.47
Beyond all this, however, was the fact of Brown’s illness, which had kept him out of the last session, made him a reluctant candidate, and vitiated much of his effort at campaigning. Nevertheless, after the initial shock of disappointment, the defeated candidate showed small regret for what might have been. His speech to the crowd at the official declarations on July 11, in the hot sun outside Toronto’s City Hall, was almost thankful, and certainly amiable. “I believe there has never been an election conducted in this or any constituency more satisfactory for both parties than this has been,” he told the crowd around him, charitably ignoring the recent battle at St. Lawrence Hall. “Mr. Crawford and I went into the contest good personal friends and I hope we come out of it as cordial as ever.”48
Of course, he added, he regretted the result, for the sake of the friends who had supported and worked for him, and for the sake of the cause he fought for; but personally he was overjoyed that henceforth he could attend to his health and his personal interests. “I have now faithfully discharged my duty to my party – my defeat has opened up the way for my retirement without dishonour – and I mean to take advantage of it! ”49 So passed George Brown, M.P.P. It remained to be seen how long his retirement might last, and to what use he would put his new freedom.
3
The whole election had been a disappointment for the western Reform party. Both Toronto seats were gone, for Adam Wilson had lost, as well as Brown. Mowat, a Kingstonian in origin, though now identified with Toronto, had also failed to capture his native city from John A. Macdonald, and several other old reliable Brownites had not been re-elected. Still, it had by no means been a Liberal rout. While there were a number of new men and moderates who were claimed by both sides, the strength of government and opposition would likely be close to equal in Upper Canada: thirty definite ministerialists to twenty-nine decided Reformers, with the remainder probably dividing to give a narrow margin of support to the government.50 Moreover, Mowat and Wilson had both been returned in their old ridings of South Ontario and North York, each having run in two constituencies; and other prominent Liberals, such as McDougall, Howland, Connor, Foley, and Sandfield Macdonald, were safely back. It was worthy of comment, besides, that George Brown’s old lieutenant in Lambton County, the faithful Alexander Mackenzie, had now won entrance to parliament, replacing his brother Hope for Lambton when ill-health forced the latter to retire.
Nevertheless, the Grit Liberals had not only failed to increase their power in parliament, but also lost their clear majority of Upper Canada’s seats. What had caused the set-back? To some extent, the same things that had worked to defeat their leader personally: the failure to achieve Reform policies since 1858, the damaging disputes in the party in 1860, and Brown’s own inability to give leadership in 1861. Then the Reform thrust for rep by pop had lost some of its efficacy, since the government had made it an “open” question in the election, thus enabling individual western Conservative candidates to advocate it for themselves, even if their cabinet leaders did not. But finally, the Grits in the last session had presented the ministry with a splendid stick to use against their own heads – and used it was, to the full. It had been William McDougall’s doing, once again too quick in his own cock-sure cleverness for the good of his party.
Carried away by a need for emphasis during the debate on rep by pop, McDougall had darkly warned that Upper Canadians had waited ten years for justice, and would not wait another ten. They might “look below the border for relief”.51 The government benches had been shocked, too horribly shocked to accept any explanations for the remark. Why spoil a good thing? It was ideal for elections, as John A. Macdonald saw. He informed Egerton Ryerson, just before the campaign began: “The cry is ‘Union’, ‘No looking to Washington’, and ‘University Reform’.”52 Here was something for everybody, even for the disgruntled Methodist supporters of Victoria College. And “No looking to Washington”, loudly reiterated, effectively blackened the Reform crusade for Upper Canada’s rights, whether it made sense or not. Besides, the appeal to British loyalty overrode any lingering Orange resentments of the ministry left over from the Prince’s visit. That University Reform was even emptier of meaning, of course, was neither here nor there.53 The point was, the slogans worked.
And so the Liberal-Conservatives checked the trend towards the steady increase of Reform power in Upper Canada – temporarily, as it turned out. In Lower Canada, however, the elections had been far less favourable to the Coalition forces. If giving a nod to rep by pop had won the Liberal-Conservatives votes in the West, it had lost them votes in the East, where French Canadians, facing the stark facts of the census, dreaded the least concession to a principle that would inevitably swamp them.54 Cartier’s powerful block of Bleus had shrunk from forty-eight to some thirty-five, and the regular Lower Canadian opposition had gone up from fifteen to twenty-six or so.55 Yet this did not mean that the Rouges had been greatly strengthened thereby. Dorion himself had been defeated, though McGee was safe. No, eastern Reformers who had been associated, however loosely, with a western party that demanded rep by pop had not done well in a keenly anxious French Canada, determined to defend race, language, and religion.
Instead, it was moderate Liberals and dissentient Bleus who had swelled the eastern opposition: men dissatisfied with Cartier’s leadership, not by any means because they would concede representation by population, but because they feared lest Cartier’s own bold but intransigent conduct might actually point the way to that disaster.56 His typical response to debate on the representation question had been to settle it with big battalions. His classic contemptuous answer to vexing opposition attacks – “call in the members” – wholly expressed his own forthright fighting spirit. But some Lower Canadians had apparently come to feel that this stark exemplification of the power of eastern votes would ultimately unite the whole West in anger, until the demand for rep by pop could no longer be resisted. During the last session, in fact, McDougall had noted the growth of discontent with Cartier in French-speaking circles, and reported it to Brown.57 One likely focus for it might be Louis Victor Sicotte, a prominent if crotchety oppositionist who had once been a Rouge, was then a Coalition minister, and now might best be termed a moderate Liberal of a shimmering shade of mauve.
All in all,