At the first elections in 1841, Macdonald was campaign manager for Kingston’s Conservative candidate, John Forsyth. Since the right to vote depended upon owning property, his legal knowledge was important, and he discharged his task “ably and zealously.” Unfortunately, Forsyth narrowly lost to local businessman, Anthony Manahan. Normally, as an Irish Catholic, Manahan would have been a no-hoper but, in this unusual election, he was seen as the candidate of the governor-general, Lord Sydenham, who had just selected Kingston as capital of the united province. Indeed, when Manahan took a government job soon after, the city dutifully elected Sydenham’s right-hand man, S.B. Harrison.
Early in 1842, John A. Macdonald sailed to England for an energetic convalescence. In London, he attended parliamentary debates, whetting his political appetite by watching the great statesmen of the Empire. A new invention, railways, made travel easy. He visited Queen Victoria’s private apartments at Windsor Castle, toured the Lake District, and looked up relatives in Scotland. He bought law books in London, a ceremonial kilt in Edinburgh, and state-of-the-art kitchen equipment in Manchester. Macdonald had cash to spend partly because of huge winnings in a card game before he left Kingston — an episode that perhaps triggered a row with his mother, because he never gambled again.
There was probably a bigger item on his want list than kitchen equipment: prosperous and twenty-seven, he needed a wife. For a young professional man, finding the right partner was not just a personal choice. Marriages might not be made in heaven, but the couple usually belonged to the same religious denomination. In Kingston, now a town of six thousand people of all ages and many faiths, the range of potential brides was limited. A lawyer’s wife should be a sophisticated lady, but Canada seemed overrun, as Oliver Mowat complained, with “unthinking, unintelligent young women.” Respectable families often imported brides: Macdonald was twice married, but neither partner grew up in Canada.
Although Helen Macdonald was a possessive mother, she could hardly have programmed her adult son to marry his cousin Isabella. But she probably sowed the seed by praising the female Clarks. The capable Maria, who had accompanied the family to Canada, had married a Macpherson and settled locally. Margaret was now a widow in her forties, but two younger sisters still lived with her. Jane had health problems; Isabella was six years John A.’s senior. Helen, who had married a younger man herself, probably brushed that aside. The Clark sisters had left Georgia and, in 1842, were living on the Isle of Man, a Crown dependency in the Irish Sea, where low taxes created a refuge for hard-up gentility. Sending their “warmest love,” they persuaded Macdonald to visit their backwater. There he proposed to Isabella and was accepted. The bride arrived in Kingston the next year, and the couple were married on September 1, 1843: in Scots tradition, the Presbyterian ceremony was held in Maria Macpherson’s drawing room.
Within two years, Isabella’s health and her husband’s career combined to create a serious problem in the marriage, although their mutual affection was obvious. Thanks to their transatlantic courtship, the couple may not have known one another well when they agreed to share their destinies. When they married, Macdonald was twenty-eight, and Isabella thirty-four — an unusual age combination, but not an insuperable barrier in adult years. Perhaps the Clark sisters had visited Maria from Georgia — but when? Ten years previously, Isabella would have been a mature young woman, John a gawky teenage law clerk. Their romantic reunion on the Isle of Man was perhaps their first encounter on equal terms. During their short courtship, Macdonald probably told his fiancée that he hoped to enter the legislature, which then met in Kingston — a few blocks from home. Unfortunately, by the time she arrived, Canada’s capital had been transferred to Montreal: Macdonald’s election in 1844 meant long periods of absence. Isabella was no trophy wife, but she perhaps felt herself a captive daughter-in-law, with her ambitious Aunt Helen as her husband’s mother. She recalled her days in Georgia and yearned for space in her part-time marriage.
Soon after Macdonald’s return from Britain, the provincial Parliament met for its second session, in September 1842. The new governor-general, Sir Charles Bagot, accepted arithmetical reality: LaFontaine’s alliance with Robert Baldwin’s Upper Canada Reformers controlled the Assembly and they forced the governor to admit their nominees to his Cabinet. As Bagot wearily concluded, theoretical argument about responsible government was pointless, because “virtually it exists.” In a rearguard action, he retained some existing Cabinet members for their administrative skills, including Kingston’s defender, S.B. Harrison. In 1843, Bagot’s health collapsed, and he was succeeded by Sir Charles Metcalfe. A former governor in India and Jamaica, Metcalfe was used to giving orders, not taking advice. A clash with his Reform ministers was likely, and confrontation would mean elections for a new Assembly. At this point, John A. Macdonald fought his first campaign.
In March 1843, Macdonald was elected as a Kingston alderman. Five months earlier, he had become president of the local St Andrew’s Society, which gave him opportunities to wear his ceremonial kilt, and firm up his support among the Scottish community. He also joined the Orange Order, a Protestant Irish fraternal organization, which in Canada transcended its national origins. Its powerful political machine underpinned his electoral organization in Kingston until the Orangemen quarrelled with him in 1860–61.
Macdonald was elected easily, but it was a fierce campaign. Since property qualifications allowed few men to vote, the excluded majority disrupted political rallies in protest. John A. Macdonald proved a skilled performer, exchanging wisecracks with hecklers until he gained the crowd’s attention, and then launching into a serious speech. At his victory rally, a platform collapsed, plunging him into the snow and he joked about the ups and downs of politics. Forsyth, the Conservative candidate in 1841, had been a halting speaker and was too obviously the privileged product of the local elite. If the party wanted a standard-bearer who could reach out and win votes, this genial self-made lawyer might be the answer.
He became a key player in municipal affairs at a moment of crisis for Kingston. The city had benefited from its selection as Canada’s capital. (The official term was “seat of government”: as part of the Empire, Canada’s true capital was London, England.) The influx of politicians and bureaucrats boosted the local economy, but the newcomers were critical of the city’s poor accommodations, both for people and institutions. The municipality planned a huge city hall for use as Canada’s parliament house — but the real objection to Kingston was not its lack of facilities, but its atmosphere. French-Canadians felt uneasy with its loyalism, Reformers disliked its Toryism. When the new ministers lost an important by-election, Kingston Conservatives (Macdonald included) celebrated so riotously that the legislators felt intimidated. In March 1843, a Cabinet committee recommended moving the capital to Montreal. Harrison tried to block the decision, but in September he admitted defeat and resigned from office. Early in November 1843, the Assembly ratified the move. Three weeks later, Metcalfe forced the Reformers out of office, but it was too late for Kingston. Civil servants had quickly packed their files and hurried downriver.
Having ousted the Reformers, Metcalfe prorogued (i.e., suspended) Parliament to silence their supporters. Although the governor general delayed the call until September 1844, everybody knew that elections would soon follow. Kingston’s Conservatives needed to unite behind an acceptable candidate — but who? The front-runner was probably lawyer John S. Cartwright, son of a founder of Kingston, who already represented a nearby riding. But Cartwright sailed to Britain in March 1844 to plead with the imperial authorities to veto the move to Montreal, a fruitless mission which destroyed his health. Into the vacuum stepped John A. Macdonald.
Years later, Macdonald modestly explained that he was selected to “fill a gap,” adding: “There seemed to be no one else available, so I was pitched upon.” He also recalled that he made it a condition that he might serve only a single term. Perhaps this was a tactical concession to the hereditary claims of Kingston’s first families: in 1873, he recalled that they had distrusted him as “an adventurer” when he broke into politics. In reality, he moved effectively to seize the nomination. In April 1844, 225 Kingston citizens signed