The question has been asked, would it not have been better for the northern half of this continent if the Eddy rebellion had succeeded and what is now Canada had become one country with the United States? The name Americans could then fairly have been claimed by the citizens of the great Republic and a people whose interests and aspirations are identical, and whose religion, language and customs are the same, would have been united in carrying out the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon in America.This may sound very well, but events have transpired in the last hundred and twenty-five years that point unmistakably to the conclusion that the God of history intended this northern land called Canada to work out its own destiny independent of the southern Republic.At the period of the Eddy rebellion Nova Scotia was still in the cradle and had no grievances to redress.New Brunswick as a Province had no existence.Never in all history had a conquered country been treated so justly by the victors as had Quebec.Ontario at this time was but a western wilderness.It will thus be seen that there would have been no justification for the new settlers in this northern land to have joined hands with the thirteen older colonies.
Another preliminary objection can be found in the situation of the Loyalists of 1783, from the fact that one of the grandest band of exiles that was ever driven from fireside and country would have found no place on the continent to make new homes for themselves.This would have placed them in infinitely worse circumstances than that body of noble men and women of another race that twenty-eight years earlier in the century had been driven out as exiles to wander in hardship and want on that same New England coast.These Loyalists brought to Canada the sterling principle, the experience in local Government, the sturdy, independent manhood and business experience and energy which this northern land needed to make it one of the most prosperous and best governed countries in the world.To think what Canada would have been without the Loyalists helps one to see more clearly how fortunate it was that the Eddy rebellion was crushed.
The British Empire may owe more to the loyal Yorkshire emigrants than has ever been fairly accorded to them.Canada as a coterie of colonies furnished Great Britain with a training school for her statesmen that she did not otherwise possess.In this way British North America has been the prime factor in placing Great Britain first among the nations of the world in the government of colonies.It is true English ministers and English governors made mistakes and had much to learn before the present system was fully adopted, but the descendants of the Loyalists and those who remained true to the Crown during the stormy years of the Revolution were not likely to stir up strife without a just cause.And is it claiming too much to say that to Canada's remaining loyal in 1776 is due to a very large extent the proud position Great Britain holds to-day as the mother of nations, the founder of the greatest colonial empire the world has yet seen?
There are those who believe that the principle of equality and fraternity, of government by the people and for the people, the freedom for which the Pilgrim Fathers faced the stormy Atlantic and for which Washington fought against such odds, has been worked out in fuller measure and juster proportions in Canada than in the United States.
Canada has helped greatly to emphasize the truth, only yet half understood by the world, that it makes little difference whether the chief ruler of a country is called president, king or emperor, or whether the government is called a monarchy or republic.These are but incidents.What is important, what is essential,if freedom is to be won and maintained, is that the people understand their rights and have the courage to maintain them at any sacrifice.It was the leaven of freedom working in the lump of the British people that gave the world the Magna Charta, Montford's rebellion, Cromwell and the Commonwealth, the Revolution of 1688,and the still greater Revolution of 1776.
This last event broke from the parent stem one of the strong branches of the Anglo-Saxon family, and gave each an opportunity to work out in different ways the ideals after which both were striving.And who will say that the descendants of Cromwellians and Quakers, Nonconformists and Churchmen, whose ancestors, from force of circumstances or love of country remained in their island home, are not to-day breathing the air of freedom as pure and unadulterated as their cousins on the banks of the Charles or in the valleys of the historic Brandywine.At any rate, we who live in this northern country, that escaped the cataclysm of 1776, feel that Canada has been no unimportant factor in helping to work out the great problem of government for and by the consent of the governed.
