1 This is a common refrain of Canadian political scientists and historians. Edwin Black, for example, argues that “Confederation was born in pragmatism without the attendance of a readily definable philosophic rationale” (Black, E. R., Divided Loyalities: Canadian Concepts of Federalism [Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1975], 4).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Peter Waite states that Confederation had a “fundamentally empirical character” about it and was essentially a practical exercise (The Life and Times of Confederation 1864–1867: Politics, Newspapers and the Union of British North America [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962], 25).Google Scholar Donald Smiley writes that “Unlike Americans… in the eighteenth century… Canadians have never experienced the kind of decisive break with their political past which would have impelled them to debate and resolve fundamental political questions” (Canada in Question: Federalism in the Eighties [3rd ed.; Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1980], 285).Google Scholar Finally, J. K. Johnson makes the following observation on one of the leading Fathers of Confederation: “John A. Macdonald's political ‘ideas’ or‘beliefs’ have been subjected to more learned scrutiny than those of almost any other Canadian leader, a fact which is more than a little surprising, considering that the scholarly consensus has been that he was not a man of ideas at all.” Johnson also maintains that “it is true he was essentially pragmatic, even opportunistic by nature. He did not disguise his pragmatism with political rhetoric; he positively boasted of it.” The image of “John A.” was that of “the plain, no-nonsense practical man of good sense” (Johnson, J. K., “Macdonald, John A.,” in Careless, J. M. S. [ed.], The Pre-Confederation Premiers: Ontario Government Leaders, 1841–1867 [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980], 223–24).Google Scholar One of the few political scientists to take Macdonald seriously as a man of ideas is Rod Preece (“The Political Wisdom of Sir John A. Macdonald,” this JOURNAL 17 [1984], 459–86).Google Scholar

2 Some of the more prominent contributors include: John Dunn, “The Politics of Locke in England and America in the Eighteenth Century,” in Yolton, John W. (ed.), John Locke: Problems and Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969);Google ScholarBailyn, Bernard, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1969);Google ScholarWood, Gordon S., The Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969);Google ScholarDickinson, H. T., Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth Century Britain (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977);Google ScholarBrowning, Reed, Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Court Whigs (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982);Google ScholarBanning, Lance, The Jeffersonian Persuasion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978);Google ScholarForbes, Duncan, Hume's Philosophical Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978);Google ScholarPocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).Google Scholar My debt to Pocock's work is obvious in the first part of this article.

3 The work of Janet Ajzenstat is one exception. See, for example, her “Modern Mixed Government: A Liberal Defence of Inequality,” this JOURNAL 18 (1985), 119–35.Google Scholar

4 The Country opposition, however, was hardly a homogeneous group. Dickinson provides a succinct overview of their internal divisions, which centred around religious matters and the question of who should enjoy active political power (Liberty and Property, 163–80).

5 For a good overview on how these approaches have been applied to Scottish social thought see Pocock, J. G. A., “Cambridge Paradigms and Scotch Philosophers: A Study of the Relations between the Civic Humanist and the Civil Jurisprudential Interpretation of Eighteenth Century Social Thought,” in Hont, Istvan and Ignatieff, Michael (eds.), Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 235–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 This is particularly the view of Nicholas Phillipson, “Adam Smith as Civic Moralist,” ibid., 179–203, and “The Scottish Enlightenment,” in Porter, R. and Teich, M. (eds.), The Enlightenment in National Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 19–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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10 Smith also had a more integrated and historical understanding of the relationship between the economic and the political than did Hume, believing as he did in the four stages theory of development—hunting, pastoral, agriculture and commerce. Smith was also less optimistic than Hume about the beneficial effects of commercial society. For a good overview of the intellectual differences, see John Robertson, “Scottish Political Economy Beyond the Civic Tradition: Government and Economic Development in The Wealth of Nations,” History of Political Thought 4 (1983), 451–82.Google Scholar

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14 For more on Hume's influence see Douglas Adair, “That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science: Hume, David, Madison, James and the Tenth Federalist,” Huntington Library Quarterly 30 (1956–57), 343–60.Google Scholar

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20 Of all of the above Cobbett radicalism was sharpest in its attack upon corruption. See Dickinson, H. T., British Radicalism and the French Revolution 1789–1815 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 70, 71.Google Scholar One of Cobbett's greatest admirers was Robert Gourlay, a radical leader in Upper Canada during the 1820s, whose views, according to his biographer, were close to “an almost forgotten party called the Country Party which opposed court corruption” (Milani, Lois Dorroch, Robert Gourlay, Gadfly [Thornbury, Ontario: Ampersand Press, 1971], 26).Google Scholar

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25 The Seventh Report.

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33 Ibid.

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41 Camillus (Henry, John), An Enquiry into the Evils of General Suffrage (Montreal: Nahum Mower, 1820)Google Scholar, as reprinted in Hare, John and Wallot, Jean-Pierre (eds.), Confrontations (Trois-Rivières: Boréal Express, 1970), 100.Google Scholar The emphasis is Henry's. John Henry (1776–1820) was probably born in Ireland, moving to the United States at the turn of the century and then to Canada, where he became connected with the North West Company.

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73 Ibid., 64.