But This Theory Of Race Is Sometimes Carried To An
Anti-Christian And Unphilosophical Excess.
Whose words are these - 'God
hath made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the
earth'?
Is not that the true theory of race? For my part, I am not
afraid of the French Canadian majority in the future local government
doing injustice, except accidentally; not because I am of the same
religion as themselves; for origin and language are barriers stronger
to divide men in this world than is religion to unite them. Neither do
I believe that my Protestant compatriots need have any such fear. The
French Canadians have never been an intolerant people; it is not in
their temper, unless they had been persecuted, perhaps, and then it
might have been as it has been with other races of all religions.
"All who have spoken on this subject have said a good deal, as was
natural, of the interests at stake in the success or failure of this
plan of Confederation. I trust the House will permit me to add a few
words as to the principle of Confederation considered in itself. In the
application of this principle to former constitutions there certainly
always was one fatal defect, the weakness of the central authority. Of
all the Federal constitutions I have ever heard or read of, this was
the fatal malady: they were short-lived, they died of consumption. But
I am not prepared to say that because the Tuscan League elected its
chief magistrates but for two months and lasted a century, that
therefore the Federal principle failed.
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