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. On the contrary, there is something in the frequent, fond recurrence of mankind to this principle, among the freest people, in their best times and in their worst dangers, which leads me to believe, that it has a very deep hold in human nature itself - an excellent basis for a government to have. But, indeed, Sir, the main question is the due distribution of powers in a Federal Union - a question I dare not touch to-night, but which I may be prepared to say something on before the vote is taken. The principle itself seems to me to be capable of being so adapted as to promote internal peace and external security, and to call into action a genuine, enduring, and heroic patriotism. It is a fruit of this principle that makes the modern Italian look back with sorrow and pride over a dreary waste of seven centuries to the famous field of Legnano; it was this principle kindled the beacons which yet burn on the rocks of Uri; it was this principle that broke the dykes of Holland and overwhelmed the Spanish with the fate of the Egyptian oppressor. It is a principle capable of inspiring a noble ambition and a most salutary emulation. You have sent your young men to guard your frontier. You want a principle to guard your young men, and thus truly defend your frontier. For what do good men who make the best soldiers fight? For a line of scripture or chalk line - for a text or for a pretext? What is a better boundary between nations than a parallel of latitude, or even a natural obstacle? - what really keeps nations intact and apart? - a principle. When I can hear our young men say as proudly, 'our Federation,' or 'our Country,' or 'our Kingdom,' as the young men of other countries do, speaking of their own, then I shall have less apprehension for the result of whatever trials the future may have in store for us. It has been said that the Federal Constitution of the United States has failed. I, Sir, have never said it. The Attorney- General West told you the other night that he did not consider it a failure; and I remember that in 1861, when in this House I remarked the same thing, the only man who then applauded the statement was the Attorney-General West, - so that it is plain he did not simply adopt the argument for use the other night when advocating a Federal Union among ourselves. It may be a failure for us, paradoxical as this may seem, and yet not a failure for them. They have had eighty years' use of it, and having discovered its defects, may apply a remedy and go on with it eighty years longer. But we also were lookers on, who saw its defects as the machine worked, and who have prepared contrivances by which it can be improved and kept in more perfect order when applied to ourselves. And one of the foremost statesmen in England, distinguished alike in politics and literature, has declared, as the President of the Council informed us, that we have combined the best parts of the British and the American systems of government; an opinion deliberately formed at a distance, without prejudice, and expressed without interested motives of any description. We have, in relation to the head of the Government, in relation to the judiciary, in relation to the second chamber of the Legislature, in relation to the financial responsibility of the General Government, and in relation to the public officials whose tenure of office is during good behaviour instead of at the caprice of a party - in all these respects we have adopted the British system; in other respects we have learned something from the American system, and I trust and believe we have made a very tolerable combination of both.

"The principle of Federation is a generous principle. It is a principle that gives men local duties to discharge, and invests them at the same time with general supervision, and excites a healthy sense of responsibility and comprehension. It is a principle that has produced a wise and true spirit of statesmanship in all countries in which it has ever been applied. It is a principle eminently favourable to liberty, because local affairs are left to be dealt with by local bodies, and cannot be interfered with by those who have no local interest in them, while matters of a general character are left exclusively to a General Government.

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