KCMG ,
GCB ,
QC ,
PC ,
DCL ,
LL.D (
January 11 ,
1815 –
June 6 ,
1891 ) was the first
Prime Minister of
Canada from
July 1 ,
1867 –
November 5 ,
1873 and
October 17 ,
1878 –
June 6 ,
1891 . He was born in
Glasgow ,
Scotland .
While there is some debate over his actual birthdate, January 10 is the official date recorded and January 11 is the day Macdonald celebrated it. His parents, Hugh Macdonald and Helen Shaw, met in Scotland in
1811 . After the failure of his father's business ventures, his family
Emigrated to Canada in
1820 along with thousands of others seeking affordable land and promises of new prosperity.
Macdonald did prosper, becoming a lawyer in who went on to become
Premier of the
Province of
Manitoba . Ten years after the death of his wife, in 1867, the year of
Canadian Confederation , he married
Susan Agnes Bernard (
1836 -
1920 ). They had one daughter, Margaret Mary Theodora Macdonald (
1869 -
1933 ).
In
1843 Macdonald exhibited his first interest in
Politics . He gained the recognition of his peers and in
1847 was appointed Receiver General by
William Henry Draper 's administration of the united colony of Canada (formerly Upper and Lower Canadas). However, Macdonald lost this distinction when Draper's government lost the next election. He left the Conservatives, hoping to build a more moderate and palatable base, leading to the creation, in
1854 , of the Liberal-Conservative Party under the leadership of Sir
Allan McNab . Within a few years, the Liberal-Conservatives would attract all of the old Conservative base as well as some centrist Reformers. The Liberal-Conservatives came to power in 1854 and under the new administration Macdonald was appointed
Attorney-General . In the next election Macdonald continued his rise in politics by becoming
Joint Premier Of The Province Of Canada with Sir
Étienne-Paschal Taché of Québec for the years
1856 and
1857 .
Taché resigned in 1857, and
George-Étienne Cartier took his place. In the election of
1858 , the Macdonald-Cartier government was defeated and they resigned as Premiers. In an interesting piece of politics, the
Governor General Of Canada asked Cartier to become the senior Premier, only a week after his defeat. Cartier accepted and brought Macdonald into office along with him. This was legal as any member of the cabinet could re-enter the cabinet provided they did so within a month of resigning their previous position. The coalition government was again defeated in
1862 . Macdonald then served as the leader of the opposition until the election of
1864 , when Sir Étienne-Paschal Taché came out of retirement and joined ranks with Macdonald to form the governing party yet again.
At this point in Macdonald's career, he began to look to the future of politics in his region. He was the leader of arguably the largest British colony in the surrounding area and had the power to help enact agreements to confederate the British colonies. This would be done in an attempt to provide stability to the colonies, which were experiencing frequent government changes, to provide the basis for expansion into the West, and to create a unified country in order to guard against attacks from the Americans to the south.
To prevent the frequent changes of government in the Province of Canada,
George Brown , the leader of the Reformers (the forerunners to the
Liberal Party Of Canada ) and an extremely vocal opponent of Macdonald's Conservatives, joined with Macdonald in 1864 to form the "
Great Coalition ." This was an important step towards Confederation. Macdonald then spent 1864 to 1867 organizing the legislation needed to confederate the colonies into the country of Canada. In September 1864, he led the Canadian delegation at the
Charlottetown Conference in
Charlottetown ,
Prince Edward Island , to present his idea to the
Maritime colonies, who were discussing a union of their own. In October 1864 delegates for confederation met in
Quebec City, Quebec for the
Quebec Conference where the
Seventy-Two Resolutions were created -- the plan for confederation. By
1866 ,
New Brunswick ,
Nova Scotia , and the Province of Canada had agreed to confederation.
Newfoundland and
Prince Edward Island were opposed. In the final conference of confederation held in 1866 in
London ,
England the agreement to confederate was completed.
In 1867 the agreement was brought to the
British Parliament who passed the
British North America Act , creating the Dominion of Canada. Upon the creation of the Dominion of Canada the Province of Canada was then divided into the individual provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
Britain's
Queen Victoria knighted John A. Macdonald for playing the integral role in bringing about Confederation. His appointment as a Knight Commander of the
Order Of St Michael And St George was announced on the birth of the Dominion, July 1, 1867. An election was held in August which put Macdonald and his Conservative party into power.
election poster from 1891.]]
As Prime Minister, Macdonald's vision was to enlarge the country and unify it. Accordingly, under his rule Canada bought
Rupert's Land and the
North-Western Territory from the
Hudson's Bay Company for £300,000 (about $11,500,000). This land became the
Northwest Territories . In
1870 Parliament passed the
Manitoba Act , creating the province of Manitoba out of a portion of the Northwest Territories in response to the
Red River Rebellion led by
Louis Riel .
In
1871 the British parliament added
British Columbia to Confederation, making it the sixth province. Macdonald promised a transcontinental railway connection to persuade the province to join, which his opponents decried as a highly unrealistic and expensive promise. In
1873 Prince Edward Island also joined Confederation, and Macdonald created the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (then named the North-West Mounted Police) to act as a police force for the vast Northwest Territories.
After the
Pacific Scandal in
1873 , in which Macdonald was accused of taking bribes to award contracts for the construction of the railway, Macdonald was forced to resign and
Liberal leader
Alexander Mackenzie formed a caretaker government. The subsequent
1874 Federal Election were won by the Mackenzie Liberals. Macdonald was returned to power in
1878 on the strength of the
National Policy , a plan to promote trade within the country by protecting it from the industries of other nations and renewing the effort to complete the previously promised
Canadian Pacific Railway , which was accomplished in
1885 . That year, Louis Riel also returned to Canada and launched the
North-West Rebellion in the territory of
Saskatchewan , but now that there was a railway through the area the North-West Mounted Police were quickly sent to put it down. The trial and subsequent execution of Riel for
Treason caused a deep political division between French Canadians, who supported Riel (a culturally French
Métis ) and English Canadians, who supported Macdonald.
Macdonald stayed in office until his death in 1891. His career spanned 19 years, making Sir John A. Macdonald the second longest serving Prime Minister of Canada. He is the only Canadian Prime Minister to win six
Majority Government s. He died while still Prime Minister, winning praise for having helped forge a nation of sprawling geographic size, with two diverse European colonial origins, and a multiplicity of cultural backgrounds and political views. Grieving Canadians turned out in the thousands to pay their respects while he lay in state in the
Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and they lined the tracks to watch the train that returned his body to Kingston, Ontario where he was buried in the
Cataraqui Cemetery .
Macdonald was well known for his wit and also for his alcoholism. He is known to have been drunk for many of his debates in parliament. One famous story is that during an election debate Macdonald was so drunk he began vomiting violently on stage while his opponent was speaking. Picking himself up Macdonald told the crowd, "see how my opponent's ideas disgust me."
In another version of the story, he responded to his opponent's query of his drunkenness with "It goes to show that I would rather have a drunk Conservative than a sober Liberal.".
Sir John A. Macdonald is depicted on the
Canadian Ten-dollar Bill . He also has bridges, airports, and highways named after him (such as the
Macdonald-Cartier Freeway ), as well as a plethora of schools across the country.
Macdonald and his son,
Hugh John Macdonald briefly sat together in the
Canadian House Of Commons prior to the elder Macdonald's death. Hugh John later became
Premier of
Manitoba .
On
May 29 , 1891, Sir John A. suffered a severe stroke, which he would never recover from. He died on
June 6 , 1891 at the age of 76. He would
Lie In State in the
Canadian Senate Chamber (Prime Ministers now lie in state in the Hall of Honour in the
Centre Block ) and his
State Funeral was held on June 9, attended by hundreds of thousands of people. He is buried in Cataraqui Cemetery near
Kingston, Ontario .
In 2004, Sir John A. Macdonald was nominated as one of the top 10 "
Greatest Canadians " by viewers of the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation . He is considered by some Canadian political scientists to be the founder of the
Red Tory tradition.
