It was the directest possible challenge to Sydenham's system. Baldwin's claim was that, once the representatives of the people had made known the people's will, it was the duty of the ministry to reflect that will in their programme and actions, or to resign. As for the governor-general, he must obviously adjust whatever theories he might have, to a situation where colonial ministers were content to hold office only where they had the confidence of the people. The action of the governor-general was {115} characteristically summary. His answer to Baldwin reproved him for a "proposal in the highest degree unconstitutional, as dictating to the crown who are the particular individuals whom it should include in the ministry"; intimated the extreme displeasure of his Excellency, and assumed the letter to be equivalent to resignation.[52] To the home government he spoke of the episode with anger and some contempt: "Acting upon some principle of conduct which I can reconcile neither with honour nor common sense, he strove to bring about this union (between Upper and Lower Canadian reformers), and at last, having as he thought effected it, coolly proposed to me, on the day before Parliament was to meet, to break up the Government altogether, dismiss several of his colleagues, and replace them by men whom I believe he had not known for 24 hours--but who are most of them thoroughly well known in Lower Canada as the principal opponents of any measure for the improvement of the province."[53] The crisis once passed, Sydenham hoped, and not without justification, that Baldwin would carry few supporters over to the opposition, and {116} that the Assembly would settle quietly down to enact the measures so bountifully set out in the opening speech. The first day of Assembly saw the party of responsible government make a smothered effort to state their views in the debate on the election of a speaker. On June 18th, an elaborate debate, nominally on the address, really on the fundamental point, found the attorney-general stating the case for the government, and Baldwin and Hincks pushing the logic of responsible government to its natural conclusion. Baldwin once more grappled with the problem of the responsibility of the members of council, and the advice they should offer to the governor-general. He admitted freely that unless the representative of the sovereign should acquiesce in the measures so recommended, there would be no means by which that advice could be made practically useful; but this consideration did not for a moment relieve a member of the council from the fulfilment of an imperative duty. If his advice were accepted, well and good; if not, his course would be to tender his resignation.[54] {117}