Dorion denied that the difficulty about representation was the source of the movement for confederation. He contended that the agitation for representation by population had died out, and that the real authors of confederation were the owners of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, who stood to gain by the construction of the Intercolonial. "The Tache-Macdonald government were defeated because the House condemned them for taking without authority one hundred thousand dollars out of the public chest for the Grand Trunk Railway, at a time when there had not been a party vote on representation by population for one or two sessions." He declared that Macdonald had, in Brown's committee of 1864, voted against confederation, and that he and his colleagues adopted the scheme simply to enable them to remain in office. Dorion also criticized adversely the change in the constitution of the Upper Chamber, from the elective to the nominative system. The Conservative instincts of Macdonald and Cartier, he said, led them to strengthen the power of the Crown at the expense of the people, and this constitution was a specimen of their handiwork. "With a governor-general appointed by the Crown; with local governors also appointed by the Crown; with legislative councils in the general legislature, and in all the provinces, nominated by the Crown, we shall have the most illiberal constitution ever heard of in any government where constitutional government prevails." He objected to the power vested in the governor-general-in-council to veto the acts of local legislatures. His expectation was that a minority in the local legislature might appeal to their party friends at Ottawa to veto laws which they disliked, and that thus there would be constant interference, agitation and strife between the central and the local authorities. He suspected that the intention was ultimately to change the federal union to a legislative union. The scheme of confederation was being carried without submission to the people. What would prevent the change from a federal to a legislative union from being accomplished in a similar way? To this the people of Lower Canada would not submit. "A million of inhabitants may seem a small affair to the mind of a philosopher who sits down to write out a constitution. He may think it would be better that there should be but one religion, one language and one system of laws; and he goes to work to frame institutions that will bring all to that desirable state; but I can tell the honourable gentleman that the history of every country goes to show that not even by the power of the sword can such changes be accomplished."