Narrative of the Fenian invasion of CanadaSomerville, Alexander
History
Narrative of the Fenian invasion of Canada
Somerville, Alexander
Canada -- History -- Fenian Invasions, 1866-1870
But this is not all the denial. It is not true that any inhabitants
of Canada, political or non-political, sympathizers with the national
integrity and lawful authority of the United States or with the
rebellion of the slave-owners, were parties to Confederate warfare
based in Canada against the Federal States. The Canadian government
and people at much cost and inconvenience in 1864 and 1865, posted
forces of Militia Volunteers along the frontier to prevent American
rebel refugees, resident in Canada, from making raids across the
boundary line.
I might be more explicit and elaborate on this matter, which so
intimately affects the two great nationalities who in common speak
the English language in North America, but for the present refer to
a book entitled “CANADA A BATTLE GROUND, by Alexander Somerville”
(present writer) published early in 1862. In that publication the
sympathy of Canadians, for the lawful government of the United
States was asserted, and the estrangement which painfully occurred,
foreshadowed. Mr. Seward, in reference to Canada being annexed to the
States, writing in 1856, before he was Secretary of State had said
“All Southern stars must set though many times they rise again with
diminished lustre. But those which illuminate the pole remain for
ever shining, for ever increasing in splendour.” To which the author
of “Canada a Battle Ground” rejoined in 1862, page 24.
“Remark. It is belief in that bright destiny of Northern free
nations which binds Britain, Canada, and other Colonies together.
They will not separate. For Britain to willfully pluck her Empire
in pieces to set up new nations in conformity to some theory of
magnanimity, is an offence to the simplest principles of political
philosophy. Were Canada to demand separation, and obtain it; or
were she cut adrift, the inevitable fate of absorption, by her
more powerful neighbour, and extinction of political existence,
would follow. The integrity and perennial vigour of the British
empire should be the lofty political faith of all Conservatives and
rational Reformers whether at home or in the colonies. And they who
desire the permanence of British stability, or deserve the personal
safety and freedom guaranteed by imperial laws, and by institutions
at once venerable, and youthfully elastic in their adaptability to
new circumstances, must by a logical necessity—if they hold any
settled conservative principle—cherish a sympathy for other free
nations, and hold in abhorrence a rebellious appeal to arms to
overturn constitutional government.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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