The constitution which the founders of the Dominion devised was the first of its kind on a great scale within the Empire. No English precedents therefore existed. Yet their chief aim was to preserve the connection with Great Britain, and to perpetuate in North America the institutions and principles which the mother of parliaments, during her splendid history, had bequeathed to the world. The Fathers could look to Switzerland, to New Zealand, to the American Republic, and to those experiments and proposals in ancient or modern times which seemed to present features to imitate or examples to avoid.[1] But they were guided, perforce, by the special conditions with which they had to deal. If they had been free to make a perfect contribution to the science of government, the constitution might have been {66} different. It is, of course, true of all existing federations that they were determined largely by the relations and circumstances of the combining states. This is illustrated by comparing the Canadian constitution with those of the two most notable unions which followed. Unlike Canada, Australia preferred to leave the residue of powers to the individual states, while South Africa adopted a legislative instead of a federal union. For Canada, a legislative union was impracticable. This was due partly to the racial solidarity of the French, but even more largely to the fully developed individualism of each province. It is to the glory of the Fathers of Confederation that the constitution, mainly constructed by themselves as the product of their own experience and reflection, has lasted without substantial change for nearly half a century. They were forced to deal with conditions which they had not created, yet could not ignore--conditions which had long perplexed both Imperial and colonial statesmen, and had rendered government ineffective if not impossible. They found the remedy; and the result is seen in the powerful and thriving nationality which their labours evolved. To set up a strong central government was {67} the desire of many of the delegates. Macdonald, as has been recorded already, had contended for this in 1861. He argued to the same effect at the conference. The Civil War in the United States, just concluded, had revealed in startling fashion the dangers arising from an exaggerated state sovereignty. 'We must,' he said, 'reverse this process by strengthening the general government and conferring on the provincial bodies only such powers as may be required for local purposes.' When Chandler of New Brunswick perceived with acuteness that in effect this would mean legislative union, Macdonald, as we gather from the fragmentary notes of his speech, made an impassioned appeal for a carefully defined central authority.