I think [he declared] the whole affair would fail and the system be a failure if we adopted Mr Chandler's views. We should concentrate the power in the federal government and not adopt the decentralization of the United States. Mr Chandler would give sovereign power to the local legislatures, just where the United States failed. Canada would be infinitely stronger as she is than under such a system {68} as proposed by Mr Chandler. It is said that the tariff is one of the causes of difficulty in the United States. So it would be with us. Looking at the agricultural interests of Upper Canada, manufacturing of Lower Canada, and maritime interests of the lower provinces, in respect to a tariff, a federal government would be a mediator. No general feeling of patriotism exists in the United States. In occasions of difficulty each man sticks to his individual state. Mr Stephens, the present vice-president [of the Confederacy], was a strong union man, yet, when the time came, he went with his state. Similarly we should stick to our province and not be British Americans. It would be introducing a source of radical weakness. It would ruin us in the eyes of the civilized world. All writers point out the errors of the United States. All the feelings prognosticated by Tocqueville are shown to be fulfilled. These and other arguments prevailed. Several of the most influential delegates were in theory in favour of legislative union, and these were anxious to create, as the best alternative, a general parliament wielding {69} paramount authority. This object was attained by means of three important clauses in the new constitution: one enumerating the powers of the federal and provincial bodies respectively and assigning the undefined residue to the federal parliament; another conferring upon the federal ministry the right to dismiss for cause the lieutenant-governors; and another declaring that any provincial law might, within one year, be disallowed by the central body. Instead of a loosely knit federation, therefore, which might have fallen to pieces at the first serious strain, it was resolved to bring the central legislature into close contact at many points with the individual citizen, and thus raise the new state to the dignity of a nation.