The provincial governments had to be constituted; and in Ontario Macdonald scored again by persuading Sandfield Macdonald to form a coalition ministry in which party lines {151} were effaced and the policy of coalition was defended by an erstwhile Liberal leader. Sandfield Macdonald was a man of talent and integrity. His attitude of mind was rather that of an oppositionist, upon whom the functions of independent critic sat more easily than the compromises and discipline entailed by party leadership. He bore restraint with impatience, and if his affiliations had always been with the Liberals, it was not because his sympathies were radical and progressive.[3] In the Liberal caucus of 1864 he had moved the resolution requesting George Brown to enter the coalition government, without recognizing, apparently, that he thereby incurred an obligation himself to support federation. Both in the Ontario legislature, where he was loth to follow any course but his own, and in the Dominion parliament, where he ostentatiously {152} sat on an Opposition bench, he presented a shining example of that type of mind which lacks the capacity for unity and co-operation with others. He illustrated, too, one of the difficult features of Macdonald's problem--the absence of unity among the public men of the time--a condition which complicated, if it did not retard, the formation of a homogeneous national sentiment.[4] The general elections were impending, and everything turned upon the verdict of the country. The first elections for the House of Commons took place during the months of August and September, the practice of holding elections all on one day having not yet come into vogue. The three provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick sustained the government by large majorities. But in Nova Scotia the agitation against the union swept the province. Tupper was the only Conservative elected. His victory was the more notable in that he defeated William Annand, the chief lieutenant of Howe and afterwards the leader of the repeal movement. Adams Archibald, the secretary of state, was {153} defeated in Colchester by A. W. McLelan, and Henry, another member of the Quebec Conference, was rejected in Antigonish. In Ontario there were losses. George Brown was defeated in South Ontario by a few votes, and did not again sit in parliament until he was appointed to the Senate in 1874. In the early years of the Dominion a member might sit both in the House of Commons and in the legislature of his province. So it was that at this election Edward Blake was returned from South Bruce to the Ontario legislature and from West Durham to the House of Commons. Other members who occupied seats in both bodies were Sandfield Macdonald, John Carling, Alexander Mackenzie, and E. B. Wood. Cartier's success in Quebec left his opponents only fifteen seats out of sixty-five. The stars in their courses fought for the government;