The Struggle for Imperial Unity: Recollections & ExperiencesDenison, George T. (George Taylor)
History
The Struggle for Imperial Unity: Recollections & Experiences
Denison, George T. (George Taylor)
Canada -- History -- 1867-1914
The strongest national sentiment that has yet been exhibited in the
States was shown by the Southern people in their gallant struggle to
destroy the Union. The national spirit shown by the Northerners where
the bounties rose to about $1,800 a man, where patriotism consisted
in hiring a man to go and fight while the citizen took a contract to
supply the soldiers, as has been well said by their celebrated divine,
Dr. Talmage, "With rice that was worm-eaten, with biscuits that were
mouldy, with garments that were shoddy, with meat that was rank, with
horses that stumbled in the charge, and with tents that sifted the
rain into the faces of the exhausted." The patriotism shown by three
thousand Yankee Militia almost in sight of this spot in 1812, when
they refused to cross at Queenston to aid their comrades, whom our
volunteers shortly afterwards cut to pieces under their eyes, was very
different from the patriotism of the Canadians who crossed the river
and captured Detroit, or those who fought at Chrysler's Farm, or those
who drove back Hampton at Chateauguay.
Can we call to mind the Canadians who came back to Canada from every
State in the Union to aid in defending her from the Fenians without
feeling that we have in our people a strong national sentiment?
Wanderers and Bohemians, strangers and tramps may, because we are
not traitors to our Government and our country, say that we have
no national sentiment; they may not see or feel or appreciate the
patriotic feeling of the Canadians, but we Canadians know that it is
there. The Militia force is one proof of it, a finger-post to point
out to all, that we intend to be a free people on this continent,
and that, our liberties can only be taken from us after a desperate
struggle.
These wanderers and Bohemians, with the charming impudence of the
three tailors of Tooley Street, speak of themselves as the people of
Canada. It is the fashion of men of their type always to talk loudly
of the people, as if they were the people. But who are the people?
The people of this country are the farmers who own the soil, who have
cleared the fields, who till them, and who produce the food that feeds
us. The people of Canada are the workers who work in her factories,
who carry on her trade, who sail her ships and spread her commerce,
the citizens who build her cities and work in them. These are the
people of Canada, not the few agitators who serve no good purpose, and
whose absence would be a relief if they went back to the neighbouring
Republic from which many of them have drifted in to us.
The result of these demonstrations so directly appealing to the
sentiments and feelings of the loyal element, which formed the vast
majority of the people, discouraged the disloyal element, and for a
year matters were rather quiet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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