Union of the colonies was the first and most important step towards the attainment of a national existence. It was the essential foundation for everything else. But McGee did not overlook other and subsidiary policies necessary for the same end. That on which he had laid most emphasis was the development of a broad-minded national spirit which would sponge out from politics the influence of sectarian and sectional interests. Tolerance of the differences of race and creed must, he argued, be the corner stone of the Dominion. There was need of emphasizing this doctrine, for the parochialism of colonial government and the seclusion of colonial society tended to shut out the healthy air of large affairs, and develop a pettiness of mind and an intolerance of spirit. The differences between the French and the English--differences of race and creed--seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle to the emergence of a national community embracing them all. But McGee was not despondent over such differences. He believed that the task of the new nationality was to reconcile them through toleration. In 1865, in St. John, he declared that "the bilingual line which divides us socially is one of the difficulties of the government of the country. But though a difficulty it is by no means a serious danger, unless it were to be aggravated by a sense of injustice, inflicted either by the local French majority on the English minority, or by the English majority on the French minority. So long as we respect in Canada the rights of minorities, told either by tongue or creed, we are safe, for so long it will be possible for us to be united; but when we cease to respect those rights, we will be in the full tide towards that madness which the ancients considered the gods sent to those whom they wished to destroy."