CONCLUSION
McGee's position among the few outstanding fathers of Confederation
is secure. His work was not that of a constitutional architect
giving expression to political needs in the legal terms of a
constitution. Nor was he a party leader, subtly pulling together the
strings guiding political groups, and through the resulting
combination carrying measures beneficial to the community. In both
these fields Sir John Macdonald easily carries away most of the
honours. McGee's task was that of inspiration. His position was
that of a prophet and a guide. Creative statesmen fall into two
categories--those who inspire a people to establish new structures,
and those who build in under their influence the bricks and mortar of
the new creation. McGee, in the most plastic period of Canadian
history, belonged to the former class. Throughout the brief span of
his life in Canada, he had been the untiring advocate of union
amongst the colonies. He had championed it in the press and on
public platforms from Lake Huron to the Atlantic. In the
legislature, he had pushed it forward through the weary bickerings
over much smaller issues. He had made the colonists realize that to
them there was no subject of equal magnitude. This was the prime
question of their destiny.
Coming to the Canadas as a stranger, his mind was not cramped by
local patriotism nor handicapped by the shortness of vision
characteristic of many colonial leaders. He saw the common interests
of all the colonies to a degree that was difficult with men who had
matured within the confines of one, and who were content to worship
only at its shrine.
He had an additional advantage. He had been reared in an old
community with long traditions and in possession of that virile
community-consciousness which we call nationality. His mind had
developed in contact with a group of young brilliant men who sought
to revivify the life of their nation, and who went to its traditions
for inspiration. McGee never lost the effect of such experiences and
aspirations. The vision of giving new vitality to a nation and
setting it on the path of fresh development continued to stir his
imagination. When he came to Canada, he did not find an old
community, as in Ireland, in need of inspiration for fresh
accomplishments; he found all the elements necessary for the building
of a new northern nation, and the prospect of assisting its creation
was the spur of his Canadian career.
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."
It is always difficult to determine accurately the influence of a
political educator. There is no exception in the case of McGee. But
there is not the slightest doubt that his effect on the colonial mind
was very considerable. While he was expounding throughout the
country his great cause, a number of young and able men were growing
to maturity who later bore eloquent testimony to the penetrating
influence of his teaching. The prominent members of this group--H.
J. Morgan, Charles Mair, R. J. Haliburton, G. T. Denison, and W. A.
Foster--formed a few years after McGee's death the "Canada First"
party, dedicated to the task of advancing the cause of Canadian
nationality. In this brilliant party, McGee left disciples to
champion all that he had projected. In 1871, their ideas and visions
found expression in a lecture of W. A. Foster, entitled _Canada
First, or Our New Nationality_. Foster gave to McGee the premier
position among those instrumental in arousing a Canadian national
idealism. He paid the warm homage of himself and his associates in a
passage remarkable alike for its passionate eloquence and for its
unstinted admiration of the man who inspired it:
There is a name I would fain approach with befitting reverence,
for it casts athwart memory the shadow of all those qualities
that man admires in man. It tells of one in whom the generous
enthusiasm of youth was but hallowed by the experiences of
cultured manhood; of one who lavished the warm love of an Irish
heart on the land of his birth, yet gave a loyal and true
affection to the land of his adoption; who strove with all the
power of genius to convert the stagnant pool of politics into a
stream of living water; who dared to be national in the face of
provincial selfishness, and impartially liberal in the teeth of
sectarian strife; who from Halifax to Sandwich sowed broadcast
the seeds of a higher national life, and with persuasive
eloquence drew us closer together as a people, pointing out to
each what was good in the other, wreathing our sympathies and
blending our hopes; yes! one who breathed into our new Dominion
the spirit of a proud self-reliance, and first taught Canadians
to respect themselves. Was it a wonder that a cry of agony rang
throughout the land when murder, foul and most unnatural, drank
the life-blood of Thomas D'Arcy McGee?
The memory and influence of McGee lived not merely in the counsels of
the "Canada First" party, but in the efforts of Canadian statesmen in
succeeding years to make Canada strong within herself. Even when
leaders appeared who may have forgotten his name and had not heard in
the legislature or on the public platform his silver speech, their
work for the completion of Canadian autonomy was but a fulfilment of
what he had advocated. Canada as a self-governing nation, linked
fraternally to Britain and other parts of the Empire, was McGee's
goal for the Canadian people. Since Confederation they have been
steadily advancing towards it, and thus paying homage to the strength
and vision of McGee's ideals.
McGee has importance in Canadian history for other reasons than his
statesmanship. He holds no mean place in Canadian literature.
Historical myth puts into the mouth of Wolfe the remark that he would
sooner have written Gray's "Elegy" than take Quebec. The poet may be
greater than the soldier, and similarly the literary artist may be
placed above the statesman; yet statecraft has drawn fervid minds
from poetry to political action. It drew McGee. While, in
temperament and aspiration, he was a man of letters, so resistless
was the attraction of politics that in it he expended most of his
energies. But any account of his life which would leave out of
consideration McGee as a _littérateur_ would be incomplete.
Something has already been said about his oratory. A native oratory
was one of the most distinctive elements in his equipment as he
started on the path to fame. Yet from the outset he used his pen
more frequently than his tongue. From his first arrival in America
to his death, he wrote continuously prose and poetry.
Most of this literary output found expression in the journals with
which he had been connected, but he left to his name a goodly number
of volumes dealing with historical and biographical subjects. Of
these two have already been mentioned as contributing to the cause of
Canadian Confederation, _Notes on Federal Government Past and
Present_ and _Speeches on British American Union_. All the others
deal with Irish history and biography, which next to living political
causes engaged McGee's imagination. The most noted of these books
was his _Popular History of Ireland_, on which he had begun earnest
labour in 1858, but which exacting political activities had prevented
him from finishing till 1863. On many an evening within these years,
he would retire to his room from the battles of parliamentary debate
and, forgetful for the time being of Canadian problems, would trace
out the struggle of the Vikings for Ireland or some other dramatic
phase of Irish history.
Within his life-time no complete collection of his poems was made.
They appeared chiefly in the various newspapers on both sides of the
Atlantic to which he had contributed. The year after his death they
were collected and published by his friend Mrs. Sadlier. One little
volume he himself published in 1858, _Canadian Ballads and Occasional
Verses_. It was a worthy tribute to his interest in the history of
his newly adopted country, and was addressed to those who looked
forward to the development of the colonies into a great new northern
nation. The subject matter of his verses is varied. Many deal with
the affections; others are religious in sentiment; but the greater
number are patriotic and historical. They are concerned with the
saints and heroes of Ireland's story, from St. Patrick to Smith
O'Brien. They throb with the fervour of a patriot as they tell of
Innisfail, the Ireland of ancient times, and of how
Long, long ago, beyond the misty space
Of twice a thousand years,
In Erin old there dwelt a mighty race,
Taller than Roman spears;
Like oaks and towers, they had a giant grace,
Were fleet as deers,
With winds and wave they made their 'biding place,
These Western shepherd-seers.
McGee's imagination revelled in the traditions and myths of the
Celts. He expressed that brooding melancholy over the past which has
ever been the pervading sentiment of Irish poetry. He believed that
the Celtic race had a soul that was chastened by past misfortunes,
and yet was not without hope in the present. He invoked it in the
lines:
Soul of my race! Soul eternal!
That liveth through evil and time--
That twineth still laurels all vernal,
As if laurels could once more be thine!
Oh hear me, oh cheer me, be near me,
Oh guide me or chide me alway,
But do not fly from me or fear me--
I'm all clay when thou, Soul, art away.
McGee's poetry was shaped largely by the group of Young Ireland who
taught that verse might be used as a convenient means of drawing upon
Irish traditions for the purpose of arousing a national
consciousness. From its nature such poetry has limitations. It must
fail to win the universal appeal of verse with no national end to
serve. McGee was not limited in his allegiance to Ireland. His
_Canadian Ballads_ were inspired by incidents in Canadian history,
and were intended to show the fertility of Canadian annals in
subjects adaptable to verse. It was his belief that "of all the
forms of patriotism, a wise, public-spirited patriotism in literature
is not the least admirable. It is, indeed, glorious to die in battle
in defence of our homes or altars; but not less glorious is it to
live to celebrate the virtues of our heroic countrymen, to adorn the
history, or to preserve the traditions of our country".
As might be expected in the work of a man enmeshed in the ceaseless
activities of public life, to whom poetry was of necessity an
embroidery to other activities, his compositions are uneven. They
are always spontaneous, but frequently show a roughness that a
painstaking workmanship would have removed. Yet there are bursts of
genuine lyric quality that will receive the commendation of even the
critical. Of a simple beauty are the lines imitated from the Irish
and named _A Contrast_:
I.
Bebinn is straight as a poplar,
Queenly and comely to see,
But she seems so fit for a sceptre,
She never could give it to me.
Aine is lithe as a willow,
And her eye, whether tearful or gay,
So true to her thought, that in Aine
I find a new charm every day.
II.
Bebinn calmly and silently sails
Down life's stream like a snow-breasted swan;
She's so lonesomely grand, that she seems
To shrink from the presence of man.
Aine basks in the glad summer sun,
Like a young dove let loose in the air;
Sings, dances, and laughs--but for me
Her joy does not make her less fair.
III.
Oh! give me the nature that shows
Its emotions of mirth or of pain,
As the water that glides, and the corn that grows,
Show shadow and sunlight again.
Oh! give me the brow that can bend,
Oh! give me the eyes that can weep,
And give me a heart like Lough Neagh,
As full of emotions and deep.
To Gavan Duffy, the warmest of his friends among the Young Ireland
group, he wrote lines that expressed a yearning for an old
companionship amid old scenes:
Oh! for one week amid the emerald fields,
Where the Avoca sings the song of Moore;
Oh! for the odor the brown heather yields,
To glad the pilgrim's heart on Glenmalur!
Yet is there still what meeting could not give,
A joy most suited of all joys to last;
For, ever in fair memory there must live
The bright, unclouded picture of the past.
Old friend! the years wear on, and many cares
And many sorrows both of us have known;
Time for us both a quiet couch prepares--
A couch like Jacob's, pillow'd with a stone.
And oh! when thus we sleep may we behold
The angelic ladder of the Patriarch's dream;
And may my feet upon its rungs of gold
Yours follow, as of old, by hill and stream!
Of his Canadian ballads one of the best known is _The Arctic Indian's
Faith_:
I.
We worship the spirit that walks unseen
Through our land of ice and snow:
We know not His face, we know not His place,
But His presence and power we know.
II.
Does the Buffalo need the Pale-face word
To find his pathway far?
What guide has he to the hidden ford,
Or where the green pastures are?
Who teacheth the Moose that the hunter's gun
Is peering out of the shade--
Who teacheth the doe and the fawn to run
In the track the Moose has made?
III.
Him do we follow, Him do we fear--
The spirit of earth and sky;--
Who hears with the Wapiti's eager ear
His poor red children's cry.
Whose whisper we note in every breeze
That stirs the birch canoe--
Who hangs the reindeer moss on the trees
For the food of the Caribou.
IV.
That Spirit we worship who walks unseen
Through our land of ice and snow:
We know not His face, we know not His place,
But His presence and power we know.
McGee's power as an orator deserves special mention in this
concluding chapter. There are few orators whose speeches have
literary value. Supreme eloquence is rare and generally transitory.
It is inspired by the gravity of great events or dramatic situations.
When the vivid circumstances have passed, the printed sentences
divorced from the inspiring presence of the orator lose their former
magic influence. Thus, most great speeches come down in history as a
feeble echo of what they had been when delivered. Those of Edmund
Burke are an exception that prove the rule. McGee was an orator of
great power, and his orations, delivered without the use of notes,
live as literature. Something of the beauty of his expressions may
be gathered from the few quotations on preceding pages. But these
quotations do little to recall their thrilling effect when they were
delivered by McGee. Leading contemporaries agreed in giving him the
first position amongst the orators of Confederation, and the verdict
of contemporaries on such a subject must be accepted. Sir Charles
Tupper, on hearing the news of McGee's death, remarked that "the
grave has closed over the most eloquent man in Canada." The _Globe_,
in an editorial the day after his assassination, stated that "whether
his hearers sympathized or not with what he said, it was impossible
for anyone not to acknowledge that he was marvellously eloquent; that
his words were fitly chosen, and gave every intimation of masterly
power.... His wit--his power of sarcasm---his readiness in
reply--his aptness in quotation--his pathos which melted to tears,
and his broad humour which convulsed with laughter--were all
undoubtedly of a very high order. Among the orators of Canada,
either within or without the House, he has not, we believe, left his
equal, and even his opponents will miss the speeches in which he
developed his plans for promoting the greatness of Canada." This
judgment is all the more convincing in that the _Globe_ had been for
some years previous hostile to McGee.
Joseph Howe had won many laurels as an orator, yet the brilliant
French-Canadian writer, Hector Fabre, considered him inferior to
McGee. "Mr. Howe is well adapted to the tribune; he pleases, he
amuses, he charms; but a severer taste would say that his is far from
the brilliant eloquence, the irreproachable diction, the constantly
pure style, the breadth of views and the rectitude of ideas of Mr.
McGee. To my mind Mr. McGee is a nearly perfect orator, and one who
in many senses has no superior."
Of McGee's domestic and private life, little need be said. It was
happy in the highest degree. He was married in the period of his
association with Young Ireland, and his wife shared the subsequent
adventures of his chequered career, and survived his tragic death.
His home presented to all who entered it a charming circle. McGee,
with his family, was like a joyous boy. He would often be found
romping on the floor with his baby daughter. Of his children only
two daughters survived, one of whom took the veil. A genial,
convivial nature and an ever sparkling humour won him friends in
every part of Canada. One of the many tokens of esteem on the part
of his townsfolk in Montreal was the present of a handsome furnished
house in one of the best districts of the city. Although an Irishman
and a very devout Catholic, he gained the warm homage of the Scotch
Presbyterian population in Lower Canada, a homage deeper than that
bestowed by the Scotch on any of their own countrymen. At the old
Irish and Scottish festival of Hallowe'en he had been an ever welcome
speaker in the St. Andrew's Society. It is interesting to note that
on the Hallowe'en after his death, thirty-seven of the forty-six
poems competing for prizes contained some allusion to him, and one
lamented his absence in Scotland's old dialect:
Ah! wad that he were here the nicht,
Whase tongue was like a faerie lute!
But vain the wish: McGee! thy might
Lies low in death--thy voice is mute.
He's gane, the noblest o' us a'--
Aboon a' care o' worldly fame;
An' wha sae proud as he to ca'
Our Canada his hame?
The gentle maple weeps an' waves
Aboon our patriot-statesman's heed;
But if we prize the licht he gave,
We'll bury feuds of race and creed.
For this he wrocht, for this he died;
An' for the luve we bear his name,
Let's live as brithers, side by side,
In Canada, our hame.
These simple Scotch verses strike the most memorable fact respecting
McGee. His name should live in Canadian History as a statesman,
orator, and poet. But he should be remembered for an additional
reason. The Dominion, for which he laboured, grew, as he prophesied
that it would grow, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and its
scattered provinces, flattened out over a vast territory, are bound
together by the steel lines of trans-continental railways. Yet such
material bases of union must fail to hold together the different
sects and races inhabiting the Dominion, unless Canadians cherish
what McGee passionately advanced, the spirit of toleration and
goodwill as the best expression of Canadian nationality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
No adequate biography of Thomas D'Arcy McGee has hitherto been
written. Consequently the student of his life must depend upon
sundry sources of information. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's books,
_Young Ireland _(New York, 1881), _Four Years of Irish History_
(London, 1883), and _My Life in Two Hemispheres_ (London, 1898)
contain material on McGee's adventures as a Young Irelander.
For the study of his Canadian career, his own _Speeches and
Addresses, chiefly on the Subject of British-American Union_ (London,
1865) is of prime interest. This volume comprises his leading
speeches on the subject of Confederation, but many more of his
addresses must be sought for in the columns of Canadian newspapers,
particularly in the _Montreal Gazette_. The _Canadian Freeman_,
published in Toronto from 1858 to 1869, was a Catholic paper which
gave special place to McGee's views. Of course, the _New Era_ is
also of interest. In the _British American Magazine_ for August and
October, 1863, McGee wrote articles on British American nationality.
A few of his remarks in parliament on the same subject may be found
in Thompson's _Mirror of Parliament_ for 1860. Much interesting
material will be found in the _Memoirs of Ralph Vansittart_ (Toronto,
1924) by Edward Robert Cameron, a personal friend of McGee. W. A.
Foster, _Canada First_ (Toronto, 1890; with intr. by Goldwin Smith)
is worth consulting for a contemporary opinion on McGee's influence
over the younger generation of Canadians. George W. Ross, _Getting
into Parliament and After_ (Toronto, 1913) has a good, if brief,
description of McGee as an orator. Joseph Pope, _The Memoirs of the
Right Hon. Sir John A. Macdonald_ (Ottawa, 1894) contains some
information of interest. The _Macdonald Papers_ in the Dominion
Archives, have a fund of material on the movement of Confederation,
with which McGee was so intimately connected. Sir Charles Tupper,
_Recollections of Sixty Years_ (London, 1914) has a few notes of
interest.
The following brief sketches and studies may be mentioned: Fennings
Taylor, _Thomas D'Arcy McGee: Sketch of His Life and Death_
(Montreal, 1868). Henry J. O'C. Clarke, _A Short Sketch of the Life
of Thomas D'Arcy McGee_ (Montreal, 1868). N. F. Davin, _The Irishman
in Canada_ (Toronto, 1877), devotes a few pages to McGee. Charles
Dent, _Canadian Portrait Gallery_, (Toronto, 1881), volume III, has a
sketch of McGee's life. Robert McGibbon, _Thomas D'Arcy McGee: An
Address Before the St. Patrick's Society of Sherbrooke_ (Montreal
1884). J. K. Foran, _Thomas D'Arcy McGee as an Empire Builder_
(Ottawa, 1906), an address before the Empire Club of Toronto. H. O.
Hammond, _Confederation and Its Leaders_ (Toronto, 1917), contains a
brief chapter on McGee. W. S. Wallace, _Growth of Canadian National
Feeling_ (Canadian Historical Review, June, 1920), discusses McGee's
part in the creation of a Canadian national sentiment. D. C. Harvey,
_Thomas D'Arcy McGee, the Prophet of Canadian Nationality_
(University of Manitoba, 1923) describes McGee as a Canadian
nationalist and quotes from his speeches.
McGee's collected poems were edited and published by Mrs. Sadlier
(New York, 1869). Mrs. Sadlier's introduction contains some valuable
information concerning McGee's life.
The following is a list of the more important of McGee's other books:
_O'Connell and His Friends_ (Boston, 1845); _Historical Sketches of
Irish Settlers in America_ (Boston, 1855); _Catholic History of North
America_ (Boston, 1855); _Life of Bishop Maginn_ (New York, 1857);
_Canadian Ballads and Occasional Verses_ (Toronto, 1858); _The Irish
Writers of the 17th Century_ (Dublin, 1863); _Popular History of
Ireland_ (New York, 1863); and _Notes on Federal Governments Past and
Present_ (Montreal, 1865).