British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government, 1839-1854

The study traces how early Victorian Canada negotiated the tension between imperial authority and growing colonial self-government, using official correspondence and provincial pamphlets to reconstruct political debate. It analyzes the social forces that shaped a distinctive Canadian community—education, religion, and partisan life—and profiles successive governors-general whose decisions affected the balance between London and local opinion. The author argues that British ministers often misunderstood colonial temper, that popular loyalty coexisted with demands for autonomy, and that racial and moral solidarities, more than constitutional formulas, underpinned evolving relations and the practical consequences of increased self-government.