Louis-Joseph Papineau

“ It is the municipality which makes the power and glory of the democracy in England and the United States, and despotism never triumphed on the European Continent till it had destroyed the municipality. The municipality is the political school of the people, it is the temple of their liberty, it is the citadel of their rights. Without the municipality, democracy can never be long maintained. ”

“ It is not surprising that the population of a Province, already burdened with so considerable an amount of debt, such as ours, should manifest the greatest emotion and anxiety when it sees a Parliament about expiring, about to restore its mandate to the people whose confidence it had forfeited, daring, in the name of that people which it no longer represents, to contract new pecuniary engagements by which their debt will be doubled, and leaving it as a fatal legacy to generations yet to come. ”

“ These men of precedents, who believe themselves statesmen, do not understand our social condition; and they throw it into convulsion and trouble by their essays at constitution and law making in direct opposition and contradiction to the manners, instincts and tendencies of our young and vigourous society, which is struggling to develop itself and to attain its maturity, whilst those political quacks are endeavoring to bind it in the awarddling cloths and tinsel of the tottering Monarchism of Europe. ”

“ In the situation which I had thus marked out of myself, I have been therefore surprised to receive an invitation on the part of more than five hundred electors, praying me to accept the candidature for the representation in Parliament of the City of Montreal. The links which enchain me — duty, love, and gratitude — to the free and independent electors of the finest, most enlightened, and most important of Canadian Cities, are strong and numerous, and they date from the period of my entrance on the Parliamentary career. ”

“ The people can just as well judge directly of the choice of its servants — Justices of the Peace, Officers of Militia, etc. as they can do it by the intervention of the Executive Council, whose patronage is a source of corruption, very extensive and dangerous, and an evil which threatens the independence of public opinion. ”

“ It is a fact that a very large portion of our citizens are thus disfranchised in our towns and cities — this ought not to be. It often happens also that the peaceable elector, who desires to perform one of the most valuable and holy rights of a citizen, that of declaring at the poll the candidate of his choice, cannot do so without being insulted, intimidated and assaulted by scoundrels hired and paid to violate the elector franchise by the candidates of the minority, desirous of being returned by brute force. ”

“ Municipal Corporations would also have within the limits of their attributions, numerous administrative and legislative local duties, which now embarrass an honest Executive, while they enable a dishonest Executive to interfere in a thousand ways in the affairs of localities, to barter their interests. ”

“ Every six months, throughout the vast extent of the United States, thousands of polling places are opened, and millions of electors resort to them, for the purpose of depositing the sealed ticket containing the names of the candidates of their choice, and never do we hear of riots, or mobs, or of any citizen being maltreated, with very rare exceptions at long intervals and that only in those districts of large sea-ports, inhabited by the most lawless and worthless of the community. ”

“ The establishment, on a firm and permanent basis, of a Municipal system perfectly organized, which shall not be subject to continual changes, and which, acceptable to the people and understood by them, would speedily become the most valued of their institutions, and the safeguard of all their liberties. ”

“ While all around us, colonies founded long after ours, and for a long time its inferiors in every respect, have since outstripped her, and become nations, and are now numbered among the first of Nations, those narrow-sighted men, with small heads and small hearts, tie their country stationary, in torpor and inaction. ”

“ Put the House of Assembly above the influence of corruption, and, on the other hand, render the Ministers really responsible to the House, by enacting a law forbidding the acceptance of any office under the Crown, by the representatives of the people, pending the exercise of their mandate, or for one year after its expiration, unless the appointment is ratified by re-election. ”

“ At present but one class seems to prosper — that of the high functionaries and the speculators who handle the public works and public treasure. He who does not advance, will fall back, in this age in which all proceeds so quickly ”

“ And those who, because they admire the remarkable stability of the English government, wish servilely to copy its laws — who admire for example the Legislative Council because they admire the House of Lords — simply show that they have eyes to read texts ”

“ They know that the Portland, Quebec and Richmond, Champlain, Lachine and Plattsburg, Western, Huron and Simcoe, Prescott and Bytown, and Bytown and Montreal railroads, will be profitable to their stockholders and an immense benefit to the settler, to the farmer, and to the merchant. ”

“ In giving privileges to the people, it, at the same time, removes the radical vice of our present system, in depriving the Executive Council of its patronage, and its consequent corrupt means of influencing its employés and public opinion. ”

“ We cannot too strongly insist upon its establishment, immediate and perpetual. The foundation of municipalities implies the decentralization of the Administrative, the Judicial and even the Legislative Power. ”

“ The want of this extension is above all things felt in our towns, where many honest artisans and heads of families, householders and respectable citizens, are deprived of their right of voting at elections, because they pay a few dollars less rent than their neighbors. ”

“ The friends of progress, are desirous of advancing the interest of the industry and commerce as well as ameliorating our political institutions, and as men truly practical, they rejoice to see the numerous railroad enterprises now commenced, and which will soon traverse our beautiful country in all directions ”