Louis-Joseph Papineau

“ But the mind, as the body, has its necessities. The duties of humanity are badly fulfilled, if the wants of the body only are supplied, without any aid being given to those of the mind. Oh! may those who make the mistake, of being indifferent to general instruction, give themselves the pleasure of a journey to the United States to see how much more at their ease the farmers are over there than over here - on how many bad lands they reap more than we do on our good ones - why their poor lands sell for then times as much as our rich ones. ”

“ The probabilities that our political friends are about to find themselves stronger in the next Parliament that they were, in numbers, at the last is so great, that I see them in power and at work. If they succeed in doing the good which you, they, and I wish for, their course will be the best. If they do not so succeed, we shall be altogether, people and representatives, constituents and nominees; there will be nothing to do but to organize the most vigorous opposition possible, withing the limits of the law. ”

“ I was neither more nor less at fault, neither more nor less deserving than a great number of my colleagues, but their kind indulgence having for a long time and often carried me to the most honorable position in the country, the chair by means of election on the country's elite, I was more than the others in display before the eyes of political friends and enemies. Individual enemies I have not had many, I believe, since voluntarily, I never harmed nor gave offense to any individual as such. ”

“ It is because some men, in all other respects, of great merit - the liberals of Upper Canada, with whom those of Lower Canada must act in concert, reduced to despair by the injustice of the Tory faction, and of the family compact, were deceived, and demanded the intervention of the English Parliament in favor of this fatal Union; imagining that they might obtain it on equitable conditions, and that united to the patriots of Lower Canada, they would assure to the united Province a just and liberal Government, such as the divided Provinces had never known. ”

“ They believe that the day is not come, when they ought to go back to 1836, and re-demand, from this day forth, the reforms, which we demanded them - I think that the day is come. By reason, only, of this diversity of opinion, I declare to you freely and sincerely my ideas. Not only do I not desire to enter public life, but I desire to remain out of it. ”

“ It is for those who cannot escape from the consequences which flow from their admissions to show that the new order of things is better than the old one - that the reforms which they have indicated were sincere and sufficient - that responsible Government such as has been practiced has not been a word thrown out at random, a vain theory nullified by the practice, and explanations of Lords Russell, Syndeham, and Metcalfe, that the Act of Union accompanied by this concession, has been given in order that popular influence should be efficiently respected by Governors. ”

“ A disciple of the school of Adam Smith from my earliest youth - and at all times the enemy of every political or commercial monopoly or privilege, I do not desire that any industry, or any class of citizens should be surcharged, for the profit of other classes and other industries. The imposts ought to be the minimum of that which it is necessary to receive from each citizen in proportion to his fortune and his expenditure, in order to provide for the just expenses of an economical and well managed government. ”

“ Since my return I have said, when sometimes I was proposed to resume my public life, that at my age, after my past services, after long and painful agitations and thirty years of work and anxieties, I believed I had a right to my retirement; that it was the turn of a younger generation to continue the endeavour that we had started; that the homeland has at all times the right to the services of her children, but that she should be equalizing the burden ”

“ I have spoken of constitutional reforms with more of detail and ardour than of material improvements, because they are of a higher order - because it is necessary to have free institutions, well calculated to protect the property of each individual, in order to make all love that labor which renders nations more moral and more rich, and gives them the means of multiplying their material improvements, as is proved by their prodigiously rapid development amongst our active and industrious neighbors - lastly because others do not speak to you enough about them ”

“ There could be nothing more consoling to the patriot, after a forced absence of eight years, away from the country of his birth, than to find himself the object, on the day of his return, of a benevolence so unalterable, a confidence so unaltered, as that of which my compatriots honor me and of which spontaneously you give me a proof as striking as that which result from the demand you formulated, on the part of the county of St. Maurice, to request that I should represent it in the next Parliament. ”

“ The noble writer, partial to the aristocracy which had showered upon him wealth and honors, hostile and prejudiced against the wise institutions of the United States, the most perfect with which, up to this time, humanity has been gifted, says here with more authority than any colonist had ever done, that the government attacked did not deserve to be defended. ”

“ In your county then, as well as in all others throughout the country, it will be proper to support those candidates who are known to you, as having allied themselves to the Ministry, who strove with energy against the Governor Metcalfe, and against his unconstitutional practice of attempting to govern, by other advisers than those which the country gave him: It will be proper that you should force the same men back into power. If Responsible Government be a reality, the time is come when it may do more good than I hope from it, I who only regard it as a mockery. ”

“ Sometimes, perhaps, in matters of small importance they may be deceived, since they are men; but they will doubtless be deceived less often than the other authorities who are also men - men much more interested in withdrawing themselves from the supervision and control of public opinion, than are the trustees who depend entirely upon public opinion and popular election. It is, then, a duty alike of prudence and gratitude, to rally in all eases, round the majority of the representatives. ”

“ The more you pay schoolmasters, the less you pay policemen and soldiers; and in the civil service of the state you will have more enlightened functionaries, at less cost, in proportion to the increased number whom education shall qualify. Competition will reduce salaries. Cheap Government can only be had where there are plenty of good schoolmasters. There is no money better distributed as that thus usefully spent to avoid useless expenses.
You do not doubt that a rich man who sees a poor one suffering from hunger, is obliged to give him the nourishment which may allay his sufferings. ”

“ We, in the name of our past trials - as men who have abandoned none of our convictions - who abjure none of our former opinions - who believe you to be as unchanged as ourselves - we beg of you to consent to represent us. ”

“ On occasions of conflict there is much stronger probability of their being right, than that a Governor brought up in a different state of Society from our own, should be so. This reasonable presumption, that with respect to us, they are in error when they are at strife with our representatives, has become stronger since they came willingly upon a mission so unjust, as that of working a system, so inequitable in its principles and details as is the Act of Union. ”

“ We must conquer by one refusal, two refusals, until those at a distance shall blush for refusing justice to us so long. Bodies are only respected inasmuch as they are consistent and persevering. A people, or its representatives, cannot be too calm, or too cautious in their deliberations, nor too inflexible in their determinations. ”

“ But no animosity is more virulent, especially among men who have more stomach than head, than that which results from political divergence, and I had walked to the polar opposite of the station in where most Tories take their root. ”

“ To establish the permanency of judges, without by the same act creating a tribunal competent to punish them in proved cases of misconduct, is to deprive the country of the last feeble, insufficient protection left to it by the right of the Executive to displace them when the excess of their wrongs shall have been sufficiently established by the representatives! ”

“ From thence comes the warning, that we ought always to dread and never to demand the interference of the metropolis. The history of the thirteen revolved colonies afforded them, the clearest monitions on the danger of their conduct. - Nevertheless these persons, only, (never the Tories) will be able and desirous of aiding us to put an end to our common miseries, when they shall have become aware of the deception practiced against them. They believed in good faith that Responsible Government would afford all the advantages which we sought to attain by the demand of two elective Houses. ”

“ The repeal of the Act of Union must be demanded because it is the wish of the people, declared in their petitions of 1822 and 1836 - because, apart from the injustice of its provisions, its principle is stupidly vicious in placing under Legislature a territory so vast, that it cannot be sufficiently well known for the representatives to decide advisedly as to the relative importance of local improvements demanded on all hands, and the contradictory allegations of the people on a great variety of measures. ”

“ It can only be for the purposes of intrigue and corruption that so striking a disproportion is preserved, between the representation, as that which exists between the localities, which differ in population as one hundred to one, yet who each elect a representative for the national council. ”

“ That these advantages, and many others which are indispensable to the well-being of society - such as the independence of Sheriffs to assure that of juries - have not been more easily obtained after than before the Union and the pretended concession of Responsible Government, causes me no surprise, and I reproach no one on that account. England does not yet wish to give them to us, and the country is garrisoned so that it cannot take them. ”

“ Do not conclude from the nature and length of this communication, that I regard nothing but political reforms and organic changes, in our faulty constitution - that I am indifferent to the material amelioration of the country, to the multiplication of canals, bridges, railroads, lighthouses and wharves. Every individual who invests capital in works of this kind, merits well of society, and ought to obtain easily from the legislature the laws necessary for the execution of their laudable enterprises ”

“ In the advanced state of modern civilization the priest, the judge, and the schoolmaster, are the functionaries, who contribute the best, the most and at the least expense, to the maintenance of order in society, which day by day, in proportion as instruction is extended, is more easy to be governed by reason, more difficult to be governed by brutal and armed force. ”

“ But what is just to honest and enlightened minds does not always appear so to narrow and egotistical minds; and it is too often found that men of inferior capacity, passionate and presumptuous, will pass laws for the sections of the United Province of which they know neither the anterior jurisprudence, nor the social condition, nor the actual wants. ”

“ It is permitted to no one who knows how to appreciate the character of a people as virtuous and as suffering, to not yield to their demands, if we only have personal considerations to present them. Therefore it is not on my love of repose that I rely upon to tell the electors of these two great counties that I wish not to enter Parliament. ”

“ Every division among liberals of whatever shade, ought to be studiously avoided, and it is on this account that I must hesitate to yield myself to your spontaneous invitation for my return to public life. ”

“ The official documents placed before the eyes, and loading the tables of Parliament, established that in Lower Canada the proportion of those opposed to that scheme was in nine to one. The Act was nevertheless imposed upon us by coercion. Such a flagrant contempt for the known and expressed feelings of the people is overturning the first principle of all political morality. It declares as null and contemptible the words "rights of colonies" in the days of their weakness. ”

“ Useful enterprizes which exceed the means of individuals, ought often to be encouraged by the state; but then with knowledge and conscience - integrity and science giving beforehand correct estimates of the nature and value of the works to be undertaken, in order that those which are most necessary should, have the preference. Every absorption of capital in a foolish enterprize represses those which are useful. ”

“ The old societies of Europe, harrassed by political monopolies in favour of a small number of privileged persons, surrounded by large numbers of parasites, have, no doubts, prejudices, have, perhaps, necessities for absolute or strong aristocratic governments. ”