Page:Address of the Hon. L.J. Papineau to the electors of the West Ward of Montreal.djvu/17

 two-hundred and forty of the noble and grandest of the British names, convoking a general meeting of the clever souls in the Cattle Market. Whoever did not attend, is, by his absence alone, denounced as a fool and a rebel. The remaining ten personages are indignant at having been judged more incapable than the Doctor, and have opened negociations for the purpose of being re-admitted into the Canadian ranks, but the latter protest that they will not take them back until they shall have amply repaired the scandal they have committed. Raillery apart, there was a time when it was permitted to entertain an opinion different to that at present entertained by the country on the question of preserving or not preserving the present Constitution of the Legislative Council—its composition has always been cried down and detested. When it was uncertain what was the preponderating opinion, timid souls, through indolence friendly to whatever is, without examining what might be better—not following the march of public events, neither in time past nor during the present time—ignorant of the history of England of her Colonies—good-naturedly believing that we have the English Constitution, when we have it not, and that the idea of an Elective Legislative Council is a diabolical invention, sprung from the French Revolution, instead of being a wise imitation of the government of the most prosperous Colonies that England ever had—always blindly swearing on the word of the master, and who, because Neilson, or Stuart, the Settler, or the Ami du Peuple have lied in assuring them that such things were never seen in British possessions, think that they ought never be seen here, such had some excuse for holding by an opinion which they had expressed, but which they had never examined. But the result of the late elections leaves no refuge but to the egotistical passions of those who say:—We are so devoid of virtue, talents, and information that we can aspire to nothing with an Elective System; under the present system we are so encased in meanness and adulation that we can aspire to anything.

The people will have no more of the present system, which has been but an unfortunate experiment, accompanied by forty years' abuses and sufferings under a system different to that of any other English Colony. The people will have no more of it. It ought to be changed at their demand. A Constitution is made for men. Not men for a Constitution. Is it not as odious as it is absurd, to see all those Britons panting with ardour and speed to surpass each other to overthrow all our Civil Laws, centuries old, the alteration of which affects the persons and properties of all the members of the social system, and bitterly reproaching our slowness, because we will not introduce therein the rude changes which the People do not demand; and yet, flying into a rage when in the name of an unanimous people, we demand an amendment in a part of the Act of Parliament; an alteration which would temporarily affect, with a stupid regret, the vanity of only a score of mischievous old men. When has been the era of contentment produced by this Constitution during forty years of sorrowful experience which it has imposed upon the country? Have not those who now defend it, with the most obstinate and foolish pride, the Neilsons and Stuarts (its only defenders worth naming,) passed the most brilliant part of their public career in fruitlessly attacking those corrupt men which it protected and the numberless abuses which it created. They are weary of fighting. Their personal enemies oppressed the Canadians. A cold, studiously calculated and philosophical love of justice made them for some time the friends of the oppressed Canadians. They expected to advance and to revenge themselves in serving the cause of justice. Theirs was all calculation. The heart did not enter therein. Hence proceed the tergiversation and natural desertions which we have witnessed.

The time is come when every Canadian must desert the odious cause of the Council, or frankly admit that he requires the intervention of an armed force, to stifle, in the blood of his compatriots, the opposition which they all feel in their heart and soul against the preservation of the Council. That is understood; and there is in the two Canadas an indissoluble union of the majority of the People for the purpose of destroying this nuisance. The noble title of, friends to the extension of the Elective principle, comprehends the majority of the European population, together with the whole of the Canadian people, almost without an exception. The extravagance of the declaimers who attribute to French antipathies the hatred which is manifested against the present system, in place of attributing it to its inherent vices, will, after the more extensive reforms which will be required by Upper Canada, have shortly to explain the same phenomenon that they see here, by other more foolish declamations. In that Province, as in England, the majority of the British are friends to freedom. In Lower Canada alone, a great number of them are friends of tyranny and domination, because they expect to exercise it against us, and that they shall always be the hammers and we always the anvils. How contemptible are those against whom we are struggling for so many years, and how unlike the British of the Metropolitan State, & of the other colonies. They have, however, allies still more despicable than themselves. These are especially the American Tories, they who had the happiness of seeing more than the people of any other country on earth, how well adapted is the spirit of Freedom to elevate and enlarge the mind of man, and to constitute the happiness of a state—they have cast off in crossing the line 45° all other sentiment but that of flattering Scotch pride in order to make money, their peculiar nature must be so base and cringing, that the sublime spectacle exhibited by their Government—at present the terror of Kings—the hope of the nations of Europe—is unable to make them love and respect the dignity of the Freeman.—Next are the Irish Tories—they who have seen at their own doors how destructive of all natural advantages is a Government oppressive, bigoted by religious intolerance, rapacious and cruel from fear, because it is unnatural, being a government of a minority to which detestable laws gave detestable ascendancy over the majority—they who have seen thousands upon thousands of robust, laborious men cultivating one of the richest soils of the world, inundating the neighbouring countries with the superabundance of the fruit of their labour, and yet