Page:Letter from L. J. Papineau and J. Neilson, Esqs., Addressed to His Majesty's Under Secretary of State on the Subject of the Proposed Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada.djvu/13

 the United States of America, divided in the same extent, into no less than seven states and territories, for the facility of the local legislation and government.

It is not, however, on account of the distance and difference of climate and seasons, that the proposed measure would be destructive of the rights and interests of the subjects in the Canadas. It is well known that the laws which regulate property and civil rights, the customs, manners, religion, and even prejudices prevailing in the two Provinces, are essentially different. The inhabitants of each are strongly attached to all these, and enjoy them under the most solemn guarantees on the part of Great Britain: their respective codes of law could hardly be amalgamated by the wisest, most unprejudiced and enlightened Legislator, without endangering the security of the property which has been acquired under them. Every new law, every amendment of the old, has reference to the existing laws; and would be met as they bore upon either with suspicion and prejudice even in the Legislature, and be decided upon by at least one part of the members, without sufficient knowledge. The members of the two Provinces would in the end probably be compelled to legislate separately, on nearly all matters relating to their respective Provinces. The government and interests of the two Provinces remaining separate, and the colonial