Co-Premier of Province of Canada
Robert Baldwin (May 12, 1804 – December 9, 1858) was an Upper Canadian lawyer and politician who with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine of Lower Canada, led the first responsible government ministry in the Province of Canada. "Responsible Government" marked the province's democratic self-government, without a revolution, although not without violence. This achievement also included the introduction of municipal government, the introduction of a modern legal system, reforms to the jury system in Upper Canada, and the abolition of imprisonment for debt. Baldwin is also noted for feuding with the Orange Order and other fraternal societies. The Lafontaine-Baldwin government enacted the Rebellion Losses Bill to compensate Lower Canadians for damages suffered during the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838. The passage of the Bill outraged Anglo-Canadian Tories in Montreal, resulting in the burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal in 1849.
Family.
Robert Baldwin's grandfather, also Robert Baldwin ("Robert the Emigrant") moved to Upper Canada from Ireland in 1799. His father was William Warren Baldwin (April 25, 1775 – January 8, 1844).
The Baldwin family was a prominent one. Robert Baldwin counted among his cousins such influential Upper Canadians as the Anglican bishop Maurice Scollard Baldwin, Toronto mayor Robert Baldwin Sullivan and the Irish-Catholic leader Connell James Baldwin. The Russell-Willcocks-Baldwin family formed an elite "compact" much like the infamous "Family Compact" led by Sir John Robinson against whom they fought.
In 1827, Baldwin, married his cousin Augusta Elizabeth Sullivan, daughter of Daniel Sullivan. The couple had four children, two sons and two daughters. The marriage ended with Augusta Elizabeth's death in 1836. Robert Baldwin died twenty-two years later, in 1858.
Robert Baldwin was the grandfather of Frederick Walker Baldwin, a Canadian aviation pioneer and partner of the famous inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Robert Baldwin was also the grandfather of Robert Baldwin Ross, a French-born journalist, art critic, and literary executor of Oscar Wilde.
Political principles.
First Principles.
Baldwin's political principles must be viewed in the context of the eighteenth-century British “Country Party,” a loose coalition of Parliamentarians whose influence was also felt in the American Revolution and subsequent Jacksonian politics. The Country party embodied a civic humanism that drew on ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of citizenship, and the value of selfless political participation for the public good; those selfish few who placed their private interests before the public good threatened the moral commitment of all citizens to political participation. The civic humanism of the Country party rejected the commercial ideology of the royal "Court” party. The Country party had a republican emphasis that sought to preserve the power of a democratic parliament from the encroachments of the crown during the vast expansion of state administration, public credit, and the financial and commercial revolutions in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth centuries. It was similar to American conceptions of “civic republicanism” as they developed after the revolution among Jacksonian Democrats, as well as in the Chartist movement in Britain in the late 1830s.
Responsible Government.
The concept of "responsible government" has been attributed to Dr. William W. Baldwin and his son, Robert. Although the idea of colonial ministerial responsibility to a colonial parliament had been touted since the late 18th century, the Baldwins were among the first to successfully implement the principle. The meaning of the phrase evolved. In an 1828 Upper Canadian petition to the British Parliament on colonial ills, it was an assertion that the Constitutional Act was a treaty between the British Parliament and the colonial peoples, and could not be arbitrarily altered by one or the other party. In 1836, when Baldwin convinced the members of the Executive Council to resign over Lt. Governor Bond-Head's refusal to consult them on administrative appointments, it did not mean ministerial accountability to the elected Assembly (Executive Councillors were not ministers) but the Crown's obligation to consult that Council. The slipperiness of the phrase points to its real goal, 'sovereignty by stealth,' without rebellion. It was not until after the Rebellions of 1837, and the implementation of Lord Durham's Report, that the Executive Council became a cabinet of ministers that were heads of departments, and the phrase "responsible government" came to mean their responsibility to the elected Assembly, not the appointed Governor.
Municipal government.
Municipal government in Upper Canada was under the control of appointed magistrates who sat in Courts of Quarter Sessions to administer the law within a District. A few cities, such as Toronto, were incorporated by special acts of the legislature. After the Union of the Canadas, the new governor, Charles Poulett Thomson, 1st Baron Sydenham, spearheaded the passage of the District Councils Act which transferred the municipal government to District Councils. His bill allowed for two elected councilors from each township, but the warden, clerk, and treasurer were to be appointed by the government. This thus allowed for strong administrative control and continued government patronage appointments. Sydenham's bill reflected his larger concerns to limit popular participation under the tutelage of a strong executive. Baldwin was one of the few Reformers who opposed the District Council Act; he considered its reform by the Baldwin Act in 1849 one of his greatest accomplishments. The Baldwin Act made the municipal government truly democratic rather than an extension of central control of the Crown. It delegated authority to the municipal governments so they could raise taxes and enact by-laws. It also established a hierarchy of types of municipal governments, starting at the top with cities and continued down past towns, villages and finally townships. This system was to prevail for the next 150 years.
Political career.
Robert Baldwin was not a natural politician. He was described as melancholy, and awkward in public. He gave speeches in a whispering, halting style. Although elected in 1830 as a member of the Legislative Assembly for the town of York in a by-election, he was defeated in the general election later that year. Despite this inauspicious start, his adherence to principle and his fearlessness in the face of Orange Order electoral violence won him the loyalty of voters in the post-Rebellion period.
To the Rebellion of 1837.
After losing his seat in the 1830 election, Baldwin withdrew to his private legal practice until his wife's death as a result of a Caesarian in 1836. He took no part in the Political Union movement of the 1830s. Two weeks after Eliza Baldwin's death, Sir Francis Bond Head (1793–1875) arrived as the new Lieutenant Governor, to address reform grievances. He sought out and appointed reformers Baldwin, John Dunn and John Rolph to the Executive Council with three Compact members. Baldwin's condition for joining the Executive Council was a verbal commitment by Bond Head to a responsible government. Bond Head later refused to give written confirmation of the agreement, so Baldwin resigned within a month and convinced the other councilors, both Reform and Tory, to resign with him. This convinced Bond Head that the Reformers were intractable. He called an immediate election, in which he as Lt. Governor waded into the electoral fray, and with the use of Orange Order polling violence, expunged the reformers from the Legislative Assembly.
Baldwin traveled to Great Britain in 1836 to see the colonial secretary, Lord Glenelg but was refused. He wrote to Glenelg that "if the Mother Country desires to retain the colony ... it can only be done either by force or with the consent of the people. I take it for granted that Great Britain cannot desire to exercise a Government of the Sword." He laid out the remedy – responsible government – but was spurned, and the colony descended into rebellion.
Though a moderate reformer, Robert Baldwin strongly disapproved of the rebellion of 1837–38, and as a function of his views provided allegedly a lackluster defense of Peter Matthews (rebel), who was executed for his role in the Rebellion. Baldwin served as an intermediary, with John Rolph, between the rebels and the Lt. Governor, carrying a flag of truce to the rebel camp north of Toronto on 5 December 1837, but failed to head off an armed clash. He and his father William advised Lord Durham to suggest responsible government to the British government.
The Union of the Canadas.
In response to Durham's Report, the British Government appointed Charles Poulett Thomson (later Lord Sydenham) as Governor with two main tasks. Firstly, he was to weaken the Canadien vote in Lower Canada through the union of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada and a strengthened Executive Council. And secondly, he was to strengthen British rule by imposing a new system of centrally controlled District Councils that would take much of the elected Assembly's legislative purview, leaving it little to do but approve the Governor's budgets. Both reforms would strengthen the central state and weaken (Canadien) legislative power.
Sydenham reformed the Executive Council, making government ministers members for the first time (i.e. Cabinet Rule). He attempted to solicit Reform support by appointing Baldwin as Solicitor General in 1840. To follow his principle of responsible government, Baldwin needed to seek election so that he, a government minister, could be accountable to the elected Assembly, not the Crown.
Orange Order riots during the Toronto civic elections in January 1841 convinced Baldwin he could never win a seat in the city. Instead, he sought election in the ridings of Hastings and 4th York. The Children of Peace, who had played a large role in the pre-Rebellion Reform Movement, managed Baldwin's election in 4th York and he 'walked over the course without a contest,' thus becoming the first member to be elected to the United Parliament. He was also later returned to Hastings.
Baldwin &amp; LaFontaine.
Although Baldwin was elected in two seats in Canada West, reformers were in the minority. In Canada East, gerrymandering and Orange Order violence were used to prevent the election of Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, leader of the Canadien reformers in Terrebonne, outside Montreal. To ensure LaFontaine a seat, Baldwin proposed to David Willson, leader of the Children of Peace, that they nominate LaFontaine for the seat in 4th York. Baldwin also insisted that Sydenham include LaFontaine in the reformed Executive Council, or he would resign as Solicitor General. Their alliance allowed Lafontaine to have a seat in the assembly in 1841 and for Baldwin to win the by-election in 1843.
On 3 September 1841, the Children of Peace held a campaign rally for Baldwin and LaFontaine in their Temple, where they rejoiced "to say that we have it in our power to show our impartial respect to the Canadian people of the Lower Province." Despite threats of Orange Order violence, LaFontaine was elected as representative of 4th York.
However, before LaFontaine could take up his seat, Governor Sydenham died. His replacement, Sir Charles Bagot, was not able to form a mixed cabinet of Reformers and Tories, and so he was forced to include the "Canadien party" under LaFontaine. LaFontaine refused to join the Executive Council unless Baldwin was also included. Bagot was finally forced to accede in September 1842, and when he became severely ill thereafter, Baldwin and Lafontaine became the first real premiers of the Province of Canada. However, to take office as ministers, the two had to run for re-election. While LaFontaine was easily re-elected in 4th York, Baldwin lost his seat in Hastings as a result of Orange Order violence. It was now that the pact between the two men was completely solidified, as LaFontaine arranged for Baldwin to run in Rimouski, a constituency in a heavily francophone area of Canada East. This was the union of the Canadas they sought, where LaFontaine overcame linguistic prejudice to gain a seat in English Canada, and Baldwin obtained his seat in French Canada.
Metcalfe and the Reform Association of Canada.
The Baldwin-LaFontaine ministry barely lasted six months before Governor Bagot also died in March 1843. He was replaced with Sir Charles Metcalfe, whose instructions were to check the "radical" reform government. The relationship between Baldwin and Metcalfe soured over Baldwin's Secret Societies Bill, which sought to outlaw the Orange Order and its political violence. Metcalfe rejected the legislation and then began appointing his supporters to patronage positions without Baldwin and LaFontaine's approval. They resigned in November 1843, beginning a constitutional crisis that lasted for a year. This year-long crisis, in which the legislature was prorogued, “was the final signpost on Upper Canada's conceptual road to democracy. Lacking the scale of the American Revolution, it nonetheless forced a comparable articulation