Charles Tupper

Canadian politician

• Born: July 2, 1821
• Birthplace: Amherst, Nova Scotia (now in Canada)
• Died: October 30, 1915
• Place of death: Bexleyheath, Kent, London

While he was premier of Nova Scotia, Tupper played a major role in the creation of the Canadian confederation; he later held major cabinet posts in the national government, headed the Conservative Party, and briefly served as national prime minister.

Early Life

Charles Tupper was the son of a Baptist minister whose grandfather had moved from New England to Nova Scotia in 1763 after the expulsion of the Acadians. Charles was educated at home and at local schools until he was old enough to enroll at the University of Edinburgh, which offered the best available medical training. After obtaining a medical degree in 1843, he opened a successful practice in Amherst, Nova Scotia, where he earned a reputation as a diligent physician. On one occasion, for example, he stayed up all night long administering half-hourly glasses of champagne to the sick wife of a political opponent. He served as first president of the Canadian Medical Association, from 1867 to 1870. Meanwhile, he married Frances Amelia Morse in 1846. Their marriage lasted sixty-six years and produced one daughter and three sons who survived to maturity.

In 1855, Tupper won election to the Nova Scotia assembly as a Conservative, defeating Joseph Howe, the leading Liberal. Tupper became the major spokesperson for his party, vigorously attacking the Liberal government. Conservatives won an overwhelming victory in 1863; when the party leader became a judge in May 1864, Tupper succeeded him as Nova Scotia’s premier.

Life’s Work

During his 1863 campaign, Tupper called for expanding Nova Scotia’s railway net and improving public education. As premier the following year, he awarded contracts extending the railways and passed a Free School Act establishing a state-controlled system of nondenominational common schools. When too few districts provided sufficient funds for the schools, he imposed compulsory taxation in 1865. He rejected public funding of sectarian schools but reached an agreement with the Roman Catholic archbishop allowing grants to church schools that followed the prescribed government curriculum and limited religious instruction to after school hours.

As early as 1860, Tupper had advocated uniting Great Britain’s North American colonies. As a step toward that goal after he became premier, he proposed a conference to discuss unifying the Maritime colonies. The September, 1864, meeting at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, attracted deputations from Upper (Ontario) and Lower (Quebec) Canada who persuaded the delegates to reconvene in Quebec in October to plan a wider union. The Quebec conferees agreed on seventy-two resolutions that were forwarded to a London meeting. Those resolutions became the basis of the 1867 British North America Act , which served as Canada’s constitution until 1982.

Tupper himself participated in all three conferences, and his leadership persuaded reluctant Nova Scotians to join the new confederation. On July 1, 1867, a British royal proclamation established the Dominion of Canada, which then comprised Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia (Prince Edward Island did not join until 1873). With the purchase of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Northwest Territories in 1870 and the accession of British Columbia in 1871, the Dominion stretched from coast to coast and into the Arctic, making Canada one of the largest countries on earth.

In meetings held during and shortly after the U.S. Civil War, Tupper and other delegates were determined to avoid mistakes made by the United States. Proud to be monarchists and pleased to be subjects of Queen Victoria and part of the British Empire, they rejected the American concept of a federal republic. Canada was to be ruled by a strong, English-style central parliament. Tupper blamed the federal structure and the idea of states’ rights in the U.S. Constitution for the disaster of the Civil War. He wanted Canada to be a complete union that reduced provinces to municipal status but knew that that idea would not be accepted, so he settled for the alternative of a highly centralized federal union. The Quebec conference deliberately designated the Canadian Parliament as supreme, with provincial assemblies playing a distinctly subordinate role. However, later amendments and court interpretations shifted the balance of power more toward the provinces than Tupper envisaged.

In 1867, when Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, had difficulty balancing his first cabinet among the various factions seeking representation, Tupper voluntarily withdrew from consideration in favor of an Irish Catholic from Nova Scotia. However, he joined the cabinet in June, 1870, as president of the Privy Council and in July, 1872, moved to the Ministry of Revenue. As minister of customs for nine months in 1873, he installed the British system of weights and measures as the Canadian standard.

From 1874 to 1878, when the Conservatives were out of power, Tupper resumed his medical practice and burnished his party credentials by campaigning for Conservative candidates across Canada. He became chief parliamentary critic of the ruling Liberal government, rejecting its free-trade policy and demanding an all-Canadian rail route to the Pacific. Such was his growing prominence that Tupper seemed to be Macdonald’s heir apparent as head of the Conservatives.

When Macdonald resumed power in 1878, Tupper became his minister of public works. After Macdonald’s ministry was divided during the following year, Tupper kept the department of railways and canals. He arranged vital grants and loans for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, helping create an all-Canadian coast-to-coast railway. He also arranged subsidies for railways in Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritime Provinces, and spent large amounts improving the St. Lawrence River channel and Great Lakes canals. Canadian Pacific board members were grateful for his help. After he left the cabinet to become Canada’s high commissioner in London, they awarded him one hundred thousand dollars in stock in 1884.

While serving as high commissioner in London from 1883 to 1896, Tupper did not abstain from partisan politics. In 1887, he returned to Canada at Macdonald’s request to head the Ministry of Finance and lead the Conservative election campaign—all the while remaining high commissioner. In 1888, he served as Canadian representative on a British commission negotiating a fisheries treaty with the United States that was so favorable to Canada that the U.S. Senate rejected it.

Meanwhile, Tupper was knighted in 1879 and was created a hereditary baronet in 1888, in recognition of his diplomatic service. In May, 1888, he left the cabinet and returned to London to resume his duties as high commissioner.

After John Macdonald died in 1891, he was succeeded as prime minister by John Abbott (1891-1892), John Thompson (1892-1894), and Mackenzie Bowell (1894-1896). None of these men proved able to resolve conflicts among Conservatives over a dispute about Manitoba schools. Primarily French-speaking Roman Catholics in Manitoba had been promised their own state-supported schools when the province was founded. However, in 1890, a Protestant-dominated provincial government abolished funding for sectarian schools. A cabinet revolt against the inept leadership of Prime Minister Bowell brought Tupper back from England as party leader in February, 1896. Tupper believed that a promise had been made to Catholics that the federal government should implement; however, he could not pass a bill to that effect.

On May 1, 1896, Tupper became prime minister. He confidently called an election for June 23, expecting that Quebec voters would obey the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s instructions to vote Conservative and believing Protestant voters in other provinces would reject Wilfred Laurier, a Roman Catholic who was running as the Liberal candidate. He proved to be mistaken in both assumptions. Laurier won decisively, forcing Tupper to resign on July 8. Tupper remained opposition leader until the 1900 election, which Laurier again won. Tupper himself lost the election for his parliamentary seat in Nova Scotia. It was his first loss in Nova Scotia since entering the provincial legislature in 1855, so he resigned his party leadership and returned to England, where he lived the rest of his life. On October, 30, 1915, he died in Bexleyheath, Kent.

Significance

Tupper’s brief service as Canada’s prime minister was his least consequential political act. It is notable primarily because his ten-week tenure was the shortest in the history of the office. By contrast, as premier of Nova Scotia he founded the province’s system of free schools and improved its railway system. As federal minister of railways and canals, he played a creative part in the expansion of Canada’s transportation facilities and was indispensable in completing an all-Canadian coast-to-coast railway.

An ardent partisan, Tupper created many political enemies, and accusations of corruption dogged him throughout his career, but there is no evidence that he ever engaged in illegal activity. However, nineteenth century views on conflicts of interest affecting officeholders were vague, and Tupper used information and contacts acquired through his political activities to become wealthy, exemplifying that era’s comparatively low ethical standards.

Tupper’s most constructive and significant role was as a founder of the Canadian confederation. He helped draft Canada’s first constitution and persuaded Nova Scotians, despite their reluctance to abandon provincial independence, to join in establishing the dominion.

Bibliography

Longley, James Wilberforce. Sir Charles Tupper. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1926. The only full-scale biography of Tupper, very sympathetic to its subject.

Martin, Ged. Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation, 1837-1867. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1995. Describes how British sympathy and support aided the achievement of Canadian Confederation.

Murray, Jock, and Janet Murray. Sir Charles Tupper: Fighting Doctor to Father of Confederation. Markham, Ont.: Associated Medical Services, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1999. Favorable biography that contains information on Tupper’s work as a physician and his contributions to Canadian medicine, as well as his political career.

Seary, Victor Perrin. Sir Charles Tupper. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1930. A brief and favorable sketch by an admirer of Tupper.

Silver, Arthur I. The French-Canadian Idea of Confederation, 1864-1900. 2d ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. Explores the evolution of French-Canadian views of confederation.

Vaughan, Frederick. The Canadian Federalist Experiment: From Defiant Monarchy to Reluctant Republic. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003. Stresses the monarchist orientation of Confederation leaders and their desire to avoid resembling the United States.