Ballots and Brawls
In September 1867, a few short months after the formation of the Dominion of Canada, eligible voters in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec went to the polls for the inaugural election. It would affirm that the new government was answerable to the people – but no one could foresee the outcome, let alone the chaos in the run-up to the event. In Ballots and Brawls, the first book dedicated solely to the 1867 election, Patrice Dutil offers readers a vivid description of the idealistic 1864 meetings in Charlottetown and Quebec City, as well as a region-by-region look at the summer of 1867, concluding with a close examination of the election results.
Citizens battled over issues of economic progress, taxation, and defence, while fights at the local level pitted English against French, Protestants against Catholics, and regionalists against nationalists. Dutil’s account captures the drama and outright violence at the polls, and provides an engrossing introduction to the shared ideals, disparate interests, and big personalities of the names on the ballots and those behind the scenes, including John A. Macdonald, George Brown, Leonard Tilley, George-Étienne Cartier, Charles Tupper, and Joseph Howe.
Weaving contemporary accounts and deep archival research into his thorough review of the poll results, Patrice Dutil offers both classroom and armchair students of political science and Canadian history a captivating look at the election that shaped the origins of the country.
Patrice Dutil has written an engaging addition to the Turning Point Elections series, pitting the future prime minister John A. Macdonald against the radical anti-Confederationist Médéric Lanctôt.
Patrice Dutil is a professor of politics and public administration at Toronto Metropolitan University and a senior fellow of the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto. He is the founder of the Literary Review of Canada and was president of the Champlain Society from 2011 to 2017. He is the author and editor of several books on Canadian politics and governance, including Statesmen, Strategists and Diplomats: Canada’s Prime Ministers and the Making of Foreign Policy and The Unexpected Louis St-Laurent: Politics and Policies for a Modern Canada.
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