Civil liberty in Lower Canada

k

KINGSTON, ONTARIO

CIVIL LIBERTY

IN

LOWER CANADA

SIR A. T. GALT, K.C.M.G.

D. BENTLEY & CO., PRINTERS, 364 NOTRE DAME STREET.

1876.

• • • \ ....

• • • • • • • • » a

L -

Civil Liberty in Lower Canada.

In the recent debate upon Mr. Huntingdon's
Argenteuil speech, Mr\ Masson referred to the part
I had taken in regard to the measure of Confedera-
tion, and to the safeguards which I insisted on, as
representing the Protestant minority in Quebec, —
arguing that these precautions were uncalled for in
themselves, and almost humiliating to them (the
French Roman Catholics) to grant. The position
was also taken by himself and other speakers that
the attitude recently assumed by the Roman Catholic
Hierarchy concerned the members of their com-
munion only, and afforded no just grounds for ap-
prehension or animadversion on the part of any
Protestant.

At the date of the discussion on Confederation,
it may be admitted that appearances justified great
confidence in the liberal and generous action of the
French Canadian majority. Politically they had
been for many years under the leadership of men
of known and tried liberality. Lafontaine, Morin,
and Car tier, were names synonimous with upright
dealing and even-handed justice, irrespective of race
or religion. Whilst at the same time the course of
the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and Clergy had ever
been distinguished by such devotion to their duty
of inculcating piety and virtue, and such moderation
towards all who differed with them, that it may

61

truly be said they had earned the respect and coil*
fidence of all. Notwithstanding the apparent ab-
sence of danger, it became my duty to ask and to
obtain certain guarantees on two points : Education
and Representation, — for which measures, supposed
to be adequate, were adopted.

The status thus created might, I think, have
lasted for generations, had it not been for the ex-
traordinary claims recently advanced by the Roman
Catholic Hierarchy of Quebec, based as they allege
upon the authority of the Vatican Decrees and the
celebrated Syllabus, though unsupported by Arch-
bishop Lynch, of Ontario, and certainly unclaimed
by His Eminence Cardinal Manning, in his recent
controversy with Mr. Gladstone. These claims, I
confess, filled my mind with uneasiness many
months ago ; they pointed to the extinction of all
free thought and action on the part of our Roman
Catholic fellow subjects, and ultimately tended to
the neutralization of the safeguards held by the
Protestants, especially in the matter of Representa-
tion. So much was I disturbed by these reflections
that in May last, immediately after the publication
of Monseigneur Bishop Bourget's pastoral, and before
the Quebec elections, I addressed the following letter
to the Hon. Mr. Robertson, then Treasurer of
Quebec : —

Montreal, 31st May, 1875.

My Dear ROBERTSON,

On my return from the West, I am much
concerned to observe the attitude taken by the Ultra-
montane Party, not only towards liberal Roman Catho-

lies, but also towards us Protestants. I refer more
immediately to the manifesto by the Roman Catholie
Bishop of Montreal, but remotely, though not less
directly, to the ecclesiastical pressure which has been
put upon the press of the country, and the claim ad-
vanced, with ever-increasing arrogance, to the right of
the Eoman Catholic Church and its hierarchy to control
and direct the scope of political action and public law
within the Province of Quebec, treating it as their own
peculiar domain, and regarding us as strangers and
aliens, holding no status of our own, but simply toler-
ated in their midst.

These pretensions we could afford to view with
indifference, if they were only those of a few ambitious
priests ; but, unfortunately, the Vatican Decrees have
announced, as the future policy of the Church of Eome,
the complete subordination of all the members of that
communion to the control and direction of the Pope.
And the celebrated Syllabus sufficiently discloses the
design that the regulation of faith and morals is to be
extended to embrace the whole field of human thought
and action.

That these views and ulterior aims are repugnant
to the convictions of by far the larger number of the
Eoman Catholic clergy of Lower Canada, I firmly
believe. Many years of intimate acquaintance with
them long since satisfied me that, as a body, they were
highly estimable men, conscientious and scrupulous in
the discharge of their duties, and tolerant of the claims
of others. As a natural consequence, a freedom of
thought sprang up among the laity, and was shewn in
the public utterances of their press, wThich held forth
the hope that the liberal views of the so-called G-allican
Church would ever prevail in Lower Canada, and that
Protestant and Catholic would alike respect their several
opinions, cordially uniting in all that concerned the
prosperity of their common country, without either
Church claiming undue supremacy, or introducing the
fatal element of religious strife.

These expectations, I regret to say, cannot, I think,
be any longer safely held, nor ought we to accept the

6

past as a guarantee for the future. The object seems
at this time to extend no further than the complete sub-
jection of the section of the Eoman Catholic party who
do not accept the extreme views enunciated at Rome ;
and partly through fear, but greatly through the indirect
allurements of future political power, it seems not un-
likely that the Ultramontanes will overcome their oppo-
nents, if we Protestants continue to lend them our
powerful aid. The contest must appear to them hope-
less when they find arrayed against them all the reli-
gious forces of their own Church, and the influence of
those who ought to sympathize with their desire to be
free from ecclesiastical tyranny.

"What we have to dread is the action of the formid-
able Church party, after it has brought into harmony
with itself all the members of its own Church — all those
of French-Canadian origin. Our turn will then come,
and, having under their control the whole machinery of
Legislative and Executive power, the rights we enjoy
and the safeguards we possess will be, one by one,
attacked, until our position will be so intolerable as to
induce us to become, as their organs even already term
us, aliens or strangers ; or force on us such a physical
contest as must be most deplorable.

To say that I had any fear of the ultimate result of
the present attempt to make Lower Canada a Province
of Ecclesiastical Eome, would be untrue. The strength
of the Protestant Church in the Dominion, and on this
Continent, renders it beyond all doubt, where the final
victory must rest, but grievous injury* must meantime
arise, not the least of which will be the blight that will
fall on the prosperity of the people by the mental sub-
jugation of so large a part of our Eoman Catholic
fellow subjects.

Ordinary party politics lose all their significance in'
the presence of a contest which involves the right of
holding any opinions at all hostile to the Eoman Catholic
hierarchy — and much reflection has convinced me that
we shall be false to our own immediate and future
interests, if we hesitate in now repudiating in the most
decided manner the threatened encroachments upon

the rights of our Roman Catholic fellow citizens, equally
as if our own were at this moment attacked.

As the representatives in the Government, of the
British Protestant element, I address you and Dr. Church
and ask you to obtain from Mi. de Boucherville and your
Roman Catholic Colleagues a public and explicit declara-
tion that they reject and refuse to acknowledge the
authority claimed for his church by the Roman Catholic
Bishop of Montreal, in all matters pertaining to public
law and the government of the country, and that
religious belief shall never be made the ground for
interference by the Roman Catholic majority, but that
Catholic and Protestant, French Canadian and British
shall ever be maintained in their equal and co-ordinate
rights.

Without such a declaration for the re-assurance of
our minds, and which will place your Government
equally with your opponents on a footing of decided
independence of the Church, I think you should not
obtain the support of the Protestants of Lower Canada.

In my retirement from public life, I certainly
thought that the party with whom I had so long acted
in Quebec, and who had with me provided for the
future security and independence of both Catholic and
Protestant, French Canadian and British, in the Act
of Confederation, would have been the last to assail
those safeguards. But the lamented death of Sir G-eorge
Cartier has left this party to fall under the baneful in-
fluence of foreign intrigue, and it may well be that I
shall have once more to enter the arena of political
strife, to protect those interests which I am so respon-
sible for creating.

Meantime, I have the conviction that you will be
able to avert the impending disruption of our former
party alliances, and maintain the supremacy of law and
of public opinion over the dictum of any one, be he
priest or layman ; or, failing this, that you will take the
lead in withdrawing the support of British Protestants
from the G-overnment of Mr. de Boucherville.

Yours sincerely,

A. T. GALT.

To which the following reply was made : —

Quebec, 5th June, 1875.
My Dear Sir ALEXANDEE,

Yours of the 31st Oct. is before me,
and I embrace the earliest possible moment after the
adjournment of Council to reply. I thought it better
after Conference with my Colleague, Dr. Church, to
bring the matter up before the Council, and there to
invite the fullest and frankest discussion. I represented
that there was a certain portion of the Protestant popu-
lation who feared that the Roman Catholic Priesthood
were assuming an arrogant and intolerant spirit to-
wards the Protestant Minority and that it was feared
that the Church as a Church would assume to itself to
dictate a political policy and to enforce this policy by
means which the Protestant people consider very
objectionable, and that in the last result, the rights of
the minority would be invaded and overturned. I
purposely put the case as strongly as possible, read
your letter to me, — and illustrated it by such instances
as occurred to me, of what were supposed to be mani-
festations of such intentions, and particularly referred
to the late pastoral letter of Bishop Bourget.

I pretty well knew, from an association of some years
with Mr. De Boucherville, and of several months with
my other Eoman Catholic Colleagues, in what way
these representations would be received. They one
and all disclaimed any intention to disturb in any
way whatsoever the vested Constitutional rights and
safeguards guaranteed the Protestants of Lower Canada,
pointed out that any such attempt must end disas-
trously to them or any political party attempting it, and
assured me that in no way, directly or indirectly, was it
contemplated to legislate away, restrict or alter the
present status of Protestants in this Province. That all
that might be claimed for the Roman Catholic Church,
would be conceded to the Protestant Establishments,
and that the present condition of affairs should be
maintained in its integrity. The Premier will make a
declaration at St. Croix to-morrow on this subject, the

9

subject of which will be as follows : " Inasmuch as in
this Province we have different races, and different reli-
gions, in Legislation as in the Administration of the
Law, it is important that the rights of privileges of
each be guaranteed without distinction of origin or
creed. The present Government is fully determined to
maintain in all their force these rights and privileges,
and will never permit, upon any pretext whatsoever,
even an attempt to take from the minority that which
the Constitution and the title of a Britisn subject
assures to all those who live under the protection of the
British Flag."

I think this must satisfy you that there is no reason
for alarm or even anxiety under the DeBoucherville
administration, whilst its policy remains unchanged,
and I have only to add, that any attempt to change it,
wTill be at once met by myself and Dr. Church, in such
a way as will ensure no change being made, till such
change has had the fullest sanction of the Protestant
population of this Province.

I am, yours truly,

J. B. ROBERTSON.

P.S. — I have read this over to Dr. Church, and he
fully agrees with me as to the interpretation I have
given above of the declarations and intentions of our
Roman Catholic Colleagues, as communicated to us to-
day, and asks me to state as much to you.

J. B. R.

The assurance thus given, though distinct
enough as regards the Protestant, did not touch the
point from whence I apprehended danger. But I
thought, as I now believe unwisely, that it was safer
to rest content with such pledges rather than to dis-
turb existing political alliances, at the risk of finding
the so-called Liberal Catholics equally ready to
obey the behests of their Clergy. I could not
forget the history of the Programme, or their union

10

with Bishop Bourget to defeat Sir George Cartier.
I therefore withheld this correspondence from
publication.

The legislation of last session at Quebec, on the
School question, placing that of Roman Catholics
wholly under the control of the Clergy, was not
re-assuring, — but the repeated and arrogant inter-
ference of Bishops and Clergy in elections has
seemed to me to threaten [the civil rights of all,
both Catholic and Protestant, and to require united
and vigorous efforts to repress it. There is no
question of religious faith involved — let any one
worship God as his conscience dictates, but the
Clergy, whether Protestant or Catholic, must be
forbidden to interfere with secular affairs in any
other character than as ordinary citizens. It is re-
pugnant to all proper feeling that the tremendous
weapons of religious anathema should be lightly
used in mere secular warfare, or that the hold over
the human conscience entrusted to the Minister of
God, should be exercised for any other purposes
than those of piety and moral purity. Nor can it be
believed that such a severe and cruel pressure is put
upon the consciences of our Roman Catholic fellow
subjects for the paltry object of securing the
ephemeral triumph of a temporary political party.
The conclusion is inevitable, from the nature of the
means employed, that a deep laid plan exists for the
complete subjugation of Lower Canada to Ecclesias-
tical rule, with the view of extending the same
baneful influence, hereafter, to the whole Dominion.
In this view the importance of early and stern
opposition to the schemes now being gradually

11

disclosed becomes the duty of all good citizens, be
they Catholic or Protestant.

The Pastoral Letter of Monseigneur Bishop
Bourget, dated 1st February, 1876, among many
other extraordinary statements, contains the fol-
lowing, extracted from the translation in the
Montreal Herald : —

WHAT IS CATHOLIC LIBERALISM?

Catholic Liberalism is a combination of religious
and social doctrines which tend to free more or less spirits
of the speculative order and citizens of the practical
order from the rule which tradition had everywhere and
always imposed upon them. Or rather what is Catholic
Liberalism ? "What is Liberal Catholicism ?

It is a false and dangerous sentiment ; it is a factious
party which conspires in fact, against the church and
against civil society. A Liberal Catholic is a man who,
to a certain degree, partakes of this sentiment, whether
in this party or in this doctrine the more sick is he as
the more', Liberal; theless sick is he as he is more Catholic.
Liberalism always seeks to subordinate the rights of the
church to the rights of the State in the measure of
prudence and high wisdom, and even to separate the
church from the State where it desires a free church in
a free state. Liberalism claims that the clergy is called
on solely to defend religion, and that the laity have not
this mission. Since that the Pope declares in his
Encyclical of 1853 that the laity fulfil in that a filial
duty from the moment that they combat under the
direction of the clergy. Modern Liberalism pretends
that religion should not leave the sacristy, nor go beyond
the limits of private piety. But the Pope declares that
Catholics can only efficaciously defend their rights and
their liberties by actively mixing up in public affairs.
By these characteristic traits you will recognize Catholic
Liberalism. It is for that we have deemed it our duty
to point them out to your serious consideration in order
that you may better understand the definition of them
which we have given you.

In order to make you understand still more clearly

12

we will reproduce here what the Fathers of the Fifth
Provincial Council of Quebec, have said of it.

" Catholic liberalism," they say, was introduced
little by little into the Holy Church and is there hidden
by means of tricks and adroitness, like the ancient
serpent in the terrestrial paradise, in order to lead away
imprudent souls, inducing them by his artifices, to eat
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

We leave to your serious reflection all and every
word of this definition, which makes you understand
that Liberalism is no other thing than the demon which,
hidden under the form of the ancient serpent, and
armed with his rage, his malice and his tricks, is now
found in the middle of us to destroy us, as it unhappily
destroyed our first parents, in despoiling us of the robe
of justice and innocence, and in making us lose that
faith, pure and simple, which does not reason with God
and with the Church. Alas, it is for us to .make our-
selves guilty of arrogance and disobedience, to merit
for ourselves the heaviest chastisements of divine ven-
geance, for them to be shamefully chased from the
sanctuary of all revealed revelations by losing the
faith, and to be plunged into the abyss of the
greatest evils. In order to well comprehend it, it will
be sufficient just to cast a glance at the horrible evils
which desolate European Governments and peoples,
struck with an inconceivable vertigo in punishment for
their Liberalism. Thus, Christian brethren, the cer-
tainty that Catholic Liberalism is hidden among us, and
the fear that this terrible monster causes not only the
evils which he necessarily drags in his train are suffi-
cient to make us tremble and make us cry out against
our dangers.

*Jr ^fe ^ ^ -tP

WHAT MUST BE DONE IN ORDER NOT TO FOLLOW A FALSE

ROUTE.

Ill passing through these bad times, and lining in
these days of scandals, attach yourself with all your heart
to the practical rules which we trace out for you in the
presence of God and with the sole object of securing
your greatest good.

1 st. — Hear Jesus Christ in hearing the Church, To

18

this end penetrate the sacred oracles, which fell from the
mouth of the Divine Master, " He who hears you hears
me ; he who does not hear the Church, let him be a
heathen or a publican." Now, here is how we must
put this rule into practice. Each one of you can and
aught to say in the interior of his soul, " I hear my Cure ;
my Cure hears the Bishop ; the Bishop hears the Pope,
and the Pope hears our Lord Jesus Christ, who aids with
his Holy Spirit to render them infallible on the teaching
and Government of his Church. With this rule so sure,
I cannot be led astray, and I am certain of marching in
the way of justice and of truth.

2nd. — Bear a religious respect to all your pastors,
fearing that in despising them you incur that terrible
anathema, pronounced by our Lord, " He who despises
you despises me ;" Oh ! and what words : To despise
Jesus Christ in despising' His priests. They are wrorthy
of attention and deserve to be seriously considered.
As it has just been observed he who hears the priest
hears the Bishop, and he who hears the Bishop hears
the Pope, hears Jesus Christ. He hears then all the
clergy whose chief is Jesus Christ. In the same way,
he wTho despises the priest despises the Bishop, he who
despises the Bishop despises the Pope, and he who
despises the Pope despises Jesus Christ. He despises
then all the clergy whose chief is Jesus Christ. After
all which has been reproduced above of the instructions
given by the Pope and the Bishops against Catholic
Liberalism, it is evident that the priests in their instruc-
tions regarding this detestible error, scrupulously attach
themselves to the principles w7hich are dictated to them
by their pastors. It is then all the clergy who thus
speak through the mouth of their members. Thus to
despise this organ of the clergy, is to despise Jesus who
made them His ambassadors. It is to despise the Eternal
Father, who sent Jesus Christ, His only son, into the
world, to teach and to save it. But how must we
consider him, who, upon the hustings, be it at the polls,
upon the platform, or in papers, dares to prefer insults
to the person and to the character of the priest to
despise, or make his wrords and his conduct to be des-
pised, in order to take aWay from him, if it be possible,
all the estimation and the consideration which he enjoys

14

among the people ; and how ought he to be treated ?
We invoke to reply to it, the authority of the Holy See,
against which it is not permissable for any one to reply
and to make an attack.

For about three years, the Holy Congregation of
the Propaganda, charged with Apostolic superintendence
over this country, has been informed that certain papers
allowed themselves to publish insults to the ecclesias-
tical authorities. The Prefect of this Holy congregation
was constrained to write to the Bishops of this Province
to impress upon them the necessity ot doing all in their
power to cause an end to be put to these unhappy
discussions which could only secure the triumph of
Protestants. His Eminence recommended in his letter,
the Bishops to compel, if it were necessary, those who
were guilty in this particular, to submit to this injunc-
tion by forbidding the faithful to read their papers.
" Curent ( Episcopi ) ne hujusmodi contentiones per
" ephemerides et libellos a catholicis exerceantur, utque
" eos qui in hoc deli querent coercere, et si opus fuerit
" earumdem edhemeridum lectionem fldelibus prohibere
" non omittant." (Rescript of 23rd March, 1873.)

We publish herewith this rule of conduct and
we order all those who have charge of souls to exactly
conform themselves to it. By refusing admission to the
Sacrament to all those who read or efficaciously encour-
age the newspapers in which they take to task or cover
with insults, the shepherds of souls, because they oppose
the dissemination of erroneous principles, reproved by
the Sovereign Pontiff or by the early Fathers, charged
by Jesus Christ to teach all people those holy doctrines
which are placed in the bosom of the Church. Especially
must the sacraments be refused to those editors who
write such insults, and to those who employ them to
edit the newspapers of which they are proprietors.

The foregoing extracts point with unfortunately
too direct an aim at the absolute subjugation of the
Liberal Catholics, uncter threats for disobedience
which one is amazed to see fulminated in the
nineteenth century. It would appear that unless
complete abasement of mind and body, — absolute

15

subordination of the state to the church is yielded,
the recusants are to be thrust forth as heretics from
the Catholic fold.

The religious question I have no intention to
discuss, but the foregoing dogmas laid down by the
Bishop affect the political rights which I enjoy, and
is therefore open to criticism. It is not consistent
with the good government, the peace, and the pros-
perity of the country, that any portion of our
population should be held in such bondage, and
though, as a Protestant, it does not reach me, still
as a citizen my rights are impugned, and my civil
liberty impaired.

Our constitution provides for government by the
majority ; — if that majority be elected in obedience
to the dictum of the Hierarchy, what possible hope
will there be for the Protestant minority to preserve
their dearest interests ?

One of our cherished safeguards is the possession
of certain specified constituencies, which cannot be
changed, except by their own votes ; but there are
many Eoman Catholics in every one of these con-
stituencies, and our safety hitherto has lain in the
political divisions among them, if these are to vanish
at the commands of the Hierarchy, our security is
at once and for ever gone.

I do not hesitate to say that I think our thanks
are due to Mr. Huntingdon for his outspoken re-
marks in the County of Argenteuil. They were,
perhaps, politically distasteful to some of his friends,
but they embodied a most serious truth, in declaring
that the attitude of the Eoman Catholic Hierarchy
is antagonistic to the principles of civil liberty, and

16

involves issues of a magnitude far transcending the
ordinary political questions which now separate men.

Other conservative Protestants may perceive
some different and yet safe course, but for my own
part, acting under the sense of responsibility for my
past acts, I find but one line of duty open to me,
and that is to give my hearty support and sympathy
to the Liberal Catholics of Quebec. With a plain and
unmistakeable declaration on the part of the Pro-
testants that they will, equally for their Roman
Catholic fellow citizens, as for themselves, resist the
encroachments of the Church upon the State, it may
be possible to arrest the arrogant course of Bishop
Bourget and his confreres. If not, it requires no pro-
phetic vision to predict an early agitation for the sepa-
ration of the Montreal, Ottawa, and Eastern Town-
ships districts from the Ecclesiastical tyranny of
Quebec.

With very great respect for the gentlemen who
have organized the Protestant Defence Association,
I venture to think that it would be wiser to abandon
an organization which must necessarily repel con-
scientious Catholics, — and considering, that it is the
civil rights of free speech, a free press, and free
political action, and not in any way religion itself
which are endangered, I would suggest that a
more general name might be adopted, and a much
wider scope given to its action, so as to include
within its sphere all those who desire the action of
the State to be untrammelled by ecclesiastical influ-
ence and interference.

A. T. GALT.

MONTREAL, 17 th February, 1876.

1