Assembly’s Resolution, History of the Late Province of Lower Canada, Quebec, 1848-55

[The Assembly responded to the actions of the British Government with this resolution.]

. . . We are, then bound by our duty, frankly to declare to your Excellency, under the solemn circumstances in which we are placed, and after full and calm deliberation, that since the time when we were last called to meet in Provincial Parliament, we have seen in the conduct and proceedings of the Metropolitan government, and of the colonial administration toward this country, nothing which could re-establish in the people the confidence and affection which the long and fatal experience of the past has almost destroyed; but that, on the contrary, every recent event has tended to efface what remained of these feelings, and to consolidate, in opposition to the liberties, interests and wishes of the people, the colonial oligarchy factiously combined against them, and hitherto unbridled and uncontrolled sway of the colonial ministers in Downing Street. . . .

. . . We perceive in this measure (the Ten Resolutions) on the one hand, a formal and total refusal of the reforms and improvements demanded by this House, and by the people, and on the other, an abuse of the powers of Parliament, for the purpose of destroying the laws and constitution of this province by force, violating with regard to us the most sacred and solemn engagements, and of thereby establishing irremediably on the ruins of our liberties, and in place of the legitimate, efficient and constitutional control which this House, and the people through it, have a right to exercise over all the branches of the executive government, corruption and intrigue, the pillage of the revenue, and the self-appropriation of the best resources of the country by the colonial functionaries and their dependents, the domination and ascendancy of the few, and the oppression and servitude of the mass of the inhabitants of this province, without distinction of class or of origin.

It is our duty, therefore, to tell the Mother Country, that if she carries the spirit of these resolutions into effect in the government of British America, and of this province in particular, her supremacy therein will no longer depend on the feelings of affection, of duty, and of mutual interest which would best secure it, but on physical and material force, an element dangerous to the governing party, at the same time that it subjects the governed to a degree of uncertainty as to their future existence and their dearest interests, which is scarcely to be found under the most absolute governments of civilized Europe. And we had humbly believed it impossible that this state of permanent jeopardy, of hatred, of division, could be wittingly perpetrated by England on the American continent; and that the liberty and welfare of every portion of the Empire were too dear to the independent body of the English people to allow them to prefer maintaining, in favor of the functionaries accused by the people of this province, the system which has hitherto been its bane, . . .

In our efforts to remove the evils which have pressed upon our country, we have had recourse to none but constitutional means, founded on the most approved and best recognized principles. We have it so much at heart, to see the government once more deserve the public confidence, that to assist it in attaining that confidence we should recoil before no sacrifice but that of the liberties or of the honor of the people. We have given proof of this disposition, even of late, whenever we have been able to entertain a hope that we were thereby aiding to advance the prosperity of the country. But we declare, that in the present conjuncture we have not been able to derive from your Excellency’s speech, or from any other source, any motive for departing even momentarily from our determination to withhold the supplies until the grievances of the country are redressed. . . .