We Canadians frequently accuse Americans of
not understanding Canada and knowing our history. But before we get too superior on this, we
have to ask how much US history we really know.
Oh, we know their history in the 20th and now 21st
centuries: about how they won the Second World War and saved democracy; how
they won the Cold War; how they came to the aid of Europe in the First World
War; their humiliation in Viet Nam; their Great Depression (which affected most
of the world); and how they suffered on September 11th, 2001. Some of us may even know things about their
Civil War, including your author (the best overall book on this war is probably
“Battle Cry of Freedom” by James M. McPherson).
It is a captivating war to follow.
But apart from these highlights, how much
do we really know about the contests that went on to define the nature of the
US.
Why is this something that Canadians should
worry about, particularly now? It’s
relevant because of the recent struggles between the provincial and federal
governments. The fact that some
provinces feel alienated by the federal government, and by the call in some
provinces for more autonomy and the ability of a province to ignore federal
laws. This is the main plank of Dannielle Smith’s campaign to become the next
Premier of Alberta with her Sovereignty Act. It has
always been a fact of life between Quebec and Ottawa, but it has now spread to
the Prairie Provinces. What we probably
don’t know is that this struggle happened in the US as well.
The US, like Canada, came about as the
result of several separate colonies joining into a union. The US forced the
issue by war, in Canada by negotiation.
But the result was the same; a country made of up of several states or
provinces. In both cases, their
constitutions (the US Constitution and the British North America Act) attempted
to define the powers and obligations of each side of the equation. In Canada,
these were captured anew in the Canadian constitution. This inevitably led to friction between the
two levels of governments as each tried to enforce their respective
mandates. In both cases, the federal
level had the weaker hand at the beginning.
The early years in the US were dominated by
arguments over states’ rights versus federal jurisdiction. Many states tried
nullification, the act of nullifying federal laws. It was their attempt to emulate our ‘not
withstanding’ clause, except they did not limit it to charter rights. The proposed
Sovereignty Act is an attempt to provide a legal basis for nullification. But it must be noted that the various
attempts at nullification in the US came to nothing, being declared
unconstitutional by the courts. The
battle over states’ rights eventually became the primary cause of the US Civil War
(slavery became the main topic only in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln issued the
Emancipation Proclamation to give the North a rallying cry to strengthen the war
effort). But one of the main debates
over the issue was held back in 1830 when it was aired in the US Senate. Senator Robert Hayne of South Carolina argue that
the federal government was only an agent to the states, that “the Union could
only last if the rights of the states . . . were respected and protected”. He was countered by Senator Daniel Webster of
Massachusetts who argued that the Union was a union of people, not states and
that the people were sovereign. It
should be noted that after the Civil War, the issue of states’ rights was
forgotten until the last few years. It
is now again being postulated on such issues as abortion rights and voting
laws.
Not too long ago, I wrote a blog (https://gordf.blogspot.com/2021/09/what-country.html.)
about the burdens that the provinces would have to deal with if they seceded
from Canada, or if Canada failed to exist.
Perhaps it is time for Canadians to listen to some lessons from the United
States and realize that we are a country, not some loose collection of
provinces.
