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imagine that parliamentary government could be controversial and could make Brown hated or loved or dismissed as impossible, but it is worth the effort.
    The first controversial cause Brown championed in the
Globe
was the thing called responsible government. To state Brown’s position today is to provoke wonder as to what could have been controversial. Simply, Brown believed that politicians elected by the voters, not a governor appointed from Britain, must control the making of domestic policy. Specifically, the governor should defer in policy matters to his executive committee – the cabinet, as it was already being called. And the cabinet in turn should be selected from, and responsible to, the elected legislature. It is now hard to imagine the Canadian governor general being descended from powerful, policy-making autocrats. But in 1845 there were such governors, and the curbing of their authority was the hottest of political issues.
    The British North American colonies of 1845 were emphatically not self-governing. Most men, though no women, voted, and theyhad been electing assemblies since 1792 in “the Canadas,” as far back as 1758 in Nova Scotia. The assemblies they elected had some real power, including powers of taxation. But the governor in each colony had powers too, including control of revenues that often left him in little need of the tax monies that only the legislature could provide.
    The governor answered to Britain’s government, not to the colony’s voters. He was usually an aristocrat experienced in colonial administration or in service in the British cabinet itself, and the British government intended him to carry out its colonial policy. He also represented, at least in theory, a firm personal authority. Buttressed by the prestige of Britain and his own aristocratic standing, he could expect to be honoured as a figure worthy of respect and deference from all, immune to the factional strife of petty locals. In 1845, the governor in each British North American colony still appointed his own cabinet (it was then called his council) to run the departments of government under his direction.
    This system had worked badly. For all the governor’s personal authority, his broad powers seemed arbitrary instead of dignified – and the elected assembly had enough sense of its own importance to resent the limitations upon it. So governors and assemblies fought, and in the Canadas the fight veered outside the confines of legitimate government. In 1837, rebellions against arbitrary government had exploded in both Upper and Lower Canada. When the rebellions were crushed, the governors emerged stronger than ever. When the two troublesome colonies were stuck together in the united Province of Canada, the intention was as much to buttress British authority as to yield power to either of them.
    After the rebellions, however, the governors – and the British government – wanted to avoid the confrontations between assemblies and governors that had plagued the 1830s. Governors tried to find supportive assemblymen, and they sought cabinet members acceptable to the assembly. In effect, governors found themselves trying to win elective support without actually becoming bound to any partyline. They proposed a compromise: they would co-operate with elected representatives without entirely yielding to them.
    Many politicians and voters were ready to accept the governors’ olive branch – and the governors’ patronage, since they remained the font of honours, favours, and jobs. The governors’ commonsense request to be allowed to run administrations composed of the best-qualified men, “above mere faction,” convinced many British North Americans. It was, after all, an appeal to good will, a plea for accommodation among reasonable men who shared the goal of good government.
    George Brown was among those who would have nothing to do with this half-measure. Characteristically, it was for him a matter of absolute