From the front page of the Huron Expositor
Friday, 4 December 1931
Reprinted with the permission of the Huron Expositor
Copyright: the Huron Expositor
“Your Community Newspaper Since 1860”
P. O. Box 69
11 Main Street
Seaforth, Ontario N0K 1W0
Chapter 11 The Election of 1836
As representative of the County of Huron in the Legislative Assembly, Captain Dunlop performed no mighty works. There is no mention in the debate summaries of the Patriot or in the Journals of the House of his having spoken as often as once, beyond taking the oath in the last short session of the Reform Assembly in the late winter of 1835-36. Hardly, however, had he become accustomed to the ways of the provincial legislature that he was compelled once more to face the electors. For in the spring the new governor, Sir Francis Bond Head, dissolved the Assembly, declared war on the Reformers as separatists and rebels, and himself undertook a campaign throughout the province against Mackenzie’s party. The elections were to take place in June of 1836.
In this new electoral struggle, Dunlop aligned himself heart and soul with the militant governor against the Reformers whom he considered a disloyal sect. He drew up an address to the free and independent electors of the County of Huron, reprinted in several issues of the Patriot of June and July, 1836. “Encouraged by the almost unanimous good opinion which the inhabitants of the County expressed for me on a former occasion, I again offer my services to represent you in Parliament.” From his formal introduction, the Captain turned his attention to his opponents. “A body of worthless and unprincipled demagogues are driving on their ignorant and deluded followers to involve this peaceful and happy country in anarchy, confusion and bloodshed, to separate us from the fostering care of the Mother Country, to deprive us of the national freedom we enjoy under equal and just laws, to injure our liberties and deteriorate our properties.” Having thus dealt with the Reformers, Dunlop turned to the governor. “I shall give my utmost support to our present excellent and energetic Lieutenant-governor, Sir F B Head, so long as he continues to act in the spirited and constitutional matter in which he has begun.” After this unequivocal declaration of his stand, the Captain declared his future course. “To remedy the mischiefs caused by these men (the Reformers), to maintain inviolate our connection with our native country, to assist the growing prosperity of the colony by a judicious application of its surplus funds to roads, bridges and other means of communication . . . will be the study of my Parliamentary life . . . I call on you to support your King, your country, your laws, your liberties, everything that freemen hold sacred.”
Such was Captain Dunlop's manifesto in the campaign of 1836. He did no canvassing; for the Huron Reformers, discouraged by the result of the previous year, had apparently decided not to nominate a candidate. But for a time, trouble threatened from the ranks of his friends. Some of the Colborne men, impressed by the fact that the Captain's success on the platform and in Parliament had been mediocre at best, had thought of replacing him by either Mr Taylor or Mr Lizars, the latter of whom had displayed much energy as head of Dunlop's campaign committee in the previous year. According to a story told by the Misses Lizars, Taylor's nomination was urged by the officials of the Company (presumably other than William Dunlop), who thought he would prove more amenable to their influence than the Captain. But soon the Colborne men, probably impressed by the necessity for union to save the province from “rebels” resolved to re-elect Dunlop and to arrange a compromise with regard to Taylor and Lizars, in which these gentlemen heartily concurred. The terms of the compromise were apparently to be announced by Captain Dunlop in his election speech.
The Company's officials expressed their disappointment in a peculiar way. The night before the election, June 26th, the public hustings in the Market Square of Goderich became an object of attack by “a band of lawless ruffians headed by an individual high in the service of the Canada Company.” These men succeeded in burning the hustings, apparently from desire to please the officials of that organization. The men of Goderich put up new hustings; and again the company's party endeavoured to burn the instrument of election but were frustrated by the residents. If such was in reality the Company's tactics, they were singularly futile.
The election took place in Goderich on Monday, June 27, 1836, according to the Patriot of July 5th. At 10 am the returning officer, again, Mr Henry Hyndman, opened the business of the day. Mr Daniel Lizars at once proposed the name of Captain Dunlop in an “able and eloquent speech, equally ably and eloquently seconded” by W F Gooding, merchant of the town. Having thus received his second nomination, Captain Dunlop came forward and addressed the assembled electors. He stated that some apology no doubt was expected of him for not having waited personally upon each individual elector to solicit his vote, particularly after the kind and handsome manner in which they had supported him on a former occasion. His apology, he was certain, would be perfectly satisfactory.
The County now possessed a population of upwards of 4,150 souls and was consequently entitled to send two members to Parliament. But as a result of a badly-worded bill, only three townships of the sixteen had held regular meetings or sent in returns at all. Some had held two sets of meetings and elected two sets of township officers, the followers of whom, like those of the Popes of Rome and Avignon, would not recognize the power of the opposite party, while other townships in utter despair of sifting out the few grains of meaning from the immense load of chaffy verbiage in which they lay buried, held no meetings whatsoever. The result was that instead of census total of 4,000, the real population, these townships had returned a count of little more than 1,800. Means had been taken to procure and forward correct returns and little doubt could exist that a writ would be returned for a second member of the County; in this case, two of his friends who had supported him at the last election, Mr Taylor and Mr Lizars, would have the honour of soliciting their votes. Such was the Captain's speech, directed almost wholly against the officials who had failed to give Huron its alleged due in the Assembly. No doubt Dunlop knew that there would be no opposition from his political adversaries.
Mr Taylor succeeded the Captain on the platform; and feeling himself in a delicate position, merely echoed the member's sentiments and pledged himself not to oppose him. Mr Lizars then expressed the same sentiments and proceeded to an apology. The parties who had nominated him, he stated, had declared as their great reason for that step their approbation of his conduct at the last election as the head of Dunlop's committee; but he found himself bound to observe a strict neutrality between the two gentlemen (Dunlop and Taylor). He trusted to the good sense of the County men that they would appreciate his motives and receive from the hustings his exclamations of what might otherwise appear a neglect of courtesy due them for their kindness and confidence. Having thus gently rejected the proffered crown, Mr Lizars read Dunlop's published address, and commented on it and on the Captain's determination to combat “the vile machinations of the treasonable, perfidious and wretched faction” who, with patriotism on their lips, “have exerted all their energies during the two years of their baleful domination to ruin the country and aggrandize themselves.” Thus Mr Lizars concluded an address, every part of which had aroused “immense applause.” No more orators having appeared, the Returning Officer enquired for other candidates; when none were forthcoming, he declared Captain Dunlop, unanimously elected.
So closed the second election in Huron County. The Patriot’s correspondent indulged in a hymn of praise about “the most perfectly British county in the Canadas” which without one dissenting voice had responded to the “truly British and patriotic sentiments” so ably inculcated by “our worthy Lieutenant-governor.” “There is one spot at least in Canada,” rejoiced the correspondent, “where loyalty to our king, and a love and reference for our British laws, liberty, institutions and government exists unmixed, unalloyed and undiluted by a pseudo-patriotism and liberality.” This happy condition, continued our authority, would put an end to the influence of the “unprincipled demagogues who have so long blighted the best prospects of the province.”
Certainly the freeholders of Huron, alarmed by the association of the Reformers with some who talked of secession, had rallied almost as one man, submerged for the present their quarrel with the Company, and given their undivided support to the Lieutenant-governor because in their view he stood for the continuance of the existing relations with Great Britain. So strong had been the tide of feeling that the Reformers had not thought it worthwhile even to nominate a candidate. The loyalty of the settlers had triumphed over their economic griefs. And this was true not in Huron only but in the province as a whole. The new Legislative Assembly was in great majority Constitutional, or Conservative as we should say, a fact which ought to have been warning enough to McKenzie that hints at secession and use of indiscreet phrases like “baleful domination of the mother country” would unite the great majority of his fellow provincials against him. Before the rebellion of 1837, Huron had already pronounced its verdict.