Aux fondements de l'état canadien : la liberté au Canada de 1776 à 1841

Although the concept of liberty provided the intellectual foundation for the legitimacy of state power and social order in both Canadas from as early as the Atlantic Revolution (1776--1815), it has never been used to study the history of state formation in Canada. This dissertation examines the essential role that the concept of liberty played in the process of state formation in Canada between the American Revolution (1776) and the Act of Union (1841). It proposes a large-scale re-reading of the intellectual and political history of that period through the question of liberty within the framework of the British Empire and of the Atlantic world (Great Britain, The United States and France). Beginning from a theoretical framework inspired by the work of intellectual historians of the Atlantic world, such as J. G. A. Pocock, Bernard Bailyn, Gordon S. Wood and Quentin Skinner, by the philosophical considerations on liberty from Isaiah Berlin and by a reading of the most important philosophical writings of eighteenth-century Britain, France and United States, this dissertation argues that, from 1791 and onwards, Upper and Lower Canada developed according to a concept of liberty that, while being different from the notion of liberty at work during the Atlantic Revolution, still proceeded directly from the Enlightenment. Less preoccupied by equality and community than by individual autonomy, this ideal was based on a respect for certain individual rights which are often reduced to the trio of "liberty, property and security." Politically, this model of liberty recognized the existence of different interests within a society and their right to exist, and economically, the importance it gave to the protection of private property led to an ethic that encouraged the accumulation of wealth. This conception of liberty (which might be called a modern definition of liberty) provides the intellectual base for the Constitutional Act of 1791 and was generally accepted in Upper and Lower Canadian societies until 1828. At that moment, some reformists, disappointed by the slowness of the British government to bring reform to the colonies, adopted a republican discourse based on the idea of popular sovereignty and the very different trio of "liberty, equality and community". The political struggles of the 1830s in both Canadas can be explained in part by examining the opposition between these two very different concepts of liberty. The tension between these two models ended with the 1837 rebellions and the triumph of the modern concept of liberty at the expense of the republican ideal defended by the patriots and the radicals in both Canadas. It is in this context that Lord Durham's report was published. By his recommendation of rendering the executive power accountable to the Legislative Assembly, Durham gave back to the reformists still adhering to the modern concept of liberty the leadership of the reform movement in the colony and re-focussed the movement's attention towards the issue of responsible government. After 1839, the debate within the colonies would concentrate on the practice of political power, rather than on its legitimacy.

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