Robert Baldwin

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The Canadian politician Robert Baldwin (1804-1858) played a decisive role in articulating and applying the concept of "responsible government" that underlies the constitutional development of the Commonwealth.

Robert Baldwin was born on May 12, 1804, in York, Upper Canada, the son of a well-to-do physician. He studied law and was called to the bar in 1825. In 1829 he was elected to the House of Assembly of Upper Canada but was defeated in another election in the following year.

Responsible Government

For most of his political career Baldwin was a man of a single idea - responsible government. This principle alone, he felt, could cure the evils of the existing system of government in the British North American colonies. The root of the trouble lay in an irresponsible executive. The British-appointed governor was surrounded by a group of advisers and hangers-on who filled most of the offices in the colonial administration and controlled all aspects of policy. Their privileged position allowed them to acquire large holdings of public lands and to obtain valuable bank and transportation charters for themselves. As a power elite, they were arbitrary and self-perpetuating, accountable only to the governor and, through him, to the British government in London.

Against this system, which was creating dangerous tensions in the colony, Baldwin proposed the simple principle of responsible government. By this he meant the British cabinet system, whereby a ministry or cabinet holds office only so long as it commands the support of the majority of elected members in the legislature. The ministers are thus responsible to the people's representatives and must leave office if their policies lose popular favor. Baldwin felt that the adoption of this form of government in the Canadas would ensure the loyalty of the majority of people to the British connection and at the same time would allow the colonies to develop along lines of local autonomy.

Political Struggle

Baldwin asserted the principle of responsible government unsuccessfully in 1836, when, after a difference of opinion on the workings of the principle, he resigned a position in the Executive Council, to which he had been appointed by the governor, Sir Francis Bond Head. The same year Baldwin submitted a memorandum on the subject to the Colonial Office in London which, if it did not impress the colonial secretary, was read and digested by Lord Durham, soon to be sent to the Canadas as a special commissioner to look into the breakdown of government after the rebellions of 1837.

Baldwin had no sympathy with the resort to arms undertaken in Upper and Lower Canada in a desperate effort to remedy grievances. At Bond Head's request he negotiated with the leader of the rebels at York, William Lyon Mackenzie, but took no part in the unpleasant aftermath of the uprisings. Baldwin was cheered when Lord Durham recommended the establishment of responsible government as an essential political reform in his famous Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839).

A member of the new parliament for the united Province of Canada that came into existence in 1841, Baldwin became solicitor general for the western part of the province. When the new governor general, Lord Sydenham, refused to include French-Canadian reformers in the ministry, Baldwin again resigned and went into opposition. He introduced resolutions in favor of responsible government into the Assembly in 1841 and gained a thorough debate on the issue. A year later Sydenham's successor, Sir Charles Bagot, asked Baldwin to take office again, this time in association with French-speaking reformers from Canada East led by Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine. The attempt to establish responsible government was frustrated once more when another governor, Sir Charles Metcalfe, refused to accept his ministers' advice on political appointments; 9 of the 10 ministers resigned in 1843, and for the next 5 years Baldwin and Lafontaine acted in opposition to the governor and his measures.

Achievement of the Principle

Finally, in 1847, a new governor, Lord Elgin, was sent to Canada with instructions to apply the principle of responsible government in its full implications. With a majority of members of the legislature behind them, Baldwin and Lafontaine were invited in 1848 to from a second ministry, the so-called Great Ministry. The test came the following year when, in spite of hesitations, Elgin endorsed a controversial measure which had been recommended by his ministers and passed in the legislature, indemnifying those who had suffered property losses in the recent rebellion. The Rebellion Losses Act created an intense storm in which the parliament buildings in Montreal were burned to the ground by a furious mob. But the principle of cabinet government was now established in Canadian constitutional practice.

The ministry headed by Baldwin and Lafontaine went on to further reforms: the provision of new municipal institutions to Canada West, a new system of financial guarantees to aid in the building of railroads, and a scheme to secularize the Anglican King's College as the University of Toronto. In 1851, feeling out of temper with the impatient mood of younger reformers, the conservative-minded Baldwin resigned office. He left public life after an electoral defeat later in the year. Subsequently he gave his blessing to an alliance between his followers and another group led by Francis Hincks, a political merger which produced a liberal-conservative party and eventually the Conservative party.

Baldwin died in Toronto on Dec. 9, 1858. He was a man of serious purpose and outstanding integrity. During his lifetime he did not receive due recognition for his determined struggle to establish in Canada a great constructive principle for the management of public affairs.

Further Reading

The best biography of Baldwin is George E. Wilson, The Life of Robert Baldwin (1933). An earlier study, which treats the three reformers of the period, is Stephen Leacock, Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks: Responsible Government (1907; revised and enlarged as Mackenzie, Baldwin, Lafontaine, Hincks, 1926). The achievement of "responsible government" in British North America is fully described in Chester Martin, Empire and Commonwealth (1929).

This article is about Joint Premiers of the Province of Canada. For the superhero, see Robbie Baldwin. For the Maryland politician, see Robert C. Baldwin.

Robert Baldwin
The Hon. Robert Baldwin
3rd and 6th Premier of Canada West
In office 1843 – 1848
Preceded by	William Henry Draper first term; Henry Sherwood - second term
Succeeded by	vacant - first term; Sir Francis Hincks - second term
Born	May 12, 1804(1804-05-12) York, Upper Canada
Died	December 9, 1858 (aged 54) Toronto, Canada West
Political party	Reformer
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Anglican
Signature

Robert Baldwin (12 May 1804 – 09 December 1858) was born at York (now Toronto). He, along with his political partner Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, led the first responsible ministry in Canada, regarded by some as the first truly Canadian government.^[1]

Contents 1 Biography 2 See also 3 Further reading 4 References 5 External links

Biography

His father William Warren Baldwin (d. 1844), moved to Upper Canada from Ireland in 1798; though a man of wealth and good family and a devoted member of the Church of England, he opposed the religious and political oligarchy which was then at the head of Canadian affairs, and brought up his son in the same principles. Robert Baldwin was called to the Bar in 1825.^[2] In 1829 he was elected a member of the Parliament of Upper Canada for the town of York, but was defeated in the following year and retired for a time into private life. In 1836 he was called by Sir Francis Bond Head (1793 – 1875), the Lieutenant Governor, to the Executive Council, but finding himself without influence, and compelled to countenance measures to which he was opposed, he resigned within a month. Though a moderate reformer, he strongly disapproved of the rebellion of 1837 – 1838. He and his father William advised Lord Durham to suggest responsible government to the British government.^[3]

He joined the Executive Council under Charles Poulett Thomson (later Lord Sydenham) in 1840 as the Solicitor General. Upon the union of the two Canadas (1841) he was a member of its first executive council under Lord Sydenham, but soon resigned on the question of responsible government. In 1842 he formed an administration, in connection with Lafontaine, who suggested an equal partnership. Baldwin, however, refused and took the position of Deputy Premier under Lafontaine.^[4] He resigned the next year, after a quarrel with the Governor General, Sir Charles Metcalfe, on a question of patronage, in which he felt that of responsible government to be involved. At the general election which followed, the Governor General was sustained by a narrow majority, but in 1848 the Reformers were again returned to power, and he and Lafontaine formed their second administration on March 11 under Lord Elgin and carried numerous important reforms, including the freeing from sectarian control of the University of Toronto and the introduction into Upper Canada of an important municipal system.

Statue of Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Internal dissensions soon began to appear in the Reform party, and in 1851 Baldwin resigned. The special struggle leading to his resignation was an attempt to abolish the court of chancery of Upper Canada, whose constitution was due to a measure introduced by Baldwin in 1849. The attempt, though defeated, had been supported by a majority of the representatives from Upper Canada, and Baldwin's fastidious conscience took it as a vote of want confidence. A deeper reason was his inability to approve of the advanced views of the Radicals, or "Clear Grits," as they came to be called. On seeking re-election in York, he declined to give any pledge on the burning question of the Clergy Reserves and was defeated. In 1853 the Liberal-Conservative party, formed in 1854 by a coalition, attempted to bring him out as a candidate for the upper house, which was at this date elective, but though he had broken with the advanced reformers, he could not approve of the tactics of their opponents, and refused to stand. He died on the 9th of December 1858 in Spadina. Even those who most strongly opposed his measures admitted the purity and unselfishness of his motives. After the concession of responsible government, he devoted himself to bringing about a good understanding between the English and French-speaking inhabitants of Canada, and his memory is held as dear among the French Canadians as in his native province of Ontario.

The Baldwin family was a prominent one. Robert Baldwin counted among his cousins such influential Upper Canadians as the Anglican bishop Maurice Scollard Baldwin, Toronto mayor Robert Baldwin Sullivan and the Irish-Catholic leader Connell James Baldwin. Robert Baldwin is the grandfather of Frederick Walker Baldwin a distinguished Canadian engineer, politician, and football player who worked with Alexander Graham Bell. Robert Baldwin is also the grandfather of Robert Baldwin Ross a Canadian literary figure and confidante of Oscar Wilde.

See also

• LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium
• See J. C. Dent, Canadian Portrait Gallery (1880). His life, by the Hon. Geo. W. Ross, is included in The Makers of Canada series (Toronto).

Further reading

• The Baldwins and The Great Experiment by R.M and J. Baldwin, Longmans Canada Ltd, 1969
• My Dear Friend Letters of Louis Hippolyte LaFontaine & Robert Baldwin, edited by Yolande Stewart, Plum Hollow books, 1978.
• "The Life of Robert Baldwin" by George E. Wilson, Ryerson Press: Toronto, 1933
• "Baldwin LaFontaine Hincks: Responsible Government" by S. Leacock, Toronto, Monrang and Co., 1907.
• "“The waste that lies before me”: The Public and the Private Worlds of Robert Baldwin"
• Michael S. Cross and Robert L. Fraser: Historical Papers, vol. 18, n° 1, 1983, p. 164-183. Online pdf version can be found here [1]

References

•  "Baldwin, Robert". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. 

1. ^ Saul, John Ralston. Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the Twentieth Century (Penguin books, 1997), 65-66
2. ^ Michael S. Cross and Robert Lochiel Fraser, "Robert Baldwin in Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
3. ^ "Lord Durham and His Infamous Report in Virtual Canada 2.0
4. ^ Saul, 335

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Historica’s Heritage Minute video docudrama about political reformers Baldwin and LaFontaine. (Adobe Flash Player.)

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Preceded by William Henry Draper

Attorney General of Canada West 1843–1848

Succeeded by William Buell Richards

Political offices
Preceded by Henry Sherwood	Joint Premiers of the Province of Canada - Canada West 1848–1851	Succeeded by Sir Francis Hincks
Party political offices
Preceded by none	Leader of the Reform Party of Upper Canada 1839?-1857	Succeeded by George Brown as de facto leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

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