14.3 Confederation as a Cure-All
The late 19th century saw the rise of the patent medicine industry in North America. Backed by anecdote and perhaps some folk-remedy pedigree, the patent medicines promised to cure anything and everything. At best they might have a benign placebo effect. Confederation was a bit like these cure-all medicines. It promised to address everything that was wrong with British North America, but closer examination suggests that it was neither necessary nor effective.
Apart from the political stalemates in Canada, there were three issues that drove the discussion forward — issues that made Confederation seem both imperative and the best solution. First was the concern that the United States threatened the welfare of the colonies. This was mostly a theoretical danger; the Fenian element made it more real. Second was the argument that some effort was needed to replace the recent loss of markets in Britain and, in 1866, the end of freer trade with the United States; might a single colonial marketplace compensate for some of those losses? And third was the issue of infrastructure and, specifically, an intercolonial railway.
America: Threat or Menace?
British North Americans had conflicting sentiments about the United States. Their rivalries had historically been with New England and New York, and a little with Virginia. There were plenty of New Brunswickers alive who remembered the Aroostook War (1838-39) and the loss of a substantial western flank to the state of Maine in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. They might find a market for their timber products in the United States, but their feelings toward New England were generally cool.
Further, despite its own opposition to slavery, Britain supported the southern Confederate states during the Civil War. This left British North America exposed to the Northern/Union States’ ire. British North Americans might not have agreed with Britain’s actions in this instance, but they recognized that the ability of the empire to set international policy remained unchallenged. There was, for British North America, no diplomatic channels it could pursue directly to defuse the situation.
The American bogeyman was a more real source of fear for British North America in the 1860s than it had been since the 1837-38 rebellions. It posed a threat in three ways: the future of reciprocity, the implications of the Civil War, and the Fenian threat.
Reciprocity
The Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 had offset the worst aspects of the loss of preferential treatment in British markets and inevitably drew the British North American economy closer to its neighbour. The treaty was held to be a great success, especially after 1861 when Civil War broke out and demand for goods from south of the border grew.
The northern states, however, viewed British North America as a stalking horse for British manufactures. That is, they feared that less expensive and more competitive British products were be