The Idea of Liberty in Canada during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions, 1776–1838 by Michel Ducharme (review)

In its original French form, Michel Ducharme’s The Idea of Liberty in Canada during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions, 1776–1838 won three of the most prestigious prizes available to academic books in Canada. This able translation by Peter Feldstein demonstrates that Ducharme’s book richly deserved those honours. As anglophone readers can now see, The Idea of Liberty puts forward a thought-provoking and convincing reinterpretation of the intellectual history of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Quebec and Ontario. It also provides a new approach to the origins, course, and outcome of the rebellions of 1837 and 1838 in both provinces.

Ducharme’s argument can be stated in a few words: the violence that erupted in 1837 and 1838 was the result of a growing conflict between two irreconcilable conceptions of liberty – republican liberty and modern liberty. Much of The Idea of Liberty is dedicated to tracing the evolution, meaning, and clash of these two ideas. In Ducharme’s clear and concise reading, republican liberty prized political rights over individual rights, locating sovereignty in the people and proclaiming the necessity of virtue (a selfless patriotism) among all citizens. In contrast, modern liberty prized individual rights over political rights, locating sovereignty in Parliament and proclaiming the necessity of wealth accumulation (and the preservation of private property) among all people. While carefully charting the relationship between these two intellectual movements, Ducharme also demonstrates that the clash between republican and modern liberty was not a strictly Canadian phenomenon. It occurred across the Atlantic world during the age of revolution, connecting events in colonial Canada to political upheavals in the Thirteen Colonies, France, and, to a lesser extent, Spanish America. Indeed, Ducharme makes a convincing case for seeing the rebellions of 1837 and 1838 as ‘the final chapter of the Atlantic revolutions’ (p. 7).

Summarised so quickly, Ducharme’s argument might appear reductionist, transforming the nuances of transatlantic and colonial thought into a cage-match between rival political creeds. That impression would be misleading. Ducharme expertly dissects the thinking of such figures as the rebel leaders and supporters of republican liberty, Louis-Joseph Papineau and William Lyon Mackenzie; their opponents among the more varied ranks of those who supported modern liberty, including the constitutionalist John Strachan and moderate reformers like John Neilson and William Warren Baldwin; as well as other men of the period. It might have been interesting for Ducharme to spend some more time illustrating how exactly such figures were influenced by their wider, transatlantic contexts, but that is a minor criticism.

In short, Michel Ducharme’s The Idea of Liberty is an intellectually engaging and exciting book that will be of interest to both scholars and the general public. It ends with the collapse of republican liberty and the triumph of modern liberty in the aftermath of the rebellions of 1837 and 1838. Though Ducharme himself is careful not to take sides, it is hard not to see the defeat of the republican ideal as a tragic moment. After all, given what was to come in Canadian politics, who would say that the country could not have used some more virtue?