Sir John A. & Agnes MacDonald: A New Family for a New Country

Every time we spent a Ten Dollar bill from 1971 to 2018, we came face-to-face with Sir John A Macdonald, our first Prime Minister.  Starting in 2018 with ‘woke’ Victoria, eight of Macdonald’s ten statues across Canada have been vandalized and removed by Canadian ‘cancel culture, though the one in Ontario’s Queen’s Park was recently returned.  In the name of ‘tolerance’, inclusiveness, and diversity, John A. has been ‘beheaded’, excluded, and defamed. Three public schools have recently removed his name. Many youth have never even heard his name. 

Could you imagine Americans removing their 100+ Washington statues and renaming the State and District/DC of Washington?  Do we really want, in the words of a former Prime Minister, to be a post-national state with no core identity? Canada’s actual history is now at stake.

Though a complicated man with many flaws, he was the most famous of all Canadian leaders. Some of his tragic mistakes were the hanging of Louis Riel, the creation of native residential schools, and the 1885 Electoral Franchise Act which removed the right of Chinese people to vote. We must honestly admit John A.’s unfortunate weaknesses while not losing sight of his great accomplishments.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1815, he moved at age 15 to the land of his dreams with his family. Like Don Quixote, John A. dreamed the impossible dream that miraculously came true, a nation from sea to sea (Psalm 72:8).  Against all the odds Canada was birthed on July 1, 1867 and still exists, despite cries from some Quebecers and Albertans to separate. 

John A. had the common touch. He treated everyone equally. His likeability and humanity was a major reason why ordinary people could relate to him. He was an amazing storyteller and humorist who always told a good joke both in Parliament and when out canvassing for re-election. As Sir Joseph Pope, his last secretary, put it, ‘(John A.) knew every chord of the human heart; he understood every passion that swayed man’s nature.’

Without Sir John A. Macdonald, BC would not be part of Canada. BC would have become the 51^st state, physically connecting to Alaska.  Many American leaders publicly stated that it was BC and indeed Canada’s manifest destiny to join the United States. The vast majority of early BC settlers were Americans drawn from San Francisco by the 1858 Gold Rush, not Canadians from Ontario. John A’s promise of the Canadian Pacific Railway won over the hearts and mind of ambivalent BCers. As Macdonald wrote to British railway promoter Edward Watkin, “If Canada is to remain a country separate from the United States, it is of great importance that they should not get behind us by right or force and intercept the route to the Pacific.”   

This extravagant promise almost bankrupted Canada and nearly destroyed Sir John’s A. Macdonald’s political career. Imagine if the Federal Government today promised to send Canadian astronauts to Jupiter by 2040!  A railway all the way to BC was just as unthinkable in 1870.  Some cynics joked that Canada was not a nation, but a railroad in search of a nation.

If it was not for the June 1^st 1866 invasion of 750 Irish Fenians, many of them de-mobbed Union soldiers, the CPR Railway might never have been built. After crossing the Niagara River, they occupied Fort Erie, killing nine Canadian militia and injuring 38 others. One of the Fenian marching songs was “Many battles have been won/along with the boys in blue/and we’ll go and capture Canada/For we’ve nothing else to do.” After promised American reinforcements did not turn up, the Fenians returned to the States. There is nothing like a common enemy to get Canadians to work together. 

John A was not only a nation-builder but also a bridge-builder. He commented: “We should accept as men and brothers all those who think alike of the future of the country and wish to act alike for the good of the country.” He saw Canadian Confederation as a spiritual marriage between francophones and anglophones. Unlike many of his fellow party members, John A could read French, understand it, and speak it reasonably well. Sir John A commented: “God and nature have made the two Canada’s one – let no factious men be allowed to put them asunder.”

After the tragic death of his invalid first wife Isabella, he married Agnes Bernard. They met on Dec 8, 1866 while both were sauntering down Bond Street in London. By Christmas, they were engaged. They wed six weeks later, at St. George’s Anglican Church in Hanover Square, on Feb 16, 1867.

She was born in Jamaica in 1836, the only daughter among the four sons of a wealthy sugar-plantation owner, Thomas Bernard.  Following her father’s death from cholera, Agnes and her mother moved to England. In 1854, she moved to Barrie, Ontario, where her brother Hewitt was Macdonald’s roommate and head of his Attorney General department.

Agnes was a healthy, handsome, determined woman, twenty-two years younger than John A.  She wrote in her diary: “I have found something worth living for – living in – my husband’s heart and love. I often look in astonishment at him.”  Both had first-rate minds and were passionate readers who remembered what they had read: biography, history, letters, novels, all were sifted into those remarkable minds. She gave him someone he could chat with about literature and ideas. It was Agnes’ reading of prison reformers and abolitionists like Elizabeth Fry and William Wilberforce that shaped Lady Macdonald’s understanding of principles of justice, punishment and social reform.

John A. would quote in the legislature and Parliament from Dickens, Trollope, Shakespeare, and from top British politicians like Pitt, Peel, Sheridan and Walpole. Agnes spoke French better than her husband, a real asset in bilingual Canada. For the first time, he had a wife who adored him and worked tirelessly on his behalf – allowing him to invite Conservative MPS to his place for dinner rather than get drunk in the bars. Even though Lady Agnes as a woman could not vote or hold office, she was deeply engaged in political life. Following a particularly heated debate during the 1878 Parliament session, Lady Macdonald in the gallery stamped her foot and exclaimed; ‘Did ever any person see such tactics!!'”

Sadly, in February 1869, Agnes gave birth to a disabled and developmentally-delayed daughter, Mary, who was never able to walk unsupported. Her hydrocephalus condition would nowadays be treated with a shunt.  

As a devout Anglican Christian, Agnes had a significant impact on her husband’s life, causing him to stop drinking and start attending church.  John A was deeply impressed by the Beatitudes and made a practice of reading his bible every night before bedtime.  Another MP called Agnes ‘Macdonald’s good angel.’ Biographer E.B. Biggar suggests that Agnes may have extended his life by two decades, saving both his liver and his life.

In 1888, during six weeks of Hunter-Crossley revival meetings in Ottawa, Prime Minister Macdonald had a deep encounter with Jesus Christ.  John Hunter and Hugh Crossley were the Canadian Billy Graham’s, leading two hundred thousand Canadians and Americans to Christ.  As one journalist put it, “When the well-known form of the Honorable Prime Minister arose in the centre of the church, many strong men bowed their heads and wept for joy.” After dining at the prime minister’s home several days later, Rev John Hunter confirmed that “Sir John is a changed man.” Wherever Hunter and Crossley went in Canada, the bars became empty and the churches became full.

Agnes possessed a genuine sense of fun and adventure, as when she rode the CPR train’s cow-catcher through the Rockies. She was a gutsy, faithful woman. John A. and Agnes were indeed Father and Mother of Confederation. A month after Macdonald’s death in June 1891, Lady Agnes was appointed by Queen Victoria as 1^st Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe in Ottawa, Ontario.

May God similarly extend the life of Canada into future decades. May the example of John A. and Agnes give us the will to love, live and forgive as a nation. May Albertans and Quebecers realize that we all truly need each other in this grand impossible dream of Canada.  May God keep our land glorious and free, in Jesus’ name. Amen.