The Union and Nationality: Difference between revisions

From Independence of Québec
Jump to navigation Jump to search
No edit summary
No edit summary
Line 3: Line 3:
For a long time compressed, choked in the name of public interest, the attachment to the nationality which characterizes us, seemed destined to become one of those prejudices which we can hold dear to the heart, but that reason had to proscribe as a weakness, an error of feeling. Nobody dared to claim in its name, by the interest for a position to which we had been led by a succession of unhappy events; a positition considered to be advantageous for us, when all the advantages which could result from it were to be obtained at the sole condition of not giving any sign of life as a nationality. It was regarded as an acknowledged obstacle to obtaining political rights; it was necessary get rid it, to make abstraction of it, to sacrifice it even; to no longer considered ourselves French Canadians if we wanted to be something in this system of social organization; and thus, under pretext of merging it, we downed it in liberalism. The principle of nationality ceasing to be in honour, since we repudiated it by interest, was thus to be weakened, to lose its moral fibre and soone end up being erased completely. So during nearly ten years we saw even its name forgotten, and its sleep was became so deep that its existence appeared null.
For a long time compressed, choked in the name of public interest, the attachment to the nationality which characterizes us, seemed destined to become one of those prejudices which we can hold dear to the heart, but that reason had to proscribe as a weakness, an error of feeling. Nobody dared to claim in its name, by the interest for a position to which we had been led by a succession of unhappy events; a positition considered to be advantageous for us, when all the advantages which could result from it were to be obtained at the sole condition of not giving any sign of life as a nationality. It was regarded as an acknowledged obstacle to obtaining political rights; it was necessary get rid it, to make abstraction of it, to sacrifice it even; to no longer considered ourselves French Canadians if we wanted to be something in this system of social organization; and thus, under pretext of merging it, we downed it in liberalism. The principle of nationality ceasing to be in honour, since we repudiated it by interest, was thus to be weakened, to lose its moral fibre and soone end up being erased completely. So during nearly ten years we saw even its name forgotten, and its sleep was became so deep that its existence appeared null.


For as long as this state of affairs subsisted, the people of Lower Canada seemed ''saisi d'un engourdissement général'' which paralysed any public spirit. This torpor would still exist if it had not been for the alarm cry fortunately uttered by generous men, friends to their country and devoted to their nationality. They dared to break silence in spite of its depth, raise their voice and revive the memory of this nationality, by preaching a doctrine tending directly to its conservation. Why was it not done earlier. Why? Because there were interests which imposed silence with threatening gestures; because the expectancy of an always dubious political wellbeing turned us timorous, under the pseudonym careful; and the bad consequences required our national death to later obtain the advantages from it, in exchange of this constitutional political freedom that we had so dearly bought with it. The Union caused us incalculable evils, it weighs on our existence. Allured, amused to some extent by the details, we for a long time lost sight of the goal of this measure which nevertheless revealed itself day by day in this invasion of  foreign ideas and institutions on our ideas and our institutions; which each day rendered the first desirable in the middle of this confusion of institutions, perfect maze of laws, manners and language which by imposing a dual nationality to us, tended to make one necessary, the other one useless, that is to say, to make us lose ours by undergoing the other. Such indeed was the success of this Machiavellic work. The Union was made with the aim of losing us and indeed loses us.
For as long as this state of affairs subsisted, the people of Lower Canada seemed ''saisi d'un engourdissement général'' which paralysed any public spirit. This torpor would still exist if it had not been for the alarm cry fortunately uttered by generous men, friends to their country and devoted to their nationality. They dared to break silence in spite of its depth, raise their voice and revive the memory of this nationality, by preaching a doctrine tending directly to its conservation. Why was it not done earlier. Why? Because there were interests which imposed silence with threatening gestures; because the expectancy of an always dubious political wellbeing turned us timorous, under the pseudonym careful; and the bad consequences required our national death to later obtain the advantages from it, in exchange of this constitutional political freedom that we had so dearly bought with it. The Union caused us incalculable evils, it weighs on our existence. Allured, amused to some extent by the details, we for a long time lost sight of the goal of this measure which nevertheless revealed itself day by day in this invasion of  foreign ideas and institutions on our ideas and our institutions; which each day rendered the first desirable in the middle of this confusion of institutions, perfect maze of laws, manners and language which by imposing a dual nationality to us, tended to make one necessary, the other one useless, that is to say, to make us lose ours by undergoing the other. Such indeed was the success of this machiavellic work. The Union was made with the aim of losing us and indeed loses us.


Subjected to this idea of the impossibility for us to ever see it destroyed, one can conceive the resignation, one can imagine the utility, the need for laissez-faire and silence; one can wish that this national death arrives to us lengthily, indirectly, and even it is conceivable that a people could be in such a position as to participate in the process, like a suicide in a state of sorrow without hope; but what one cannot conceive, is for this state to be regarded as the best, the most desirable by those who are victims of it, when one can find a means of returning life to this nationality, were it just life for one more century; what one cannot conceive, it is that there be men who prefer the fusion, the death of this nationality to enjoy the pleasure of being reborn of resurrecting in a foreign nationality.
Subjected to this idea of the impossibility for us to ever see it destroyed, one can conceive the resignation, one can imagine the utility, the need for laissez-faire and silence; one can wish that this national death arrives to us lengthily, indirectly, and even it is conceivable that a people could be in such a position as to participate in the process, like a suicide in a state of sorrow without hope; but what one cannot conceive, is for this state to be regarded as the best, the most desirable by those who are victims of it, when one can find a means of returning life to this nationality, were it just life for one more century; what one cannot conceive, it is that there be men who prefer the fusion, the death of this nationality to enjoy the pleasure of being reborn of resurrecting in a foreign nationality.


The question of the Union is as follows: do you want the Union with all its advantages at the price of the loss of your nationality? Because it the condition for it to never be a principle of public action, for it to falls asleep completely, and that is to want that it to die. Nationality is the principle of life of peoples and somebody rightfully said tht the silence of a people is death.
The question of the Union is as follows: do you want the Union with all its advantages at the price of the loss of your nationality? Because it the condition for it to never be a principle of public action, for it to falls asleep completely, and that is to want that it to die. Nationality is the principle of life of peoples and somebody rightfully said the the silence of a people is death.


N'y a-t-il pas raison de s'étonner qu'il se trouve des hommes parmi nous, des hommes qui veulent maintenir un état de choses aussi destructif de notre vie comme peuple. Mais nous dira-t-on, vous allez réveiller les antipathies, les haines nationales. De grâce, dites-leur donc à ces cent mille de taire leurs préjugés plutôt que de faire taire les justes réclamations de six cent mille. Nous ne voulons qu'une chose: la conservation de nos institutions, de notre langue, de nos lois, de nos moeurs. Se trouve-t-il là quelque chose qui puisse irriter les susceptibilités nationales d'un honnête homme de bon sens? Pour obtenir cela, pouvons-nous ne pas respecter les nationalités et les moeurs étrangères aux autres? Toute l'histoire de nos luttes avec cette faction ennemie qui nous opprima si longtemps pour détruire cette nationalité, son éternel cauchemar, ne peut-elle pas se résumer par cette devise de la nationalité polonaise, liberté pour nous, liberté pour vous? D'ailleurs, serait-il décent que six cent mille individus demandassent à cent mille de leur enseigner leur langue, de leur imposer des institutions parce que parmi ces cent mille sont des criailleurs qui veulent se croire opprimés dès qu'ils ne sont plus oppresseurs? Ce ne sont pas là des considérations qui doivent nous faire taire nos principes.
Is not there a reason to be astonished that there are, among us, men who want to maintain a state of affairs so destructive of our life as a people. "But", some will say to us, "you will awake antipathies and national hatreds." By grace, let us tell to these one hundred thousand to conceal their prejudices rather than to make six hundred thousand conceal their just complaints. We want but one thing: the conservation of our institutions, our language, our laws, our manners. Is there something in this which can irritate the national susceptibilities of an honest and sensible man? To obtain that, can we not respect the nationalities and manners foreign to us? Can't the entire history of our struggle with this enemy faction which oppressed us for so long to destroy this nationality, its eternal nightmare, be summarized by this motto of Polish nationality, "freedom for us, freedom for you"? Moreover, would it be decent for six hundred thousand individuals ask to one hundred thousand to teach them their language, to impose them their institutions because among these one hundred thousand are some bawlers who want to believe themselves oppressed as soon as they are no longer the oppressors? These are not considerations that should make us conceal our principles.


Il est temps que le peuple connaisse tous ces maux quie lui a faits l'Union; il est temps qu'on lui indique ceux dont il est menacé; il est temps qu'il en connaisse, qu'il en mesure toute la grandeur pour en demander la fin. S'il est unanime on ne la lui refusera pas. Ces événements qui éclatent sans cesse en Europe lui donnent des garanties de succès. La révolution française doit bouleverser le monde. Le peuple anglais écrasé sous le double poids de son aristocratie laïque et religieuse fera, lui aussi peut-être, un effort. Cette conflagration générale pourra atteindre l'Angleterre; elle doit suivre ou précéder un mouvement révolutionnaire en Irlande: et ce qu'on peut attendre de plus probable, c'est une guerre entre l'Angleterre et quelque puissance continentale. Avec un trésor épuisé, pour peu qu'on demande avec énergie, l'Angleterre ne sera pas tentée de nous refuser cet acte de justice lorsque, pour maintenir cet état de choses sans profit pour elle, il lui faudra des forces et des dépenses qu'elle pourrait si facilement éviter en faisant de tout le Bas-Canada une colonie qui pourrait lui donner au besoin aide, protection contre les ennemis du dehors et du dedans. L'heure du danger la rendra plus prudente et juste, mais il faut que le peuple du Bas-Canada puisse être prêt à demander lorsque cette heure arrivera; elle peut sonner bientôt, le calme peut ensuite se rétablir pour longtemps. Si nous ne savons pas profiter des circonstances, alors l'Union restera lors même qu'elle serait déclarée par tous impraticable, nuisible aux intérêts de tous indistinctement. Son maintien dépendrait de la volonté du maître qui, lorsqu'il est fort, s'est toujours montré peu soucieux des justes réclamations des faibles.
It is time for the people to know all the evils that the Union did to him; it is time that we indicate those of which it is presently threatened; it is time for him to knows, that he measures its importance to request the end of it. If he is unanimous, it will not be refused to him. These events which unceasingly burst in Europe give him the guaranties of success. The French revolution is bound to transform the world. The English people, crushed under the double weight of his secular and religious aristocracies will perhaps also make an effort. This general conflagration will be able to reach England; it must follow or precede a revolutionary movement in Ireland: and what one can expect as more probable is a war between England and some continental power. With an exhausted treasury, for little that we asks it with energy, England will not be tempted to refuse us this act of justice just when it is known that in order to maintain a state of affairs not profitable to her, she will need forces and expenses which she could so easily avoid by making of all Lower Canada a colony which could give her if needed help and protection against enemies from the outside and the inside. The time of danger will make her more careful and just, but it is necessary for the people of Lower Canada to be ready to ask when this hour will arrive; this hour could resound soon, calmness could then be restored for a long time. If we do take advantage of the circumstances, then the Union will remain were it to be be declared impracticable by all and harmful to the interests of all indistinctly. Its maintenance would depend upon the will of the Master who, when he was strong, always showed himself to be little concerned for the just complaints of the weak.


Mais cependant, tout en instruisant le peuple des maux causés par l'Union et son effet inévitable, il est bon de dire que nous appuierons toujours un ministère libéral au pouvoir: car nous en avons besoin aujourd'hui pour réparer les maux causés par ses prédécesseurs. L'agitation peut se faire en dehors de la politique ministérielle: et jusqu'à ce que le peuple soit unanime et la circonstance favorable, nous mettrons sous les yeux de nos lecteurs tous les faits les plus importants sur cet acte de spoliation de l'annihilation à la fois, espèce de brigandage politique que le siècle semble vouloir répudier et venger partout aujourd'hui. Il est temps de faire sentir et d'exprimer combien il nous pèse. Chaque jour passé sans attirer l'attention publique sur un sujet qui l'intéresse aussi vivement est un pas vers l'anéantissement de notre nationalité. Nous prendrons l'initative. Nous voulons offrir notre faible secours à la nationalité canadienne. Quel que soit d'ailleurs notre peu de mérite nous aurons au moins celui d'avoir offert le premier appui, d'avoir hautement proclamé son nom.
Mais cependant, tout en instruisant le peuple des maux causés par l'Union et son effet inévitable, il est bon de dire que nous appuierons toujours un ministère libéral au pouvoir: car nous en avons besoin aujourd'hui pour réparer les maux causés par ses prédécesseurs. L'agitation peut se faire en dehors de la politique ministérielle: et jusqu'à ce que le peuple soit unanime et la circonstance favorable, nous mettrons sous les yeux de nos lecteurs tous les faits les plus importants sur cet acte de spoliation de l'annihilation à la fois, espèce de brigandage politique que le siècle semble vouloir répudier et venger partout aujourd'hui. Il est temps de faire sentir et d'exprimer combien il nous pèse. Chaque jour passé sans attirer l'attention publique sur un sujet qui l'intéresse aussi vivement est un pas vers l'anéantissement de notre nationalité. Nous prendrons l'initative. Nous voulons offrir notre faible secours à la nationalité canadienne. Quel que soit d'ailleurs notre peu de mérite nous aurons au moins celui d'avoir offert le premier appui, d'avoir hautement proclamé son nom.

Revision as of 16:16, 26 February 2007

This is an unofficial translation of an editorial entitled L'union et la nationalité published in the newspaper L'Avenir on April 15 1848, as reproduced in Le rouge et le bleu. Une anthologie de la pensée politique au Québec de la Conquête à la Révolution tranquille. You can read the original French language article here


For a long time compressed, choked in the name of public interest, the attachment to the nationality which characterizes us, seemed destined to become one of those prejudices which we can hold dear to the heart, but that reason had to proscribe as a weakness, an error of feeling. Nobody dared to claim in its name, by the interest for a position to which we had been led by a succession of unhappy events; a positition considered to be advantageous for us, when all the advantages which could result from it were to be obtained at the sole condition of not giving any sign of life as a nationality. It was regarded as an acknowledged obstacle to obtaining political rights; it was necessary get rid it, to make abstraction of it, to sacrifice it even; to no longer considered ourselves French Canadians if we wanted to be something in this system of social organization; and thus, under pretext of merging it, we downed it in liberalism. The principle of nationality ceasing to be in honour, since we repudiated it by interest, was thus to be weakened, to lose its moral fibre and soone end up being erased completely. So during nearly ten years we saw even its name forgotten, and its sleep was became so deep that its existence appeared null.

For as long as this state of affairs subsisted, the people of Lower Canada seemed saisi d'un engourdissement général which paralysed any public spirit. This torpor would still exist if it had not been for the alarm cry fortunately uttered by generous men, friends to their country and devoted to their nationality. They dared to break silence in spite of its depth, raise their voice and revive the memory of this nationality, by preaching a doctrine tending directly to its conservation. Why was it not done earlier. Why? Because there were interests which imposed silence with threatening gestures; because the expectancy of an always dubious political wellbeing turned us timorous, under the pseudonym careful; and the bad consequences required our national death to later obtain the advantages from it, in exchange of this constitutional political freedom that we had so dearly bought with it. The Union caused us incalculable evils, it weighs on our existence. Allured, amused to some extent by the details, we for a long time lost sight of the goal of this measure which nevertheless revealed itself day by day in this invasion of foreign ideas and institutions on our ideas and our institutions; which each day rendered the first desirable in the middle of this confusion of institutions, perfect maze of laws, manners and language which by imposing a dual nationality to us, tended to make one necessary, the other one useless, that is to say, to make us lose ours by undergoing the other. Such indeed was the success of this machiavellic work. The Union was made with the aim of losing us and indeed loses us.

Subjected to this idea of the impossibility for us to ever see it destroyed, one can conceive the resignation, one can imagine the utility, the need for laissez-faire and silence; one can wish that this national death arrives to us lengthily, indirectly, and even it is conceivable that a people could be in such a position as to participate in the process, like a suicide in a state of sorrow without hope; but what one cannot conceive, is for this state to be regarded as the best, the most desirable by those who are victims of it, when one can find a means of returning life to this nationality, were it just life for one more century; what one cannot conceive, it is that there be men who prefer the fusion, the death of this nationality to enjoy the pleasure of being reborn of resurrecting in a foreign nationality.

The question of the Union is as follows: do you want the Union with all its advantages at the price of the loss of your nationality? Because it the condition for it to never be a principle of public action, for it to falls asleep completely, and that is to want that it to die. Nationality is the principle of life of peoples and somebody rightfully said the the silence of a people is death.

Is not there a reason to be astonished that there are, among us, men who want to maintain a state of affairs so destructive of our life as a people. "But", some will say to us, "you will awake antipathies and national hatreds." By grace, let us tell to these one hundred thousand to conceal their prejudices rather than to make six hundred thousand conceal their just complaints. We want but one thing: the conservation of our institutions, our language, our laws, our manners. Is there something in this which can irritate the national susceptibilities of an honest and sensible man? To obtain that, can we not respect the nationalities and manners foreign to us? Can't the entire history of our struggle with this enemy faction which oppressed us for so long to destroy this nationality, its eternal nightmare, be summarized by this motto of Polish nationality, "freedom for us, freedom for you"? Moreover, would it be decent for six hundred thousand individuals ask to one hundred thousand to teach them their language, to impose them their institutions because among these one hundred thousand are some bawlers who want to believe themselves oppressed as soon as they are no longer the oppressors? These are not considerations that should make us conceal our principles.

It is time for the people to know all the evils that the Union did to him; it is time that we indicate those of which it is presently threatened; it is time for him to knows, that he measures its importance to request the end of it. If he is unanimous, it will not be refused to him. These events which unceasingly burst in Europe give him the guaranties of success. The French revolution is bound to transform the world. The English people, crushed under the double weight of his secular and religious aristocracies will perhaps also make an effort. This general conflagration will be able to reach England; it must follow or precede a revolutionary movement in Ireland: and what one can expect as more probable is a war between England and some continental power. With an exhausted treasury, for little that we asks it with energy, England will not be tempted to refuse us this act of justice just when it is known that in order to maintain a state of affairs not profitable to her, she will need forces and expenses which she could so easily avoid by making of all Lower Canada a colony which could give her if needed help and protection against enemies from the outside and the inside. The time of danger will make her more careful and just, but it is necessary for the people of Lower Canada to be ready to ask when this hour will arrive; this hour could resound soon, calmness could then be restored for a long time. If we do take advantage of the circumstances, then the Union will remain were it to be be declared impracticable by all and harmful to the interests of all indistinctly. Its maintenance would depend upon the will of the Master who, when he was strong, always showed himself to be little concerned for the just complaints of the weak.

Mais cependant, tout en instruisant le peuple des maux causés par l'Union et son effet inévitable, il est bon de dire que nous appuierons toujours un ministère libéral au pouvoir: car nous en avons besoin aujourd'hui pour réparer les maux causés par ses prédécesseurs. L'agitation peut se faire en dehors de la politique ministérielle: et jusqu'à ce que le peuple soit unanime et la circonstance favorable, nous mettrons sous les yeux de nos lecteurs tous les faits les plus importants sur cet acte de spoliation de l'annihilation à la fois, espèce de brigandage politique que le siècle semble vouloir répudier et venger partout aujourd'hui. Il est temps de faire sentir et d'exprimer combien il nous pèse. Chaque jour passé sans attirer l'attention publique sur un sujet qui l'intéresse aussi vivement est un pas vers l'anéantissement de notre nationalité. Nous prendrons l'initative. Nous voulons offrir notre faible secours à la nationalité canadienne. Quel que soit d'ailleurs notre peu de mérite nous aurons au moins celui d'avoir offert le premier appui, d'avoir hautement proclamé son nom.

Nous entrons dans cette voie après mûre réflexion, avec fermeté, et sans arrière-pensée, parce que nuos sommes persuadés qu'elle est la seule qui puisse mener à bon port. Nous n'incriminerons aucun des nôtres; nous voulons le bien-être et le salut de tous. Faire prévaloir un principe de vie, principe de salut, question d'existence pour les Canadiens Français, voilà le but auquel la conviction nous fait tendre, sans qu'aucune considération puisse nous en détourner, et que nous chercherons à atteindre jusqu'à ce que la dernière planche de salut nous échappe.

Encore une fois nous le répétons, la nationalité peut unir un peuple; elle peut lui donner la vie, le mouvement et l'énergie dont il a besoin pour prospérer; la conséquence n'est pas que cette nationalité, parce qu'elle est unie, forte et active soit mal intentionnée, mal disposée et haineuse: non, nous croyons que la nationalité doit unir tous ses membres, nous croyons que la nationalité sear la bannière sous laquelle nous marcherons, nous en sommes convaincus. Que ceux qui attendaient des Canadiens Français aide, sympathie, concours dans cette oeuvre de la réforme et du progrès ne s'effraient pas; l'appui qu'ils recevaient d'individus isolés, ils l'auront mais plus régularisé, plus continu, plus efficace, de ces mêmes individus unis en corps. Ceux qui connaissent le caractère canadien certifieront ce que nous avançons sur ce sujet. Ils diront en regardant le passé, en considérant le caractère de nationalité, que toute liberté trouvera chez elle l'hospitalité cordiale, franche et sincère, que le voyageur et l'étranger ont toujours trouvé dans nos foyers.

Notes and comments

Source : This is an unofficial translation of an editorial entitled L'union et la nationalité published in the newspaper L'Avenir on April 15 1848, as reproduced in Le rouge et le bleu. Une anthologie de la pensée politique au Québec de la Conquête à la Révolution tranquille. You can read the original French language article here