rst five years of the
union may well be regarded by future historians as the period when his
patience, tenacity, and adroitness were especially in evidence.

The provincial governments had to be constituted; and in Ontario
Macdonald scored again by persuading Sandfield Macdonald to form a
coalition ministry in which party lines {151} were effaced and the
policy of coalition was defended by an erstwhile Liberal leader.
Sandfield Macdonald was a man of talent and integrity. His attitude of
mind was rather that of an oppositionist, upon whom the functions of
independent critic sat more easily than the compromises and discipline
entailed by party leadership. He bore restraint with impatience, and
if his affiliations had always been with the Liberals, it was not
because his sympathies were radical and progressive.[3] In the Liberal
caucus of 1864 he had moved the resolution requesting George Brown to
enter the coalition government, without recognizing, apparently, that
he thereby incurred an obligation himself to support federation. Both
in the Ontario legislature, where he was loth to follow any course but
his own, and in the Dominion parliament, where he ostentatiously {152}
sat on an Opposition bench, he presented a shining example of that type
of mind which lacks the capacity for unity and co-operation with
others. He illustrated, too, one of the difficult features of
Macdonald's problem--the absence of unity among the public men of the
time--a condition which complicated, if it did not retard, the
formation of a homogeneous national sentiment.[4]

The general elections were impending, and everything turned upon the
verdict of the country. The first elections for the House of Commons
took place during the months of August and September, the practice of
holding elections all on one day having not yet come into vogue. The
three provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick sustained the
government by large majorities. But in Nova Scotia the agitation
against the union swept the province. Tupper was the only Conservative
elected. His victory was the more notable in that he defeated William
Annand, the chief lieutenant of Howe and afterwards the leader of the
repeal movement. Adams Archibald, the secretary of state, was {153}
defeated in Colchester by A. W. McLelan, and Henry, another member of
the Quebec Conference, was rejected in Antigonish. In Ontario there
were losses. George Brown was defeated in South