The Father of Confederation was in Montreal 150 years-ago-today to deliver a major address to a large banquet organized by the city’s Tories. Now Leader of the Opposition after his forced resignation due to the infamous Pacific Scandal a year before, Macdonald was already charting his comeback. To say that the party faithful were enthusiastic at seeing the grand old man of Canadian politics would be an understatement.
“The hall was beautifully decorated with flags, the platform being draped with national emblems,” a press account of the evening said. “In front of it was a dais occupied by the guests and leading gentlemen present... Sir John, rising to reply, was received with enthusiastic cheering, renewed again and again. The welcome was unprecedented in heartiness.”
Macdonald then took direct aim at his opponent, Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, the dour stonemason that had replaced him. “The Hon. Alex. Mackenzie is a countryman of my own; he is a hard-headed Scotchman. He makes clear, well-reasoned, logical speeches, but the gods have not made him poetical. He wants imagination, and though his speeches are sound and sensible, and able, they are, I must say, upon the whole as dry as a lime burner’s shoe. (Laughter and cheers.)”
(For the record, and for those like yours truly at Art’s History who had no idea what a lime burner is, my dictionary gives us the following definition: “a person who makes lime by burning or calcining limestone, shells, etc.”)
You can read Sir John A.’s speech in its entirety at this link: https://dn790004.ca.archive.org/0/items/cihm_04618/cihm_04618.pdf
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.