McDougall, William

DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Suzanne Zeller, “McDOUGALL, WILLIAM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mcdougall_william_13E.html
DCB profile notes:
- Lawyer, newspaper owner, journalist, politician, and office holder; b. 25 Jan. 1822 in York (Toronto), son of Daniel McDougall, a farmer, and Hannah Matthews; m. first 3 May 1845 Amelia Caroline Easton (d. 1869) in Hogg’s Hollow (Toronto), and they had eight sons, six of whom survived infancy, and three daughters; m. secondly 18 Nov. 1872 Mary Adelaide (Minnie) Beatty (d. 1934) in Cobourg, Ont., and they had three sons; d. 29 May 1905 in Ottawa.
- Three factors in William McDougall’s formative years provided bearings by which he would navigate the tortuous path of his public life. First, his family valued education as elemental to its loyalist and Scottish heritage. Raised on a farm on Yonge Street north of York, William attended school in Toronto before entering Upper Canada Academy in Cobourg on 3 Nov. 1840.
- Developments after 1848 had started to draw McDougall inexorably into politics. While he followed with fascination the various attempts at reform across Europe, at home the achievement of responsible government, the passing of the Rebellion Losses Bill, the attack on Price’s house in Montreal during the riots that followed, and the Annexation Manifesto sharpened antagonisms and blurred traditional political lines. In 1849 McDougall’s Toronto office became a meeting-place for dissatisfied reformers, who formed the Clear Grit wing. A year later, despite apparent health problems, he founded the North American, a semi-weekly that anchored the emerging Clear Grit ideology upon a belief in the importance of the march of progress towards a “healthy and higher civilization.”
- For his contribution to confederation McDougall was created a cb on 1 July 1867 and became minister of public works in the cabinet of Sir John A. Macdonald. In the new dominion’s first general election he was returned in Lanark North. At the Reform Convention in June he had bravely confronted open rebuke by Brown as a traitor for his refusal to leave the coalition in 1865. Still, his inclusion in a Conservative cabinet in 1867 was not an easy fit. He was apparently alone in considering the political system of the new dominion a “tabula rasa” free of old divisions, its constitution simply a new “machine” that needed working, and himself a free agent within that structure, dedicated only to his own political goals.
- The most immediate of these goals was Canada’s transcontinental expansion, to which McDougall now committed himself. In December 1867 he steered through the House of Commons a series of resolutions for the incorporation of Rupert’s Land by the dominion, and the extension of Canadian jurisdiction towards the Pacific. He appealed to the past, including the United States’ successful territorial expansion and Canada’s peaceful negotiations with its indigenous peoples, and to scientistic assessments of the west, including reports from the expeditions of John Palliser and Henry Youle Hind on the fertility of the land. McDougall attributed to this plan the force of natural law: “If we did not expand,” he warned, “we must contract.” In 1868 he accompanied Sir George-Étienne Cartier to London to negotiate the transfer of the HBC territory to Canadian title, effective 1 Dec. 1869. And as minister of public works he took practical steps to realize the plan, initiating, for instance, the construction of a road from Lake of the Woods to Upper Fort Garry (Winnipeg).
- McDougall, his council, and an entourage including his children arrived at Pembina (N.Dak.) virtually unarmed on 30 October. On 2 November the Métis prevented McDougall’s entry into Red River to declare Canadian sovereignty. Macdonald, infuriated by McDougall’s failure to try to conciliate the Métis, shifted responsibility to the HBC by postponing the process of transfer until order could be restored. The measure rendered illegal McDougall’s proclamation annexing Rupert’s Land to Canada. Shocked by this unexpected withdrawal of his authority, McDougall returned to Canada feeling betrayed by the government’s “act of unpardonable folly” and embittered by his Clear Grit outlook that progress had again been detained by reactionary cultural forces which had once held back Upper Canada. Demanding force in a situation where he, uninformed and without protection for his children, had been left helpless, McDougall placed particular blame for his humiliation on Joseph Howe, the secretary of state for the provinces, who had failed to warn him of the troubles at Red River. The following year McDougall objected to the full provincial status accorded Manitoba.
Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=4926
Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8535312/william-mcdougall