Q&A > JAMES LAXER THREE MEN, TWO NATIONS’ DESTINIES
According to historian James Laxer, Canada and the United States were shaped by the passions of three men: the first Canadian prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln and the president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis. In his book Staking Claims to a Continent: John A. Macdonald, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and the Making of North America, Laxer, a professor at York University, argues that the three Protestant, middle-aged white men established the social, economic and political foundations of what became North America’s two northern democracies. Our conversation has been edited for length.
Jennifer: I was surprised you included Confederacy president Jefferson Davis in your thesis about the making of North America. The United States was well developed by the time of the Civil War; it was expanding west and creating new states. A southern confederacy was a very new idea in the mid-1800s.
James: The argument I make is that at the time of the American Revolution, there were two nation-states in the making. The United States was divided between a northern project of free capitalism and a southern project based on slavery.
By the mid-19th century, the South was an advanced capitalist society and cotton was the leading industry in the world. Slavery became more necessary for the increased demand from mills in England, France and the northeastern states.
The North had a rising manufacturing industry and a burgeoning population from immigration. But it was quarrelling with the South about the new territories of the U.S. — whether they should be slave or free. When Abraham Lincoln was elected, the South decided it could no longer operate within the American republic. I would argue that the South lost the war and won the peace. If you look at the United States as it evolved after the Civil War, the South is influential for a century after the end of Reconstruction. A new segregationist society develops and Jim Crow is rampant.
Jennifer: While Macdonald and Lincoln had stature within their communities, both were basically racists, and they viewed the development of North America as a white man’s project. Doesn’t this tarnish their legacies?
James: Macdonald actually says in the House of Commons that if you look around the world, you’ll see the Aryan races will not wholesomely amalgamate with the Africans and the Asiatics. Macdonald is brilliant at pulling the provinces of British North America together in Confederation.
His great flaw is his racism and the fact that he is not prepared, when Canada reaches out to bring in Rupert’s Land and the West, to concede rights to the aboriginal people. He said openly that these people aren’t capable of managing their own affairs and we have to swamp them with white immigration from Canada.
His racism almost endangers the acquisition of the West and leads to the Red River Rebellion and eventually the hanging of Louis Riel. Macdonald is a deeply flawed character.
Jennifer: What about Lincoln? He’s called the Great Emancipator but he isn’t opposed to slavery, at first.
James: His constituency is made up of white labourers and capitalists in the North. The North sees slave ownership in the South as an economic threat and they don’t want slavery to expand into the new territories.
When he first becomes president, Lincoln makes it clear he is not trying to get rid of slavery where it legally exists. His overriding cause is to preserve the Union. The Gettysburg Address he made (in 1863) is a hallowed document, a quasi-religious document in the U.S., but the word slavery doesn’t appear in it.
Lincoln does, over the period of the war, change his views about slavery as freed men come into the republic. There were 200,000 black soldiers in the Union army who played a role in the victory of the North. The idea that Lincoln is the great liberator of humanity is not, basically, true.
Jennifer: We’ve seen the rise of politicians who lack respect and sensitivity for the views and hopes of their compatriots — not only Donald Trump, but also Stephen Harper. To me, it indicates the beginning of the decline of world influence by North America.
James: In the U.S., you have the most serious civil conflict since the Civil War. It is an empire in decline, an old white America trying to hold on to its power versus a new multiracial society. A candidate like Donald Trump has emerged to become the representative of old white America.
When he talks about building walls and keeping out Muslims, he is challenging the way the U.S. has been transformed over the last century by all the migrants who have come there. There are dangerous parallels between the language of Donald Trump and the language used in the 1930s in Germany. You use xenophobia as a way of gathering your fundamental constituency.
In the case of Stephen Harper, we’ll see what happens. Canada went in a very different direction in the last election. I tend to be an optimist and I think Canada can manage to separate itself from what is going on in the U.S. and to maintain democracy and civility.
Jennifer: I sometimes ask myself: Is Canada really a grown-up country? We are still subjects of the British Queen and new citizens have to swear allegiance to her. We’re so fearful of being swamped by the U.S., that we passed laws to protect Canadian culture.
James: We are one of the best places in the world for people to live. It is worth keeping this unlikely country going just for that. I can’t be bothered to get into a big fight to get rid of the Crown. If you, Jennifer, personally start a campaign to get rid of the monarchy, I’ll support you. But I’m not going to be the lead on that one. You’re tearing my royalist heart apart. (Laughs.)