Mackenzie’s Gazette

ON DECEMBER 11, 1837, William Lyon Mackenzie, fleeing from his political enemies in Upper Canada, crossed the Niagara River to take refuge in the United States. Years later, he was enabled to return by the passage of the Amnesty Act of 1849. What activities had filled Mackenzie's years in exile, what light do they throw upon him as a reformer, and how did they affect his post-rebellion career in Canada? To answer these questions, a full-scale study of the American years would be needed. This article makes a beginning but is limited to one topic: Mackenzie's Gazette, published first from New York City, later from Rochester. The Gazette makes clearer Mackenzie's position as a Canadian reformer who wanted more than political changes. For him, the immediate practical methods of advancing the cause of social democracy were to restrict severely the note-issuing powers of the chartered banks and to prevent hem using public funds for private profit. In the United States this was again the theme of his writings and the supposed inconsistency, unreasonableness, and apparent dishonesty his critics saw in his support of Van Buren yield when tested against what was for Mackenzie the fundamental question: Van Buren's tand on the Independent Treasury. Why did not Mackenzie choose to publish his Gazette in Buffalo, from which point it surely would have been easier to get copies into Canada than from New York? He did propose it to the Buffalo Committee of Thirteen on the very day the withdrawal from Navy Island was decided upon? Apparently this suggestion was not sympathetically

Geography · Canadian Identity and History · Geology · History

• The Decided Policy of William Lyon Mackenzie

  Open Access•Lillian F Gates•Canadian Historical Review•1959

  Add to list