Louis-Joseph Papineau
Categories: 1786 births | 1871 deaths | Canadian lawyers | Quebec politicians | Quebec history | Leaders of the founding parties of Liberal Party of Canada
- Not to be confused with Canadian parliamentarian Louis-Joseph Papineau (1861–1932) [1]
Louis-Joseph Papineau (October 7, 1786 – September 25, 1871), born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada was politician, lawyer, and the landlord of the seigneurie de la Petite-Nation. He was the leader of the reformist movement before the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838. His father was Joseph Papineau, also a famous politician in Quebec.
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Early involvement in politics
He studied at the Collège de Montréal and later at the Petit Séminaire de Québec. Admitted to the bar in 1810, he exercised his profession sporadically because of his involvement in politics. He was elected as a Member of Parliament in the riding of Kent in 1808, he gave his support to the Parti canadien. He served as captain of the militia during the War of 1812.
Speaker of the Legislative Assembly
Papineau was elected Speaker of the Legislative Assembly on January 21, 1815. The same year, he replaced Pierre-Stanislas Bédard as leader of the Parti canadien. Under his leadership, the party worked for the reform of Lower Canada's political institutions and strongly opposed the abuses of the appointed Legislative Council.
He married Julie Bruneau, in Quebec City on April 29, 1818. In 1820, he refused a position in the Legislative Council offered by governor Dalhousie.
In 1822, he was sent to London with John Neilson to present a petition of 60,000 signatures against the Union project. While in the United Kingdom, he was replaced by Joseph-Rémi Vallières as Speaker.
In 1826, he was chosen leader of the Parti patriote, a reformed and more radical Parti canadien. In 1831, he sponsored a law which granted full equivalent political rights to Jews, 27 years before anywhere else in the British Empire.
He was part of the committee that wrote the Ninety-Two Resolutions passed by the Legislative Assembly on February 21, 1834. The resolutions called for an elected Legislative Council and an Executive Council responsible before the house of the people's representatives.
Leader of the Patriotes
After the arrival of the Russell Resolutions in Lower Canada on March 6, 1837, he led the movement of protest and participated in numerous popular assemblies. He led the committee that organised the boycott of essentially all of the British imports to Lower Canada. On November 15, he created the Conseil des patriotes with Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan. He left Montreal for St-Denis on November 16, after governor Lord Gosford ordered his arrest and that of 25 other patriot leaders. He crossed the US border on November 25.
In exile
Arriving in the United States, he stayed at his friend judge Reuben Hyde Walworth's family house in Saratoga. He organised for his wife and his children to join him there. For some time, he attempted to gain the support of American President Martin Van Buren using all the diplomatic influence that himself and American supporters could provide. When the United States declared themselves neutral in the conflict between Britain and its Canadian colonies, he turned to Europe for support.
On February 8, 1839, he left New York City for Paris where he hoped to get France involved. In May, he published the Histoire de l'insurrection du Canada (History of the insurrection in Canada) in the magazine Progrès. Despite meeting with influential politicians such as Lamartine and Lamennais, the France of Louis-Philippe also remained neutral.
He left France and returned to Montreal in 1845. He had already been granted amnesty, but refused to return until all had been granted amnesty by the colonial governement.
Return to politics
In 1848, he was elected member of the new united Parliament of Canada in the riding of Saint-Maurice. In severe disagreement with the emerging French Canadian liberal party, he became an independent MP. A convinced republican after a long exile in the United States and France, Papineau supported the Montreal Annexation Manifesto that called for Canada to join the United States of America.
Louis-Joseph Papineau, along with John Molson and Horatio Gates, served as the first Vice-Presidents of the Montreal Mechanics Institute. He participated in the creation of the Parti rouge. He was defeated in 1851, but elected in a by-election in 1852. He did not present himself again in the elections of 1854. He retired from public life and reappeared only once to hold a conference at the Institut canadien de Montréal in December of 1867. He passed away at his Manor of Montebello on September 23, 1871.