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Confederation Dbq Analysis

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Confederation Dbq Analysis
Union is power. Work in unity is better than working individually. That is why the British North Americans thought of confederation. An individual or single power will most likely have a hard time fighting against a group of people with lots of power. The colonies wanted to join together so that they could fight against the United States. If the groups of colonies didn’t join together, they wouldn’t have the power to prevent the United States from controlling all of North America. There is also other reasons for why the Confederation of 1867 happened, like the ending of BNA’s trade relations with Britian and the U.S., the Fenian Raids, Political deadlock, and the impact of “Manufast Destiny” as the main cause of Confederation.
With the threats
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The government from both Canada East and Canada West couldn’t pass any of the laws, because they needed “double majority”. The problem that the French and the English had, were that they were not agreeing on everything. So nothing got achieved. As the Politician of Canada East said: “ We have five colonies and in order to become a great nation they need only to be brought together under one central Government. The matter comes down to this, either we form a British American Confederation or we will be absorbed into the United States of America.” (Doc …show more content…
Both Britian’s repeal of the Corn laws and the US ending of Reciprocity Treaty left Canada in depression and no place to send its goods. Through confederation the colonies would remove any tariffs which would allow them to freely trade their goods between the colonies. The united colonies would benefit from a natural trade relationship and would experience their own economic prosperity.
In contrast, there are also factors opposing Confederation, like economic would have on the Maritime Provinces. Many of the population of Canada West argued that “Confederation opens a wide field for industry, experience and and ambition.. most classes of the population will gain from the union and none that I can see, can possibly lose by the union,” (Doc 4.)as said by John MacDonald who was a politician of Canada West in a letter to Prince Edward Islands in an attempt to convince the Maritimes to

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